People's Rights

	Gold prospectors

Reasons for westward expansion

• Religious Freedom: the second factor that attracted people to travel the long and difficult Oregon Trail to the Oregon Country.
• Good, free farmland
• Natural resources: One example of people moving west for the natural resources is the California Gold Rush. The Gold Rush was a time when people from many different places heard about gold being discovered and then moved to that place to get the gold.

New opportunities

• Mormons: one example of a group that moved into the frontier west for religious freedom.
• "Go west young man": Horace Greeley's advice to individuals who were looking for an opportunity to improve their economic situation. Horace Greeley was a New York newspaper editor. He wrote the article in 1846 and many people took his advice and moved west to make a better life.
• Land and natural resources: two things available to the settlers that helped solve their economic problems. Land was inexpensive and often free. Natural resources such as precious metals and animals used for the fur trade were available.
• Two economic factors that influenced settlers to move west: 1) plentiful and inexpensive land in the west and 2) problems in the East.