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Westward Expansion Movement In The United States

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Ever since the Pilgrims and Europeans first landed in America, westward expansion has been a goal of the common people. All groups of people have wanted to move westward to spread religions, establish new colonies, and claim better and more valuable resources. This began primarily in 1845 when president James K. Polk proposed to Congress that we begin expanding westward and coined the term “Manifest Destiny.” After Polk’s proposal, people began to feel the urge to move westward and settle the land for the betterment of the United States. However, it was the actions of the U.S. military against the Native Americans in their western homelands and the establishment of the Homestead Act in 1862 that sparked the massive internal migration movements in the United States. …show more content…

history because a link from the Western part of the United States to the Eastern part of the United States had finally been established. Commercial trains from the East could now transport people to the West and vice versa. This provided for easier transport of humans and commercial goods as well. There was only one problem, the price of each train ticket. Not only did the journey take months to travel from the East to the West by train, but the cost of a ticket was outrageous for most people residing in the U.S. at the time. Only the most privileged families could purchase a train ticket of such prices, but they had not much of a reason to move westward either. Since purchasing a ticket cost unreasonable amounts and the journey took an extremely long time, the Transcontinental Railroad would not have been a feasible explanation for the massive internal migrations that occurred in the United States from

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