The Old West of the United States is one of the very fascinating part of the American History. It originated, grew, matured and declined through distinct phases of evolution. It offers some valuable insights into the American character and thus offers an interesting subject of learnings in American Studies.
The presidency of the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809) provided the foundational settings for the birth of ‘the West’ in the US. He bought a large swath of land to the West of the thirteen colonies in the US from the French under Napoleon Bonaparte. The deal that came to be called the Louisiana Purchase was struck on December 20th, 1803. The US territory doubled after the purchase of the Louisiana territory. It included the Mississippi river which was to provide a vital artery for valuable trade and transport after that date. The new territory had to be explored and mapped before it could be settled and utilized for economic, political and military purposes. President Jefferson authorized a special expedition of expert explorer for this purpose. Through the years 1804-6 the Lewis and Clark expedition explored and mapped the Louisiana purchase territory.
Next the Americans started settling and building proper legal and constitutional claims to their new territory. This was the time when the new state of Mexico gained independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821. The American shared boundaries with this new state of Mexico and the earlier European powers such as Spain, Britain and the French. They had to assert their power in the Western Hemisphere vis-a-vis all of them. One big aim of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine was to secure the Westward expansion of the US against the old World powers such as the Spanish, the French and the English.
The Americans did not expand and settle into empty lands in the West. Their expansion came at the expense of the native Americans who had lived in these places for more than a millennium. They suffered a terrible fate during the course of the expansion of the white settlement into the West of the United States. Despite the moral wrong of their forceful occupation, the Americans, however, created a legal basis for their expansion. The Supreme Court took one of the earliest step in that direction. In the 1823 Johnson vs. McIntosh Case, the Supreme Court ruled that the European explorers had sovereignty over the land held by the native Americans. This disregarded the territorial claims by the native Americans. By this interpretation, the native Americans, were the subjects but not citizens of the US government. The 1830 Indian Removal Act was a legislative measure of dispossession of the Indians. Due to the expansion of the white settlements on the Indian frontiers, violent armed conflict with the native Americans was inevitable and continued thorough much of the nineteenth century. Developments on the American frontiers with the European powers and Mexico too were not peaceful, quiet and calm during this time. After years of Yankee settlements in the region, the Texas region declared independence from Mexico in 1836. The issue was to lead to a war between the two countries a decade later.
The Americans noted their Westward expansion with hope and excitement in the age. The term Manifest Destiny was coined by John O’ Sullivan in the year 1845. The idea of the Manifest Destiney asserted that the people of the US, specially the white Americans, were destined by God to expand to the West, all the way to the Pacific Ocean, spreading Democracy, capitalism and Christianity.
Conflict and war was inevitable wherever the American expansion into its Western territories collided with the territorial and cultural claims of other nations The 1846-8 Mexican-American War was a consequence of one such collision. The Mexicans fought bravely but were no match for the American strategy and vigor. They lost the war and the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo added 525000 Square Miles to the territory of the US. This included the present day states of California, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming. In the north the 1846 Oregon Treaty between the US and Britain set the 49th parallel as the boundary between America and the British Canada. The broad cartographic contours of the country we know as the United States were established by the middle of the nineteenth century.
The early phase for an extensive settlement of the West by the white settlers was set as America experienced a considerable demographic growth due to both immigration and natural growth of population through the first half of the nineteenth century. The Population of the US rose from 5 million in 1800 to 23 million in 1850. As population pressures triggered social and economic tensions on the East coast of the US, Both the hard pressed and the enterprising Americans headed westwards in search of greener pastures.
The journey to the West involved unusual hardship and a difficult travel in wagon trains. Wagon trains and the journey to the West often started at Independence, Missouri and headed West along various trails. The Santa Fe trail, the Oregon Trail, the California Trail and the Old Spanish Trail being the most famous ones among them. The explorers traveling West had different motives ranging from the search for better prospects, escaping the hand of the law after committing crimes, escaping debt collectors after going broke economically to attaining glory, experiencing adventure and exploring the West. The grit and endurance of the West-bound travelers was very remarkable given the harsh travails they had to endure during the course of their journeys. The travelers would often form proper governing bodies for the journey assigning responsibilities and tasks to various people. There would be rules and codes of conduct to follow to ensure a safe and sound journey. The journey would still, be not safe as the risk of running into bandits, robbers and hostile Indian tribes was always there. The trains had to take all precautionary measures against these hazards.
The westward transport and communication in the American West was dependent on the animal and human muscle power through almost all of the first half of the twentieth century. There were no good roads and means of water transport either. This meant that it would be years before a very large scale settlement of the West, common in the second half of the nineteenth century, could take place. Enterprise, technology and innovation was to change that all as we shall see in our study and analysis of the fascinating old American West in our forthcoming blogs.
