SETTLERS TRADERS AND TRAILS own destinies and hopefully forge a brighter future The Louisiana Purchase in 1803 essentially doubled the size of the country The annexation of Texas a war with Mexico negotiations with Britain all added still more territory to the growing nation In the early 1800s explorers trappers missionaries missionaries and traders were the first white people to penetrate the lands beyond the Mississippi River These bold adventurers sometimes forged agreements with Native Americans At other times they battled with them The explorers created maps that lured gold miners dirt farmers cattle ranchers and others to follow them From Mormons looking for the Promised Land to wagon trains following thin rough trails across the desolate frontier settlers came by the thousands Dangers they faced from injuries exposure illnesses and attacks did not deter them Their migration and homesteading marked the West as surely as did war and conflict By the time the railroads spanned the continent the days of the Wild West were numbered Still the romance of the frontier continued to define American culture and persists even today 6
CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER ONE EXPLORERS TRAVEL WEST In 1492 Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic Ocean on behalf of Spain hoping to find a new route to Asia He failed in that quest but he succeeded in finding a way to a New World that Europeans did not know existed The discovery of the New World the Americas seemed like a dream come true for many of the downtrodden in Europe Famines poverty lack of work oppressive governments religious persecution and the horrors of never-ending wars plagued many people But the New World with its open unexplored lands brimmed with promise Before too long large groups would risk death disease and disappointment for the chance at better lives THE FIRST INHABITANTS The Americas had been settled long before the arrival of Europeans by many millions of people These original 77
SETTLERS TRADERS AND TRAILS Among the earliest European settlers in the New World were the Puritans Having endured religious persecution in England they came to America to establish a new religious denomination occupants are now known collectively as American Indians or Native Americans At the time of European contact American Indians inhabited most of what would become the United States In the Northeast these tribes included the Massachuset Pequot and Iroquois In the Southeast they included the Cherokee Seminole and Choctaw Across the Great Plains roamed the Sioux Cheyenne and Pawnee The Southwest cultures included the Navajo Pueblo and Apache In the West lived the Shoshone Chumash and Ute In the Northwest dwelled the Chinook Yakima and Nez Percé When Europeans came they brought diseases like smallpox typhoid and cholera The Native Americans 8
EXPLORERS TRAVEL WEST having been isolated from the Old World had no immunity to these diseases and they died in devastatating devastating epidemics DNA evidence suggests that about half of those alive following contact with Europeans died of disease war or enslavement THE EUROPEANS COME In the sixteenth century Spain conquered and colonized colonized large areas in the New World including what are now Florida California and the Southwestern United States In the seventeenth century England established settlements along the Atlantic coast that later became the thirteen original American colonies By the eighteenth century France held the valleys of the St Lawrence Ohio Alabama and Mississippi rivers as well as large tracts of land to the west and Holland claimed large parts of what became New York State Each of these countries came to America looking to use the land’s resources and establish trade The Spanish established missions in California that raised sheep and cattle for trade The French hunted for furs and exported them and the English farmed crops like tobacco and cotton In 1803 President Thomas Jefferson negotiated the purchase of France’s 9
