Development of Society

THESIS STATEMENT:

Due to the effects of the westward expansion, the American Society brought out new brave and explores people.

SUPPORTING FACTS:

1. Because of the increasing amount of land being gained, the old ways of map making, by landmark were becoming obsolete. In 1785, the Lance Ordinance divided land into Townships, which were then divided over three times to become small forty-acre plots.

2. Everyone in America living during the Westward expansion was affected by it. By the 1840s, pioneers had turned forests and growing land of Cherokees, and other Indian tribes into their cities, and highly cultivated farms.

3. Even though pioneers quickly cultivated the west there were people who were there before all of them. Explorers tried to map out the whole western frontier; Lewis and Clark were one of the firsts. Lewis, a studied man of many life and earth sciences, and Clark, a mapmaker and a Journalist set out on May 14, 1804 with forty-two other men to map the west. The round trip then took them back to St. Louis in 1806, September twenty-third.

4. No occupation more summed up the feelings of the American people during the westward expansion than the Mountain Man. He was the small kid's dream, a trapper who roughed it out in the wild, risking his life. These trappers searched for the best mink, otter, or even beaver. These loners lived off of nothing, in the wilderness, but they did meet with there "own kind" each summer. These rendezvous would collect up to five thousand trappers and Indians alike to congregate.

Inconsistencies

THESIS STATEMENT:

During the time of westward expansion, the American value of equality was challenged in many ways.

SUPPORTING FACTS:

1. In 1791, the US signed a treaty with the independent nation of the Cherokee Indians, allowing them to keep their land in Georgia. When the US started to move west, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Cherokee in "Worcester v. Georgia" 1832. President Jefferson approved pushing the Indians back through, and after this. Two years later Americans forced the Indians off their land.

2. The US was not the only country trying to claim the new continent. Spain, had already taken a portion of the west coast, and Mexico (Now it's separate nation) was claiming Texas, as a buffer zone between the US and Spain. US citizens poured into Texas, almost taking it over. They did not obey any if the US laws, because they were not in the US. They did not even obey the Mexican laws that they didn't want to.

3. In the constitution we are given the right to "peruse happiness", which means we have the right to go into business, but no where does it say when the demand of an item goes up, then its selling price may rise 5000%. This was the case in westward expansion; a shovel went from $1 to $50. A cradle (the sifter) went from $2 to $100. Mining towns had few, if any law enforcement, and "Outlaws ruled the West". This was the life many had to live, for they had come to the West in search for riches, and found themselves being the ones making the salesmen rich.