Heading West: Life with the Pioneers, 21 Activities
the loaded wagon over the hills of Missouri so he traded them for a team of bigger horses Laura cried when they had to leave the familiar little horses When Laura thought back on that trip she remembered the spring flowers among the green leaves in the forest She remembered the creaking of the wagon wheels the snorting of the horses and Pa's soft voice singing She remembered the smell of the damp earth and the meadow warm in the sun Laura was to use these memories much later to write a series of books that children still love today the Little House books Like Pa Laura was a true pio neer with an itchy foot She wanted children to understand what pioneer life was like Laura was 65 years old before her first book Little House in the Big Woods was published She had planned to write one book but children loved the book and begged her to write more That's how the series of Little House books was born Thousands of other pioneers had stories similar to Laura's Although they faced the same problems each person had his or her own way of reacting All these different personalities and stories made the set tlement of the West an interesting
Exploring the West ouncing along a bumpy trail in a covered wagon Fording a dangerous rain swollen stream Being attacked by hostile Indians Living in a cozy log cabin in the woods These were all part of the pioneer experience but there was so much more Many people think all pioneers lived in the 1800s when many settlers moved west But the Westward Movement actually began in the 1700s when settlers from Europe started moving west across the Appalachian Mountains This was when the states were still colonies They moved into the western parts of New York Pennsylvania North Carolina and what is now West Virginia Yet before anyone could settle even farther west people had to explore the region and blaze the trails French and Indian War 1754 63 By the middle of the 1700s most of the land in North America was claimed by France or England Spain owned Florida and both the French and the British claimed the land west of the Appalachian Mountains When the British started moving into the Ohio Country the French were upset Leaders of the two countries met in Paris in 1750 to discuss the
problem but came to no agreement The colonies asked permission to raise armies and money in order to protect themselves King George II refused and the British officers in the colonies didn't want help from the colonists In 1752 Marquis Duquesne pronounced Du KANE became governor general of the land claimed by the French in North America He was ordered to drive all the British out of the Ohio Valley In 1753 his soldiers built two forts in western Pennsylvania This worried the British including Lt Governor Din widdie of Virginia Dinwiddie sent a young officer named George Washington with a message demand ing the French leave the area They refused To defend the area from the French the next year the British began building their own fort where the Alleghany and Monongahela Rivers meet to form the Ohio River This is where Pittsburgh stands today They called it Fort Prince George But before they could finish the French attacked and captured it They changed its name to Fort Duquesne George Washington had orders to retake the fort but he knew it was too strong Instead he built another fort nearby Fort Necessity On July 3 1754 the French attacked Fort Necessity and captured it This was the first battle of the French and Indian War
ENGLISH N OR TH ENGLSH NEW FRANCE COLON NEWS SPAI Atlantic Occan Pacific Ocean Ri NEW SPAIN Gulf of Mexico Early claims in North America 1750 Many Indian tribes in the area also wanted the British settlers out so they supported the French Meanwhile the British sent General Edward Brad dock to lead their forces in the colonies On his way to attack Fort Duquesne his army was ambushed by the French and their Indian allies and nearly wiped out was Braddock himself killed War was not formally declared until 1756 although by then the fighting had been going on for two years The French had the upper hand the first few years In New York they defeated the British at Fort Oswego and Fort Ticonderoga They attacked another New York fort Fort William Henry and defeated the British there as well As the British left the fort many were killed or captured by the Indians In 1757 William Pitt the British prime minister sent more troops to the colonies With the help of
