The Republican-sponsored Homestead Act, a wartime act meant to encourage Northerners to move West, allowed for settlers to meet with federal officials at local forts and stake claims on 160 acres of unoccupied land (not owned by an Indian tribe or another settler), where they could till the soil, create a homestead, and raise crops. Between 18, the United States embarked on the settlement of the West, encouraging Americans to move to the West in droves. Promises of prosperity led to waves of immigration to the sparsely populated West.īy the end of the American Civil War, the Western territories did not have enough settlers to fill them lands such as New Mexico had more Spanish speakers than English-speakers, while lands such as South Dakota had more Native Americans than white settlers. After the California Gold Rush, many immigrants and settlers arrived in the West with the objective of mining and keeping their goald. These laws effectively gave free land to those who were willing to farm it, and also gave them the rights to gold if they mined it. Any adult who had never taken up arms against the US government could apply, including women, immigrants, and (after 1866) African-Americans. In 1862, the US government passed the first of the " Homestead Acts", which opened up millions of acres of land in the West to settlement. These newly-conquered lands were organized into "territories", American lands that were not yet granted statehood due to their low populations and their lack of infrastructure. Enormous popular attention in the media focuses on the western United States in the second half of the nineteenth century, a period sometimes called the Old West, or the Wild West.The "Wild West" period followed the westward expansion promoted by " Manifest Destiny", which saw the United States acquire vast amounts of territory in the Mexican-American War, the Gadsden Purchase, and through several Indian wars. The American frontier began with English colonial settlements in the early 17th century and ended with the admission of the last mainland territories as states in the early 20th century. Writing Research - American Frontier (The Wild West)
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