Oregon+Trail+66

Reason why so many went west: There were some families that just had the habit of moving west every five or ten years to follow the frontier. They liked the extra freedom of life on the frontier, but civilization kept catching up to them. It seemed to them like immigrating to Oregon would be the last move they would ever have to make. Others were in search of opportunity -- there were hard times back East, but in the 1840s married settlers could claim a square mile of the Oregon Country, 640 acres, at no cost. Oregon had a reputation not only for having good farmland and vast forests of huge, ancient trees, but also for being free of disease. This made the Oregon Country even more attractive, since epidemics were common in the East and little was known about the causes of disease and infection. The idea of allowing such valuable land to fall into the hands of the British inspired patriotic Americans to head for Oregon, and gold strikes in southern and eastern Oregon during the 1850s inspired other sorts of Americans. The beginning of a typical journey west: preparation; starting out:
 * A typical prairie schooner would contain the following items: clothes, food, tools, guns, sewing supplies, horseshoes, and a few family heirlooms. Other items such as plows, shovels, axes, and water barrels were carried on the sides of the wagon. The wagon was covered with a waterproof canvas for added protection during storms. Strong powerful animals such as mules or oxen were used to pull the wagons. Horses were too expensive. **

Starting Points: Initial starting points: Independence, Missouri Kansas City, Kansas

Problems of trail overcrowding: Overcrowding was a big problem because it caused diseases, diseases caused dead bodies all over the trail which made it easier to get diseases like typhus, measles, scarlet fever, diphtheria, mountain fever (ticks), dysentery, cholera, and small pox.

The great trek of the Mormon pioneers: They were planning on building a train but didn’t start until 1846 and finished in 1869, Mormons first took to the road in the Cape in the 1830s, only about six years after the founder of the religion, Joseph Smith, had published his Book Of Mormon. The first Mormon missionaries were so successful that by 1852 they had persuaded a hundred people at the Cape to join the new Salt Lake City settlement. A schooner was chartered, and these South African converts departed for America. The Great Trek occurred in the mid 1830s when Boers living in the British controlled Cape Colony protested against, among other things, the abolition of slavery. They packed up their belongings in ox wagons and 'trekked' into the southern interior of Africa to form the 2 Boers.