Thematic Essay Practice Migration of Peoples

Thematic Essay Practice – Migration of Peoples

US History/Napp Name: ______

From the August 2006New York States Regents/ U.S. History Government

THEMATIC ESSAY QUESTION

Directions: Write a well-organized essay that includes an introduction, several paragraphs addressing the taskbelow, and a conclusion.

Theme: Migration of Peoples

Task:

Some suggestions you might wish to consider include the forced migration of Native American Indians (1800–1880), the westward movement (1840–1890), the migration of African Americans from the South to cities in the North (1900–1929), the Puerto Rican migration to the North after World War II (1945–1960), the westward migration from the Dust Bowl (1930s), suburbanization (1945–present), and the migration to the Sun Belt (1950–present).

Gathering the Facts:

1-The Forced Migration of Native American Indians (1800 – 1880)

“Early in the 19th century, while the rapidly-growing United States expanded into the lower South, white settlers faced what they considered an obstacle.
This area was home to the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chicasaw and Seminole.
These Indian nations, in the view of the settlers and many other white Americans, were standing in the way of progress.
Eager for land to raise cotton, the settlers pressured the federal government to acquire Indian Territory.
From 1814 to 1824, nine out of eleven treaties divested the southern tribes of their eastern lands in exchange for lands in the west.
The tribes agreed to the treaties for strategic reasons.
They wanted to appease the government in the hopes of retaining some of their land, and they wanted to protect themselves from white harassment.
As a result of the treaties, the United States gained control over three-quarters of Alabama and Florida, as well as parts of Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Kentucky and North Carolina.
The Cherokee used legal means in their attempt to safeguard their rights.
They sought protection from land-hungry white settlers, who continually harassed them by stealing their livestock, burning their towns, and squatting on their land.
In 1827 the Cherokee adopted a written constitution declaring themselves to be a sovereign nation.
The state of Georgia, however, did not recognize their sovereign status, but saw them as tenants living on state land.
The Cherokee took their case to the Supreme Court, which ruled against them.
The Cherokee went to the Supreme Court again in 1831.
This time they based their appeal on an 1830 Georgia law which prohibited whites from living on Indian Territory after March 31, 1831, without a license from the state.
The state legislature had written this law to justify removing white missionaries who were helping the Indians resist removal.
The court this time decided in favor of the Cherokee.
The state of Georgia refused to abide by the Court decision, however, and President Jackson refused to enforce the law.
In 1830, just a year after taking office, Jackson pushed a new piece of legislation called the ‘Indian Removal Act’ through both houses of Congress.
It gave the president power to negotiate removal treaties with Indian tribes living east of the Mississippi.
Under these treaties, the Indians were to give up their lands east of the Mississippi in exchange for lands to the west.
For the next 28 years, the United States government struggled to force relocation of the southeastern nations.
The Cherokee, on the other hand, were tricked with an illegitimate treaty.
In 1833, a small faction agreed to sign a removal agreement: the Treaty of New Echota.
The leaders of this group were not the recognized leaders of the Cherokee nation, and over 15,000 Cherokees – led by Chief John Ross – signed a petition in protest.
The Supreme Court ignored their demands and ratified the treaty in 1836.
The Cherokee were given two years to migrate voluntarily, at the end of which time they would be forcibly removed.
By 1838 only 2,000 had migrated; 16,000 remained on their land.
The U.S. government sent in 7,000 troops, who forced the Cherokees into stockades at bayonet point.
They were not allowed time to gather their belongings, and as they left, whites looted their homes.
Then began the march known as the Trail of Tears, in which 4,000 Cherokee people died of cold, hunger, and disease on their way to the western lands.” ~ pbs.org

2-The Westward Movement (1840–1890)

“The boundaries of the United States of America in 1787, at the time of the British Colonies War for Independence, were: the Appalachian Mountains to the west, St. Lawrence to the North, and the Atlantic Ocean to the south and east occupying the eastern part of the North American continent.
To the west there were thousands of miles of open fertile land having forests, mountains, rivers and plains which were inhabited by Indigenous peoples and Spanish Mexicans. The frontier between the settled lands of the east and the lands of the wild-west was pushed further and further westward in two waves as land was bought, explored, and taken over by the United States Government and settled by immigrants from Europe.
The first wave settled land west to the Mississippi River following the Louisiana Purchase. The second wave settled lands west of the Mississippi to California. Farms, mines, railroads, cities and industry sprung up.
Many of these immigrants suffered, or worse, died from thirst in the deserts, Indian raids, or from outlaw violence. Most simply wanted land to farm; others wanted to make a quick fortune in the gold prospects of the West.
In 1803, the United States had made the Louisiana Purchase purchasing many hundred thousands of square miles of land between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains which was claimed by the French. Napoleon, the ruler of France, was fighting wars in Europe and did not care much about America.
So, in order to finance his wars in Europe he agreed to sell the French claim to the land.
Daniel Boone explored the territories of Kentucky and Tennessee west to Missouri.
Under the leadership of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, 48 tough young men set off in the spring of 1804 up the river Missouri into the unknown. Aided by an Indian woman named Sacajawea, they reached the Rocky Mountains in May 1805 and finally the Pacific Ocean in November.
The next great addition of land to the United States came in the 1840s and brought the American flag right up to the Pacific.
Mexico had won her independence from Spain in the 1820s and owned California, Texas and most of the Southwest of the present-day United States.
The Mexican government had enormous problems in its early years. It did not have proper control of its outlying territories and was unable to stop large numbers of North Americans settling in them.
These Americans tried to throw off Mexican control.
Texas broke away in the 1830s and became a member of the Union in 1845. In the following year the United States declared war on Mexico.
By 1847 she had conquered all Mexican territory north of the Rio Grande, including California. At the same time the British government agreed to hand over to the United States most of the Oregon territory which lies north of California. Both countries had claimed it but in the end the British did not think it worth a fight. By 1850 then, the bulk of the 20th century United States was in existence.
In the 1840s it was Oregon above all that attracted settlers. Stories spread of how good the Oregon farming was. Thousands of families caught what was known as 'Oregon fever'. They sold up all their possessions to buy a wagon or 'prairie schooner' to make the long journey from the starting point atindependence, Missouri.
Had they known what the journey was going to be like, probably many would never have started. The first part of the journey was easy, with few Indians to fight and plenty of grass for grazing. Then they entered Indian Territory and often met fierce resistance from the Great Plains Confederation of the Sioux. Lastly they had to cross the mountains. Thousands never reached Oregon.
It was, however, gold rather than land that triggered off the really big movement to the far West in 1849, when gold was discovered in California. The rush to California meant disaster for many who did not prepare for the journey properly. Instead of following the Oregon Trail to its end and then going down the coast, many tried to take a short cut across the Nevada desert. As a result the desert trails were littered with the bones of horses and men. Most of the 80,000 or so ‘Forty-niners’ who reached California did not find gold. They came because of stories of the lucky few who had found gold dust in river and stream beds.” ~ isu.edu

3-The Migration of African Americans from the South to cities in the North (1900–1929)

“In 1910 – nearly 50 years after the Civil War ended – 89 percent of all blacks remained in southern states, and nearly 80 percent of those lived in rural areas.
But between 1915 and 1920, at least 500,000 blacks migrated north.
Some estimates double that number to a million.
Thousands more migrated west.
There were a number of reasons for the exodus.
From 1913 to 1915, falling cotton prices brought on an economic depression across the South.
After prices dropped, boll weevil insects destroyed much of the cotton crop.
In 1915, severe floods destroyed the houses and crops of farmers along the Mississippi River, most of whom were black.
African Americans suffered under ‘Jim Crow’ laws in the South that segregated schools, restaurants, hotels, railroad cars, and even hospitals.
Blacks were effectively kept from voting by laws requiring a literacy test (if you wanted to vote, you had to show you could read) and a poll tax (you had to pay to vote).
Whites were exempted from either test by a ‘grandfather clause’ – if your grandfather voted, you could, too.
Those were some of the factors that pushed African Americans away from the South. There were other factors that pulled migrants to the North.
Northern industries were going through an economic boom, especially as the war in Europe began creating a demand for war goods.
Those industries could no longer rely on new immigrants from Europe to fill the jobs. The war had limited immigration from Europe.
When America got into the war, many young white men (and some young black men) were recruited into the military, leaving their old jobs open.
Salaries were higher in the North. Wages in the South ranged from 50 cents to $2 a day. In the North, workers could make between $2 and $5 a day.
During these years, there were a number of strikes as unions began to organize and demand decent wages. In general, blacks were willing to become ‘replacement workers,’ as the companies called them, or ‘scabs,’ as the unions called them.” ~ Nebraskastudies.org

4-The Puerto Rican migration to the North after World War II (1945–1960)

“Puerto Rican migration was facilitated after 1917 by the granting of US citizenship to all the residents of the Island, which had been acquired from Spain in the War of 1898.
However, the change of legal status which took place in 1917 did not immediately produce a wave of migration from Puerto Rico to the United States.
The large migration of Puerto Ricans to the United States took place after 1945 as a result of economic changes having to do with the transformation of the Island’s economy from a monocultural plantation economy into a platform for export-production in factories.” ~ lehman.edu
“After the end of the Second World War, Puerto Rican migration exploded.
In 1945, there had been 13,000 Puerto Ricans in New York City; in 1946 there were more than 50,000.
Over the next decade, more than 25,000 Puerto Ricans would come to the continental U.S. each year, peaking in 1953, when more than 69,000 came.
By 1955, nearly 700,000 Puerto Ricans had arrived. By the mid-1960s, more than a million had.
The continuing depression in Puerto Rico made many Puerto Ricans eager for a fresh start, and U.S. factory owners and employment agencies had begun recruiting heavily on the island.
In addition, the postwar years saw the return home of thousands of Puerto Rican war veterans, whose service in the U.S. military had shown them the world.
But perhaps the most significant cause was the sudden availability of affordable air travel. After centuries of immigration by boat, the Puerto Rican migration became the first great airborne migration in U.S. history.” ~ loc.gov

5-The Westward Migration from the Dust Bowl (1930s)

“When the drought and dust storms showed no signs of letting up [on the Great Plains], many people abandoned their land.
Others would have stayed but were forced out when they lost their land in bank foreclosures.
In all, one-quarter of the population left, packing everything they owned into their cars and trucks, and headed west toward California.
Although overall three out of four farmers stayed on their land, the mass exodus depleted the population drastically in certain areas.
In the rural area outside Boise City, Oklahoma, the population dropped 40% with 1,642 small farmers and their families pulling up stakes.
The Dust Bowl exodus was the largest migration in American history.
By 1940, 2.5 million people had moved out of the Plains states; of those, 200,000 moved to California.
When they reached the border, they did not receive a warm welcome as described in this 1935 excerpt from Collier’s magazine. “Very erect and primly severe, [a man] addressed the slumped driver of a rolling wreck that screamed from every hinge, bearing and coupling. ‘California’s relief rolls are overcrowded now. No use to come farther,’ he cried. The half-collapsed driver ignored him — merely turned his head to be sure his numerous family was still with him. They were so tightly wedged in, that escape was impossible. ‘There really is nothing for you here,’ the neat trooperish young man went on. ‘Nothing, really nothing.’ And the forlorn man on the moaning car looked at him, dull, emotionless, incredibly weary, and said: ‘So? Well, you ought to see what they got where I come from.’
The Los Angeles police chief went so far as to send 125 policemen to act as bouncers at the state border, turning away ‘undesirables’.
Called ‘the bum brigade’ by the press and the object of a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union, the LAPD posse was recalled only when the use of city funds for this work was questioned.
Arriving in California, the migrants were faced with a life almost as difficult as the one they had left. Many California farms were corporate-owned. They were larger and more modernized that those of the southern plains, and the crops were unfamiliar.
The rolling fields of wheat were replaced by crops of fruit, nuts and vegetables.
Like the Joad family in John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath”, some 40 percent of migrant farmers wound up in the San Joaquin Valley, picking grapes and cotton.
They took up the work of Mexican migrant workers, 120,000 of whom were repatriated during the 1930s.
Life for migrant workers was hard. They were paid by the quantity of fruit and cotton picked with earnings ranging from seventy-five cents to $1.25 a day.
Out of that, they had to pay twenty-five cents a day to rent a tar-paper shack with no floor or plumbing. In larger ranches, they often had to buy their groceries from a high-priced company store.

~ pbs.org

6-Suburbanization (1945–present)

“The years after World War Two saw a massive movement of people into new suburbs.
The growth of suburbs resulted from several historical forces, including the social legacyof the Depression, mass demobilization after the War (and the consequent ‘baby boom’), greater government involvement in housing and development, the massmarketing of the automobile, and a dramatic change in demographics.
As familiesbegan moving from farms and cities into new suburbs, American culture underwent amajor transformation.
Race and class dynamics began to shift; the longer distancebetween home and work generated a highway and housing construction boom; andolder community institutions began to disappear as the family turned inward.” ~ umbc.edu
“Postwar affluence redefined the American Dream. Gone was the poverty borne of the Great Depression, and the years of wartime sacrifice were over.
Automobiles once again rolled off the assembly lines of the Big Three: Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler. The Interstate Highway Act authorized the construction of thousands of miles of high-speed roads that made living farther from work a possibility.
Families that had delayed having additional children for years no longer waited, and the nation enjoyed a postwar baby boom.
Racial fears, affordable housing, and the desire to leave decaying cities were all factors that prompted many white Americans to flee to suburbia. And no individual promoted suburban growth more than William Levitt.
Contracted by the federal government during the war to quickly build housing for military personnel, Levitt applied the techniques of mass production to construction. In 1947, he set out to erect the largest planned-living community in the United States on farmland he had purchased on Long Island, New York. Levitt identified 27 different steps to build a house. Therefore, 27 different teams of builders were hired to construct the homes.
Each house had two bedrooms, one bathroom, and no basement. The kitchen was situated near the back of the house so mothers could keep an eye on their children in the backyard. Within one year, Levitt was building 36 houses per day. His assembly-line approach made the houses extremely affordable. At first, the homes were available only to veterans. Eventually, though, Levittown was open to others as well.” ~ ushistory.org

7-Migration to the Sun Belt (1950–present)