To the Europeans, the West was a wilderness filled with boundless treasure, souls to be saved and new horizons to explore. Beginning with America's purchase of the Louisiana Territory in 1804, a young country prepared its march across the West.
During 1806-1848, hopeful Americans begin moving west in significant numbers. The disparate trails soon merge into a single path as Americans make the West their own.
From 1848 to 1856, the rush westward accelerated into a frenzy with the famed Gold Rush. It began when James Marshal discovered gold in California. In the next year alone 50,000 fortune seekers swarmed into the Sierra Nevada.
During the years 1856 to 1868, the western frontier supplied the sparks that ignited the Civil War. Abolitionists fought for free soil in Kansas and a brave Mexican-American rancher declared his own republic in southern Texas.
After the Civil War, the transcontinental railroad links East and West, and carries homesteaders, buffalo hunters, and cowboys into the west.
By 1877 only a few groups still resist America's westward push. The Lakota Sioux fight to protect their sacred Black Hills, but their victory over Custer at Little Big Horn does not prevent the end of their traditional way of life.
Stephen Ives
Director
Ken Burns
Producer
Jody Abramson
Michael Kantor
