Evaluate the extent to which migration influenced the western United States from 1820 to 1898.
In the early 1800s most Americans knew very little about the land and people between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. The public assumed that savage Indian tribes occupied a region the Walt Whitman described as “vast, trackless spaces.” Most Americans seemed content to leave the region to the roaming tribes of Indians and the vast herds of buffalo. But a series of events caused this view to dramatically change. The appeal of Manifest Destiny, the discovery of gold in California, the passage of the Homestead Act, and the construction of transcontinental railroads sparked a series of migrations that transformed the population and economy of the western United States.
