5 CHAPTER ONE The trail to the West was full of hazards especially for the old young and sick THE FRONTIER The covered wagon jostles you awake as it hits a big bump You ride in the wagon with the food and supplies You are too young to walk all day like your older brothers and sisters Your mother rides with you She cares for your baby sister The baby is sick There are no doctors or even towns nearby to go to for help Your parents told you they were taking a risk by picking up and moving out West onto
Pioneers moving west had to deal with dense wilderness and natural obstacles such as the Rocky Mountains the frontier But until your sister got sick you did not understand what they meant What Is the Frontier This was a common scene for many families that traveled west to make a life on the frontier The 6
Manifest Destiny During the 1800s many Americans believed that all of the land to the west was destined to become part of the United States Journalist John O Sullivan first used the term manifest destiny He said that it was destined that the United States should add Texas and other territories to the country Settlers took Sullivan’s idea to heart when moving west They believed that all the land in the West should belong to them even though hundreds of thousands of Native Americans already lived there Settlers believed it was their right to force Native Americans out of lands they had lived on for generations 7 frontier was in the West It was far away from the big cities in the East such as Boston Massachusetts and New York City The US government defined the frontier as any place that had two or fewer people per square mile But the so-called frontier was already populated by Native Americans The Western frontier era lasted roughly from 1803 until 1890 when the US government announced that there was no longer a frontier in the West
