Chapter 11, Lesson 4

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Chapter 11,Lesson 4
ACOS 10 Describe political, social, and
economic events between 1803 and 1860 that led to
the expansion of the territory of the United
States.
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Key Vocabulary Words

• Wagon train a line of covered wagons that moved
  together across the country.
• Forty-niner a person who went to look for gold
  in California around 1849.
• Gold rush the quick movement of people to
  California and other places following the
  discovery of gold.
• Boomtown a town offering many chances to make
  money and filled with people just arriving. A
  town that grows, or booms, very quickly.

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Trails West

• In 1824, Crow Indians showed a trapper a way
  through the Rocky Mountains that was wide enough
  for wagons.
• The route was called the South Pass.
• By the end of the 1850s, thousands of people had
  traveled through the South Pass on a route know
  as the Oregon Trail.
• The Oregon Trail was about 2,000 miles long.
• It started in Missouri and stretched west across
  the Rocky Mountains to present day Oregon.

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Oregon Trail
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• Marcus and Narcissa Whitman were two of the first
  pioneers to travel to Oregon.
• They were missionaries who wanted to teach
  American Indians about Christianity.
• The Whitman mission became a place where
  travelers could rest.
• John Frémont explored parts of the west and
  helped make maps of the Oregon Trail.
• He wrote reports describing the beautiful land.
• People on the Oregon Trail used Frémonts maps
  and reports as guides.

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Wagon Trains

• The first large group of about
  1,000 people set out on
  the Oregon
  Trail in 1873.
• They came from Ohio, Indiana,
  Illinois, Kentucky, and
  Tennessee.
• They were looking for good,
  inexpensive land.
• Pioneers traveled by wagon train.
• A wagon train was a line of covered wagons that
  moved together.
• Oxen, mules, or horses pulled the wagons.

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• Travelers on the Oregon Trail faced injuries,
  diseases, bad weather, lack of food, and water.
• One woman described the trail in her journal
• Not a drop of water, nor a spear of grass to be
  seen, nothing but barren hills, bare and broken
  rock, sand and dust.
• Despite the hardships, many people settled in
  Oregon.
• President Polk wanted Oregon to belong to the
  United States.
• At the time, Oregon was claimed by both the
  United States and Britain.
• In 1846, President Polk signed a treaty with
  Britain to set the border between the United
  States and Canada.
• In 1848, this land became the Oregon Territory.

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• Pioneers took other trails to the west.
• Some people traveled on the Mormon Trail were
  members of the Latter-Day Saints Church, founded
  in New York in 1830. These people were called
  Mormons.
• Some people did not like the Mormons beliefs and
  would not let them practice their religion.
• In 1847, Brigham Young, a Mormon leader, took his
  people west to present-day Utah.

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The Oregon Trail

• The Oregon Trail Video

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The California Gold Rush

• Before the 1700s, California Indians lived in
  villages where they hunted, gathered plants, and
  fished.
• When California became part of New Spain, many
  Indians were forced to live on missions.
• When Mexico gained independence, California
  became part of it.
• The Mexican citizens built large ranches and
  forced American Indians to work on these ranches.
• In 1848 when California joined the United States,
  the people became U. S. citizens.
• Very little changed for American Indians.

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The California Gold Rush

• Gold was discovered in California that same year.
• Thousands of people from the United States,
  Mexico, China, Europe, and South America rushed
  to California to dig for gold.
• These people became know as the forty-niners.
• A forty-niner was a miner who went to California
  around 1849.
• More than 250,000 people went to California to
  look for gold.
• A gold rush takes place when many people hurry to
  the same area to look for gold.
• Boomtowns sprang up near the gold mines.
• A boomtown is a town whose population booms, or
  grows very quickly.

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After the Gold Rush

• The California Gold Rush lasted about 5 years.
• Only a few people actually found gold.
• Some forty-niners went back home, but thousands
  stayed and settled in California.
• The Gold Rush changed California.
• Miners and farmers killed California Indians and
  took their land.
• Newcomers forced many property owners off their
  land.
• Cities grew.
• California became a state.
• Can watch Gold Rush video 2512 minutes

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Test Question

• How did the California Gold Rush change the lives
  of many Californios?
• Californio property owners were forced off
  their land.