1. 15.2 Trails West
Main Idea Thousands of settlers followed trails through the West to gain land and a chance to make a fortune.
Why It Matters Now This migration brought Americans to territories that became New Mexico, Oregon, and Utah.

2. Standard
8.8.2 Describe the purpose, challenges, and economic incentives associated with westward expansion, including the concept of Manifest Destiny (e.g., the Lewis and Clark expedition, accounts of the removal of Indians, the Cherokees’ “Trail of Tears,” settlement of the Great Plains) and the territorial acquisitions that spread numerous decades.

3. Daily Guided Questions
How did mountain men open up the West for later settlements?
Why did people go west and what challenges did they face?

4. Silent Reading
Read textbook pages

5. Traders Lead the Way
Traders looking for new markets to sell their goods.
-Created trails through the Great Plains and Rocky Mtns. to the West.

7. The Santa Fe Trail
William Becknell used trail to sell products in Mexico.
-Became rich.
-assisted “prairie schooners” across the Great Plains into New Mexico.

8. Oregon Fur Trade John Jacob Astor, German immigrant.
American Fur Company.
-First multi-millionaire
Lead the way for missionaries and settlers.
-Used Lewis and Clark route.

9. Mountain Men Fur traders of the Northwest.
-Lived isolated, dangerous lives.
-Bitter cold, intense heat, and animal attacks.
Sold products at rendezvous, meeting for traders to trade furs and supplies.
-Returned East as farmers and merchants.
-Some became guides.

10. Jedediah Smith James Beckwourth

11. The Oregon Trail
2,000 mile route from Independence, Missouri to Oregon Terr.
-took 5 months to reach Oregon terr.
-10% of travelers died.
Travelled in wagon trains for protection.
-Carried everything they needed in covered wagons pulled by horses or oxen.
-Between , 50,000 people came to Oregon.