Westward+Expansion+Summary

After the [|American Revolution], thousands of settlers moved through the [|Cumberland Gap] along the Wilderness Road of the Appalachian Mountains. Initially, the migrants settled mostly in the Ohio River Valley, which was also known as the Old Northwest. Most of the new arrivals were farmers, who labored long to turn [|wilderness] into cultivated land. By 1795, over 200,000 white Americans lived in this region, and the white population rate showed a dramatic increase over the course of the next half century. By 1810, over 1 million people lived in this region, and by 1850, that number had climbed to more than 6 million.

This rapid expansion westward into the trans-Appalachian West inevitably led to conflict with the Native Americans who had lived for centuries in this area, as white settlers seldom recognized Indian claims to land. Sporadic yet violent [|American Indian wars] erupted throughout the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. During the first few decades of the 19th century, some Indian groups managed to stymie white settlement, with the two most prominent examples being the [|Creeks] in the South and a confederation of tribes led by [|Tecumseh] in the Old Northwest. Although these conflicts often slowed white settlement, they could not stop it, particularly as the whites usually had the backing of the federal government.

First in the [|War of 1812], when many Native Americans groups allied themselves with the British, and then in the [|Creek War] and [|Black Hawk War], the Native American threat was removed and the Indians pushed further west or onto [|reservations]. President [|Andrew Jackson's]Indian removal policy, introduced in 1829, forced any Indians remaining east of the Appalachians all the way west of the [|Mississippi River]to what was dubbed [|Indian Territory] (present-day [|Oklahoma]).

This movement from the Eastern seaboard across the Appalachian Mountains and into the Mississippi River Valley was the first stage of westward expansion.