Westward migration and agricultural improvement so widespread in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries- Planters wanted more freedom and hoped to prosper by growing cotton and hemp, which were in great demand.
From the late 18th to the mid-nineteenth centuries, the United States expanded steadily westward. Most of the Native American peoples who had lived in those lands for thousands of years prior to the arrival of European colonists were displaced by this territorial movement.
Mining opportunities and the gold rush (silver in Nevada) The chance to work in the cattle industry as a "cowboy" The railroad facilitated faster travel to the West and increased supply availability.
