1. Supporting Question #1: What conditions influenced westward expansion?

2. Document #1

3. Document #2
We have by every launch from the embarcadera of New Helvetia, returns of enthusiastic gold seekers—heads of families, to effect transportation of their households to the scene of their successful labors, or others, merely returned to more fully equip themselves for a protracted, or perhaps permanent stay.—
Spades, shovels, picks, wooden bowls, Indian baskets (for washing), etc., find ready purchase, and are very frequently disposed of at extortionate prices.
The gold region, so called, thus far explored, is about one hundred miles in length and twenty in width. These imperfect explorations contribute to establish the certainty of the placera extending much further south, probably three or four hundred miles, as we have before stated, while it is believed to terminate about a league north of the point at which first discovered. The probable amount taken from these mountains since the first of May last, we are informed is $100,000, and which is at this time principally in the hands of the mechanical, agricultural and laboring classes.
There is an area explored, within which a body of 50,000 men can advantageously labor. Without maliciously interfering with each other, then, there need be no cause for contention and discord, where as yet, we are gratified to know, there is harmony and good feeling existing. We really hope no unpleasant occurrences will grow out of this enthusiasm, and that our apprehensions may be quieted by continued patience and good will among the washers.
California Star Saturday, June 10, 1848
Note that the "California Star" ceased publication June 14, 1848, because the staff had rushed to the gold fields. - Gladys Hansen

4. Document #3
Potter, Lee Ann and Wynell Schamel. "The Homestead Act of 1862." Social Education 61, 6 (October 1997):

5. Document #4 Homestead Act
AN ACT to secure homesteads to actual settlers on the public domain. Be it enacted, That any person who is the head of a family, or who has arrived at the age of twenty-one years, and is a citizen of the United States, or who shall have filed his declaration of intention to become such, as required by the naturalization laws of the United States, and who has never borne arms against the United States Government or given aid and comfort to its enemies, shall, from and after the first of January, eighteen hundred and sixty-three, be entitled to enter one quarter-section or a less quantity of unappropriated public lands, upon which said person may have filed a pre-emption claim
Provided, that any person owning or residing on land may, under theprovision of the act, enter other land lying contiguous to his or her said land, which shall not, with the land already owned and occupied, exceed in the aggregate one hundred and sixty acres.
Source: United States. Statutes at Large, Vol. XII, 1862, pp (12 Stat. 392)
May 20, 1862

6. Document #5

7. Document #6
In the early decades of the nineteenth century, most white Northerners and Southerners agreed wholeheartedly that the Western territories should be settled by Americans, and that moving Indians to reservations and making their land available to white settlers was God’s plan, or the nation’s “manifest destiny.” The Promised Land—The Grayson Family, represents the optimism and aspirations of many Americans, Northern and Southern, who moved west in search of a better life.
The Promised Land—The Grayson Family William S. Jewett