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Excerpt from Commerce of the Prairies: A Selection

Edited by David Freeman Hawke
Originally published in 1844

One thing that pioneers had in common was courage. For years, cautious observers in the East had warned against selling one's belongings, packing a wagon, and heading west. Newspaper editor Horace Greeley called it "palpable suicide" and statesman Daniel Webster warned that the West was a "region of savages and wild beasts."

By the 1840s, however, several events made the West more appealing to settlers: a long economic downturn that lasted from 1837 to 1842 encouraged many to seek their fortune in the West; Congress hinted that it would give land to Oregon settlers; Britain ceded the present-day states of Oregon and Washington to the United States in 1846; and the California gold rush attracted many people. The Great Migration, the name given to the first major...