University:
Arizona State University
Course:
HST 200 | Historical Themes
Academic year:

2024
Views:

320

Pages:

2
Author:

Thuyoul US

ASU HST 200 (Historical Themes) Westward Expansion, 1840-1900 Federal Government Assistance Congress enacted two important pieces of legislation in 1862 to aid the settlers in their westward movement and turn it from a trickle to a continuous flow: the Pacific Railway Act and the Homestead Act. President Abraham Lincoln anticipated that such legislation would stimulate the spread of a "free soil" ethos across the West. Lincoln's growing anxiety that a probable Union loss in the early stages of the Civil War may result in the development of slavery westward was essentially the source of his desire. Any head of home or anybody over twenty-one, including single women, may obtain a 160-acre tract for a little application fee under the Homestead Act. In return, all that grantees had to do was "improve the land" within five years of obtaining ownership. The owners might clear a few acres, construct tiny homes or barns, or care for cattle, but the requirements for upgrading were rather low. The government gave private persons access to more than 270 million acres of public domain property via this act. The Pacific Railway Act had a crucial role in facilitating the faster westward migration of settlers and the subsequent eastward movement of their agricultural goods, livestock, and mining deposits. This legislation, the first of numerous railroad efforts, ordered the Central Pacific Railroad to proceed east from Sacramento, California, and the Union Pacific Railroad to build additional track west from Omaha, Nebraska. According to the complexity of the terrain each firm had to cross, the legislation awarded each one of them ownership of all public lands within two hundred feet on either side of the track that was constructed, in addition to extra land grants and payment through load bonds. Whether they were traversing hundreds of miles of wide plains or the Californian Sierra Nevada Mountains, these provisions allowed both firms to earn a healthy profit. Consequently, in the spring of 1869, the two companies joined their rails at Promontory, Utah, completing the first transcontinental railroad in the history of the country. Subsequently, additional tracks—including lines branching off of this initial one—built a nationwide network connecting every location. Along with enacting laws to encourage western colonization, the US government took a hands-on approach, constructing many forts across the West to support settlers as they migrated. Forts like the 1834-built Fort Laramie in Wyoming and the 1870-built Fort Apache in Arizona were constructed with the intention of easing commerce and reducing hostilities between local American Indian tribes and migrants. Others, dispersed over Wyoming and Colorado, developed became significant fur-trading and mining hubs. The main purpose of those constructed in Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas was to aid farmers in times of drought or other adversity. During the American Civil War and in the aftermath of the Mexican-American War, forts built along the California coast offered defense. These sites later provided services to the United States. Navy and offered crucial assistance for expanding trade routes throughout the Pacific. These forts proved to be essential to westward migration, whether they were built as army installations to support American migration or as trading stations to further help the region's growth.