westward migration
Pioneering push sunsetward
Westward migration refers to the movement of people toward the west, most often the 19th-century expansion of American settlers across the continent toward the Pacific.
The term evokes covered wagons, the Oregon Trail, and displacement of Native peoples.
It applies more broadly to any large-scale population shift in a westerly direction: the westward migration of European tribes in antiquity.
- Oregon TrailEmigrant route westward
- oxenCastrated male cattle
- settlersThose who establish homes
- Great PlainsCentral North American grassland
- wide open spacesExpansive uncluttered landscapes
wagon train · wagon wheel · Manifest Destiny · pioneers · Homestead Act · Gold Rush · Santa Fe Trail · covered wagon · Mississippi River · Louisiana Purchase · land rush · prairie schooner · Brigham Young · Donner Party · frontier life · Rocky Mountains · Appalachian Mountains · American West
- Westward ExpansionOregon Trail, Lewis and Clark, covered wagons, pioneers, frontier
- Mormon HistoryJoseph Smith, Brigham Young, Book of Mormon, pioneers, Mormon Trail
- Old Westcowboy, cowboys, cowgirl, sheriff, sheriffs
westward migrationstaying put
Remaining in place
rootedness · settlement · permanence · immobility · entrenchment
westward migrationretreat
Sanctuary or withdrawal
withdrawal · contraction · retrenchment · consolidation · depopulation