No one said…
our good-byes would be so difficult and have to last forever.
our journey crossing the Atlantic would be so long.
trains rides lasting days would take us across vast America
so many hardships and crisis could be experienced on the plains.
prairie grasses waved in the wind and beauty was found as far as the eyes could see.
the family would flourish and great bounty be realized.
the snows ran deep and a pioneer Christmas could be so perfect.
how important owning land would be for Papa.
…But I did and I am.
Plague of Locusts
Life for the immigrant on the prairie was fraught with dangers beyond the understanding of the new arrivals. They were often mislead by pamphlets extolling the glories of life on the Great Plains. These broadsides or advertisements were sent all over Europe. Ocean liner companies could be just as misleading. No mention was made about the role of Mother Nature on their lives. There could be severe flooding in the spring followed by extreme droughts in the hot summers and then followed by wildfires caused by lightning. Blizzards could blanket the prairies for weeks at a time making it hard on the livestock and crops. The freaks of nature, tornados, created havoc as well.
The one danger no one knew about was what insects, specifically grasshoppers, could do. One such event occurred in 1874 from the Dakotas all of the way to Texas. They arrived as a black cloud looking like a much needed rain storm. They left nothing green anywhere when they finally evacuated an area. Farmers lost everything. Sadly, there were places where the insects returned for many years costing famers and states vast amounts of money.
To read more about this phenomenon check out some of these sites:
Trans-Atlantic Travel
The 1870’s marked a time of great European immigration to the United States. It was the gradual end of Western European immigration and the beginning of Eastern European migration to America. Many of the newcomers entered and headed straight to the heartland to claim homesteads for themselves and even tended to settle in similar ethnic groups. This afforded them the opportunity to keep their culture and values intent. These immigrants cherished education and brought these beliefs with them. Affordable travel and recruiting by the ocean liner companies made America attractive to people who could not own land in Europe.
Not all Americans accepted these foreigners as well as they had in the past. Part of this was due to different religious and cultural practices. On the whole these were simply land hungry farmers, and they would settle the Midwest and Great Plains leaving their mark everywhere.
Resources abound with information about ocean travel, immigration, assimilation, and pioneer lives. The following are just a few about ocean travel:
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ocean_linerwww.bing.com/images/search?q=german+immigrants
The journey to America was endured by immigrants from Europe because they wanted to own land. Land was made available by a law passed during Abraham Lincoln’s administration. Possession of land was given to the eldest son throughout the world; unless other sons wanted to work for the oldest brother, they had to make a living in another way.
The Homestead Act of 1862 required a citizen to file an application for the land. Next, improvements needed to be made, and these included a 12x14 dwelling. Crops had to be produced for five years on 160 acres. Then the homesteader could file for a title deed at the land office showing proof he had complied with the provisions of the act. Another frequently used method was to live on the land for six months, make a few improvements and then pay the government $1.25 per acre. This was attractive to new as well as native-born Americans and helped to get the land west of the Mississippi populated.
For further information check out the following websites:
No comments:
Post a Comment