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How did geography help and hinder westward expansion?

Document #1

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Based on this document, what is one way rivers influenced the settlement and exploration of the United States?

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Document #2

. . . The James, Potomac, Delaware, Hudson, and Connecticut Rivers became the principal lines of penetration (access, of going through)… Always the rivers were the spearheads of penetration. Traders and explorers crossed the mountain barriers to the west and learned of the headwaters of the Ohio; the Dutch and later the English followed the Hudson to and above Albany; the New Englanders advanced rapidly into the Connecticut Valley…

Source: Herman R. Friis, “A Series of Population Maps of the Colonies and the United States, 1625–1790,” Geographical Review, July 1940 (adapted)

Based on this document, what is one way rivers influenced the settlement and exploration of the United States?

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Document #3

. . . Other problems faced by wagoners [Americans moving west with wagons] included howling wind, battering hail and electrical storms, lack of sufficient grass for the oxen (cow or bull), and wagon breakdowns. The forty waterless miles across the hot, shimmering desert between the Humboldt Sink and the Truckee River in Nevada exacted its toll of thirst on men and oxen. Rugged mountains of Idaho, Oregon, and Washington debilitated [weakened] men and animals. On the California branch loomed the Sierra Nevada, a formidable barrier of sheer granite. So high and perpendicular towered these granite walls, that wagons had to be dismantled and hoisted by rope, piece by piece, over precipices seven thousand feet above sea level. On some wagon trains, supplies ran low or became exhausted… The great westward adventure was not for the weak, the timid (the fearful), the infirm (the sick). One emigrant graphically recorded a small incident along the trail:

On the stormy, rainy nights in the vast (big) open prairies (grasslands) without shelter or cover, the deep rolling or loud crashing thunder, the vivid (powerful/ strong) and almost continuous flashes of lightning, and howling (loud) winds, the pelting (attacking) rain, and the barking of coyotes, all combined to produce a feeling of loneliness and littleness impossible to describe. . .

Source: H. Wilbur Hoffman, Sagas of Old Western Travel and Transport, Howell North Publishers, 1980

According to H. Wilbur Hoffman, what are two examples of how geography negatively affected the westward movement of settlers?

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Document #4

The Rocky Mountains include at least 100 separate ranges, which are generally divided into four broad groupings: the Canadian Rockies and Northern Rockies of Montana and northeastern Idaho; the Middle Rockies of Wyoming, Utah, and southeastern Idaho; the Southern Rockies, mainly in Colorado and New Mexico; and the Colorado Plateau in the Four Corners region of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. These four subdivisions… share the physical attributes of high elevations (many peaks exceeding 13,000 feet [4,000 meters])…

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How did geography affect the westward movement of settlers?

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Document #5

The Cumberland Gap, which measures 1,304 feet in altitude, is Nature’s passage through the Cumberland Mountains between Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia. One of three natural breaks in the rugged Appalachian Mountain range, it served as a gateway in prehistoric times, when Native Americans used it as a footpath and buffalo used it to seek greener pastures.

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How did the Cumberland Gap affect the westward movement of settlers?

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