Evaluate this interpretation in light of the settlement of the U.S. West up to the Civil War.
Many people see the West as a place where people went to escape the controls of government.
This is inaccurate. In reality, the federal government played a large role in the development of the West and the lives of people who settled there. For people wishing to escape government, the West was not the place to go. At first the plan was for the federal government to distribute the land in the West. This meant that American citizens would have more contact with the federal government than citizens of the East.