Manifest Destiny: Meaning And Its Causes

Manifest Destiny started when Thomas Jefferson bought the Louisiana purchase. Thomas Jefferson sent two people lewis and Clark. Lewis and Clark and the corps of discovery set off with the help of there guide Sacagawea. Sacagawea was a French Canadian indian guide/interpreter. Then they split up at the Mississippi, Clark went by foot and lewis went by boat and they met up at St. Charles, Missouri. On August, 20 1804, 22 year old Charles Floyd was the only person to die on lewis and Clark’s expedition. They finally reach the pacific ocean in the month of November 1805. They made Fort Clatsop while they were there for winter. They got fort Clatsop up by christmas. During that harsh winter at fort Clatsop, the fort was infected with fleas and other insects, they struggled to keep their supplies dry, everyone was weak and sick with stomach aks likely caused by hunger or bacterial infections. In March 1806 lewis, Clark, and the corps of discovery set off on there long journey to Washington, D.C. Then they traveled to the Nez perce tribe to get there horses back. They waited there until june for all of the snow to melt. Then lewis and clark split up at lolo pass. Clark went by boat on yellowstone river and lewis went by foot. A few days after they split up Lewis was attacked by eight Blackfeet indians and tried to steal horses and guns and ammunition and lewis and his men had to kill two of them. They finally meet back up at where the Missouri and the yellowstone river meet up in north dakota. From there they travel back to Washington D.C.

California Gold Rush started in 1848 by John Marshall in sutter’s mill near the city of Coloma, California. John was building a saw mill for Sutter when he seen gold flakes in the river and he told Sutter and they tried to keep it secret but word got out and that started the California gold rush. Before the gold rush there were 14,000 people living in California, then when the gold rush started 6,000 people came rushing over in 1848 and in 1849 90,000 people arrived to search for the gold. These people were called the Forty niners. People came from all over the world. Some were from America, but most were not American. They were from China, Mexico, Eaglend, and Australia. Lots of the first prospeter made 10 times the amount of money from a normal job. During the gold rush towns called boomtowns would formed. And example of a boomtown is San Francisco and Columbia. But to go along with these boomtowns were ghost towns they were the boomtowns that no longer had any gold so the prospectors and the shop keepers would leave the places to abandoned them. An example of a ghost town is Goffs, and Bodie in California.

While going west on the organ trail and going west for the gold rush in California the pioneers, and prospectors had to worry about outlaws who would attack them and steal all of their goods. Then they also had to worry about illnesses, over exertion, accidents, drowning while crossing rivers. Diseases and very serious illnesses would kill every nine out of ten pioneers. Cholera was one of the main diseases, you would wake up and eat breakfast and be dead by noon.

transcontinental railroad was first talked about in 1830 but congress did nothing to make one. In 1860s Theodore Judah searched the Sierra Nevada Mountains and found a pass the railroad could go through. There were two main routes that people wanted to use one was the central route and it started in Nevada and ended in California. The other route was the southern route stretched across texas New Mexico and finished in los Angeles, California. Congress pick the central route. In 1862 President Abraham Lincoln signed the pacific railroad act into law. There was two railroads being built that would combine in the middle somewhere they were the central and the union. The act gave railroad companies land to were they would work on there part of the railroad. The law also paid them for each mile of railroad they made and extra for working on the mountains. Building this railroad was tough hard work. Weather conditions were bad during winter especially in the mountains. The two railroads meet each other in Promontory Summit, Utah during the month of May 10, 1869. The governor of California and and the president of central pacific railroad drove in the last spike this spike was called the golden spike.

In conclusion manifest destiny caused the united states of America to go west and gain the territory there and to make the transcontinental railroad and lewis and clark to explore the Louisiana purchase and for the forty niners to search for gold in California.

Work cited

1. https://www.history.com/topics/westward-expansion/lewis-and-clark#section_7
2. https://www.oregontrailcenter.org/HistoricalTrails/Dangers.htm
3. https://www.ducksters.com/history/westward_expansion/