The Wonderful West

America’s expansion of the west can be seen in many different lights, one of the fearlessness of its early colonizers, one of hard work and determination, or one of pain and suffering, one of failure and of slaughter. No matter how you view this time in history one thing remains true, America we know today wouldn’t exist without these people’s actions. We can never fully understand any event in history, we can examine the facts and evidence and understand why it could have happened but to gain the best knowledge about history we need to take historical perspectives. Taking a historical perspective is not an easy task, we must try to fully immerse ourselves in the past, think about the environment surrounding them, and about the emotions they may be feeling at that time. Other things to consider when taking a historical perspective is the culture surrounding them and the social aspects of that time period. To fully immerse ourselves in the history of colonization of the west we must understand why these American people would move to such a dangerous environment. By placing ourselves into their shoes we can see several reasons for their actions. America at this time was handing our free farmland in the west, this brought the promise of more freedom from the city and a chance to start a new life, which could appeal to anyone. The idea of free land offered up the idea of forging a better life for their family and for their future descendants. In addition to free land came the promise of success, stories of families living wonderful lives polluted the media and government giving people a false idea of how difficult this life would actually be. Photographs pictured happy families, thriving livestock, and peaceful wilderness just waiting to be inhabited. Emotionally these people were hopeful. They looked at these images, ones of success, and saw that for themselves driving them to live a new life that promised hope for generations. When one considers these factors we can see how the west was colonized even though it was extremely dangerous.