On to the Westward Migration

We are now putting an end to the Westward Migration chapter. We covered a lot of things in the chapter. We discussed things such as who went west, where they went west, what they brought with them, when they went, and how and why did they go there in the first place.
Ok, so the whole reason why the people started moving west was because of the Homestead act in the 1800's. The Homestead Act was a whole bunch of advertisement. The Homestead Act gave a chance for people to make their lives better. For $10 dollars anyone could have land in the West, which got them 160 acres of land. Everyone thought this would be an easy way to live if only they had more land, but they were wrong because there were many hard decisions and difficult land to travel.
Some groups of people that were known to travel West were Religious people, Farmers, Families, Women, Speculators and also African-Americans. Religious people moved West to get religious freedom and to help spread their religion to other people. Farmers moved West to gain more profit and move land to benefit as farm property. Families moved west to they could have more land and make a better life for themselves as well as their children. Women moved West to be more independent and prove themselves. Speculators moved to the West to set out for gold and make money off of the gold rush. Free African-Americans also moved west to get away from slavery and have a brand new life of their own.
When the migration took place most of the people settled closer to the west coast, such as California, Oregon, Arizona, and Nevada. The travel to these states was very dangerous and no one told them how hard it was going to be. The migrators had to travel long and hard distances and faced many obstacle such as mountains, lack of water and indians.
In all these hardships, they learned to overcome and they did that is what made this migration so inspirational.