How Did The First White Americans Move West

The American West was settled and developed by newcomers to America between the years 1840 and 1895.The first group of people to move from the eastern seaboard to head out westwards are very interesting people. The first were ‘mountain men’, who were soon followed by early settlers, then gold miners, traders, more farmers and finally women.

The first Europeans to move to the west coast of America from the east are very important to the history of our country. The first white Americans to move west were the mountain men, who went to the Rockies to hunt beaver, bear and also elk in the 1820s and 1830s. In 1841, a wagon train pioneered the 3,200 km-long Oregon Trail to the woodland areas of the northwest coast of America. In 1844, 1,500 settlers made the dangerous journey westwards. That same year, a few farmers managed to cross the Rockies into California. The mountain men were not settlers, and all these trailblazers were moving across the Great Plains. However, they were very vital in the process of settling the west, because they discovered the different trails west across the Plains, which were later followed by genuine settlers.
Theses prospects were called ’49ers’. By spring of 1849 there were 40,000 miners in California. This was known as the start of the gold rush, which lasted from 1849 up until 1856. At first almost all the miners were men, and they lived in makeshift tent-settlements, hoping to make a quick fortune. Eventually women arrived, initially as cooks and prostitutes, but later as wives and