Chapter 7 Section 4 – pg 275 Americans Move Westward.

Chapter 7

Section 4 – pg 275Americans Move Westward

Moving West

• During colonial times, Americans saw the backcountry between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mtns as the western frontier– By the 1750s, the Scotch-Irish and the Germans of

Pennsylvania began to settle the backcountry• In 1775, Daniel Boone and a group of 30 men cleared a

route to the West (the Wilderness Rd)– Beginning in the Carolinas, it crossed the Appalachian

Mtns into Kentucky

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A Growing Population• By the early 1800s, the flow of immigrants to the West became a

flood– As western areas became populated, many applied to be states

• From 1792 to 1819, 8 states joined the Union– Kentucky – 1792– Tennessee – 1796– Ohio – 1803– Louisiana – 1812– Indiana -1816– Mississippi – 1817– Illinois – 1818– Alabama - 1819

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US in 1719

US in 1820 ->

• Travelling west was not easy– Early roads were paths for deer or bison– NAs used these paths to pursue game– Unpaved, dotted with tree stumps, and easily washed

out by rain

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Roads and Turnpikes• The nation needed better roads

– Farmers had to have a way to move their goods– Capitalists decided to provide a way

• Private companies built turnpikes (toll roads)• Travelers would have to stop and pay a toll before

continuing

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• In 1795, a private company in Pennsylvania built a turnpike between Lancaster and Philadelphia – Longest stone road in the US– Provided cheap, reliable transportation to isolated

agriculture areas

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• In marshy area, wagons travelled on corduroy roads, roads made of sawed-off logs laid side by side

– Ride was bumpy as wagons went over logs– Horses easily broke their legs if slipped through logs

• The National Road was the first federally funded road– Begun in 1811 in Cumberland, Maryland and stretched

to Vandalia Illinois in 1850– Crossed hundreds of miles and used bridges to go over rivers and streams

Canals• Slow road travel isolates western farmers from eastern markets

– Fastest, cheapest way to ship goods was by water• Major rivers ran north and south

– Canal: a channel that is dug across land and filled with water

• Allowed boats to reach more places

• In 1816, NY Governor DeWitt Clinton proposed a canal from the Hudson River to Lake Erie– Work began on “Clinton’s Ditch” in 1817

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• Building Clinton’s Ditch was a challenge for canal engineers and for the workers (mostly Irish immigrants)– Land was not level– Locks had to be built to raise & lower boats in the canal

• At Lockport, 5 double locks raised the canal 50 feet

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• Within 2 years of its opening in 1825, the canal had paid for itself– Produce from the Midwest came across Lake Erie,

passed through the Erie Canal, and was carried down the Hudson River to New York City

– NY soon became the richest city in the nation

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• The success of the Erie Canal sparked a surge of canal building– In 1829, a canal was built through Delaware– Soon being built through Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio,

Indiana, and Illinois

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The Extension of Slavery

• Westward expansion strengthened the nation but also caused problems

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Slave and Free States• In 1819, the nation consisted of 11 “slave states” and

11 “free states”– In 1817, Missouri sought admission as a slave state– Northerners felt that the addition of another slave state

would upset the balance in the Senate (where each state gets 2 votes)• This would make the south more powerful in the Senate

• In 1819, Representative James Tallmadge of NY proposed that Missouri be admitted as a slave state but no more slaves could be brought into the state– Bill passed the House but failed in the Senate– The South felt that slavery was being threatened

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The Missouri Compromise• In the next session of Congress, Maine applied for

admission to the Union– Unlike Missouri, Maine prohibited slavery– The admission of a slave state and a free state would

maintain balance in the Senate

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• In 1820, Senator Henry Clay persuaded Congress to adopt the Missouri Compromise– Allowed Maine to be admitted as a free state and Missouri

as a slave state– Provided that the Louisiana Territory north of the southern

border of Missouri would be free of slavery– Gave southern slave owners the right to pursue escaped

fugitives into “free” regions and return them to slavery

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A Continuing Problem• Missouri Compromise revealed how much sectional

rivalries divided the states of the Union– Compromise kept things balanced, but white

southerners were not happy that Congress had given itself power to make laws regarding slavery

– Jefferson thought that the issues raised by the compromise might tear the Union in two

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