America: The Story of Us (Part 3: Westward)

The United States of America was built on hardship, sacrifice, and discovery. In 2010, the history channel have created this 12-part docu-series where it talks about many of those hardships, sacrifices, and discoveries.

This is Part 3 of this 12-part wiki series about the History channel's docu-series; America The Story of Us. In this part, we talk about the hardships and the discoveries when we ventured out to the west.

## Westward

### The first voyage west

The episode takes a trip to the borders of Kentucky and Virginia where the only natural opening in the Appalachian mountains called the Cumberland Gap.

It's in the year 1774, a group of men led by Daniel Boone are trying to cut a way through the Cumberland Gap so they can get through, eventually they do and almost made another colony, but the land belonged to Virginia and they said no to letting that land go, plus they were also violating the British laws which said that the colonists were forbidden to venture out west so they can preserve it for the Native Americans.

Just like in Jamestown and Plymouth before it, this land was populated by the Native Americans, but this time they have to defend their homes from the settling colonists. One night they caught Boone's team completely off guard and killed off enough of his men to force Boone to flee. This doesn't seem like a successful expedition, but the Americans will try again, after they won their revolution.

### The real voyages

The episode now goes to the Rocky Mountains where the Americans want to continue the fur trade and to venture onto their newly gained territories recently received in the Louisiana Purchase.

The first White Americans to venture out to the deep western part of the country were Merryweather Lewis and William Clark as they venture over the Rockies, it also became a battle for survival for them as they would have to climb over high mountains and encounter dangerous creatures such as Bear and Wolves, even having to go as far as eating their own horses in order to survive. Eventually they would make to the Pacific Ocean, the first White Americans to do so. The episode also talks about another man who would venture into the Rockies, but not to reach the Pacific, but to look for fur. His name was Jebediah Smith who would (like Lewis and Clark) would work with the Native Americans and also would live off the land (meaning would eat anything that he can find), he would make several journeys to the west in search for fur and would become rich (for some reason), the episode also talks about how Smith was one time attacked by a Bear, and survived with the provisions that he and his team had.

### The Donner Party

The episode now goes to the Californian side of the Sierra Nevada mountains to talk about a group of people that also made the hard journey west; the Donner Party.

The Donner Party began in a town in Missouri called Independence and in the early Spring of 1846, they began their journey west. The journey was long and at times hard as they had a limited food supply and had to be medics at times when somebody was hurt or a woman had to give birth.

By the summer of 1846, the Donner Party made it to the Sierra Nevada, but along the way one of the Axels on the main wagon broke, and they had to stop to make repairs. It might seem like a big deal now, but back in 1846 they had limited supplies and couldn't make the repairs quickly, it would take 5 months to repair.

What this mean that the entire Donner Party had to spend the upcoming winter in the bitter cold weather of the Mountain range. What became more daunting is that their food supply would run out in a matter of weeks, after living off the land for a while the party then realized that they had no other choice but to resort to cannibalism which is when humans eat other humans. Eventually help arrived in the late winter of 1847 which 48 of the 87 members of the Donner Party were rescued.

### Remembering the Alamo

The episode now goes to Texas where we remember the Battle of the Alamo.

It was 1835, and American settlers were having problems with their Mexican hosts as Mexico had outlawed migration from the US, and as the Americans occupied a christian mission called the Alamo, the Mexican dictator; Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana made a surprise attack on the Alamo.

Santa Ana's men were given orders to take no prisoners and kill everybody in the Alamo. They easily overwhelm the American Defense and killed everybody including folk heroes Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie. This would encourage other American settlers to rise up against the Mexicans and eventually Texas will gain its independence before it became a state in 1845.

### A rush for gold

The episode goes back to California where a gold rush would begin.

In 1846, gold was discovered in a river in California, soon after its discovery there was a rush to go west once again, this time to get rich off of the discovery of gold.

By 1848 there was huge rush to go to California to mine the gold. Only a few would strike it rich, while others left empty-handed. Businesses popped up for the prospectors and (ironically) got richer than the prospectors.

### Trail of tears

The episode now goes to the south to talk about one of the most shameful acts by the US.

President Andrew Jackson has signed one of the most shameful acts in the history of America, the Indian Removal Act which is where Native Americans have to move from America and to either west or in reserves. Even some soldiers disliked the act, but complied. Some even called the trail the Native Americans took to venture west was called the "Trail of Tears" as so many Native Americans were forced off their land.

### A new way to travel

The episode now goes down the Mississippi River for a new way to travel.................for the time at least.

During the 19th century, and for people living in the Midwest, rowing down the Mississippi River was the only way to do business in other places. The problem was getting back home since the Mississippi River flows to the south and getting north was difficult, in fact so difficult that some people doing business in New Orleans and sell their wares such as food would also sell their river boats as lumber, and make their way back home by walking or buying horses. By the mid 19th century, the steam boat would be the new way to travel up and down the Mississippi River.

That'll be it for this part. In the next part, we will talk about the slavery issue and how it would divide the nation and put it on the brink of war. Until next time this is JohnnyOTGS signing out.