DBQ Transforming The West
by DBQ on the factors that contributed to the West being transformed.
The North American West was glorified by the lure of adventure and freedom. There were promises of wealth and independence, which attracted people from the Midwest and East like bees to honey. This became more profound following 1850, in which there were more reasons to head out West. The motivations varied from finding gold and silver, avoiding religious persecution, and developing land.
The Gold Rush of 1849 played an intricate part of luring people out to the West because there was a promise of wealth. There were gold deposits found in California, but there were also silver veins found in Nevada (Doc 1). With the discovery of precious metals, prospectors and large companies decided to move out West in order to take advantage of the new found opportunity of getting rich quick. Because of this movement, railroads needed to be constructed to provide transportation for the gold and silver back east (Doc 4). This gave the opportunity for both gold and silver miners and railroad companies to profit.
Possibly the only motivation that was not based upon greed was the migration of Mormons. Their beliefs of polygamy were looked down upon and they were continually persecuted because no other religion supported polygamy. Since majority of the population of the United States was in the East, the Mormons went out West (Doc 3). However, there were acts that specifically targeted them, such as the Edmunds Act and the Edmunds-Tucker Act.
Even though land was given to the Indians out West because they were deemed “uncivilized” to be near Americans, they were still removed from their lands. This was because precious metals were still to be found on their territory, such as the sacred ground of the Sioux which had gold deposits. It didn’t take long for Americans to discover that decreasing the land of the Indians meant more land for them (Doc 7). With more land came greater wealth.
There were many motivations for western settlement, but the most important factor that was most decisive in transforming the West was greed. With greed came the desire to quickly develop and exploit the territory in the West in order to increase wealth. Railroads were built to provide faster transportation of resources since money could be made off of it. Greed allured various people from the Midwest and East with promises of fortune. If it wasn’t for greed, the West would have taken longer to be developed.
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