After the Louisianna Purchase

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After the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, a large amount of land west of the original 13 states and the Northwest Territory were acquired. The open land, additional benefits and other existing problems encouraged Americans to expand westward. The American people began to realize that the future of the country lay in the development of its own western resources. There were many reasons that made the people face the grueling and dangerous movement west, but the primary reason was economy.
"Like the Spanish conquistadors before them, the Americans looked beyond the Mississippi, they saw an open beckoning. Despite the presence of hundreds of Indian nations with rich and distinct cultures, who had populated the land for thousands of years-from the desert of the Southwest and the grassy prairies of the Great Plains to the high valleys of the Rocky
Mountains and the salty beaches of the Pacific Coast-Americans considered the west to be an empty wilderness. And in less than fifty years, from the 1803 purchase of Louisiana Territory to the California gold rush of 1849, the nation would expand and conquer the West" (Herb 3).
The ocean had always controlled New England's interests and connected it with the real world. Puritanism was still very strong in the north so the moral unity of New England was exceptional. Having a very unmixed population of English origin, New England contrasted very much with the other sections.
All this and the fact that they needed to cross populated states in order to expand west set this section part from the others (Leuetenburg and Wishy 37).
New England's population compared to other regions was poor, and the population growth was even poorer. The trans-Alleghany States by 1820 had a population of about 2.25 million, while New England had over 1.5 million.
Ten years later, western states had over 3.5 million with the people northwest of the Ohio River alone numbering 1.5 million.
"In 1820 the total population of New England was about to equal to the combined population of New York and New Jersey; but its increase between 1820 and 1830 was hardly three hundred thousand, not much over half that of New
York, and less that of gain of Ohio. If Maine, the growing state of the group, be excluded, the increase of the whole section was less that of the frontier state of Indiana"(Turner 41)
Fortunately...

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... Expansion and Regional differences). Since the invention of the cotton gin made the cultivation of cotton profitable, it was only a question of finding the land to cultivate the cotton. All the people had to do was look westward.
What made the people move west? Economics, land, and opportunity to profit were primary factors. With three thousand miles of free and available land, and the opportunity to start a new and better life, and make more money doing it, people packed their bags and moved in.

WORKS CITED
Herb, Angela M. Beyond the Mississippi: Early Westward Expansion of the
United States. New York: Lodestar Books, 1996.
Leuehtenburg, William E., and Bernard Wishy, eds Fronteir and Section.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc, 1961.
Turner, Fredrick Jackson. The Frontier in American History. New York: Holt,
Tinehart, and Winston Inc., 1962
Turner, Fredrick Jackson. Rise of the New West. New york: Harper and
Brothers Publishers, 1966.
Turner, Fredrick Jackson. The United States 1830-1850. New York: W.W.
Norton & Company Inc., 1965.
"Westward Expansion and Regional Differences." An Outline of American
History. Downloaded from AOL. March 27, 1999.

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