B. Former southern slaveholders seeking land and new financial opportunities is the correct answer.
Explanation:
After the civil war westward migration in the US accelerated. People migrated in search of quick profits during the gold and silver rushes. Women also migrated with their families. Most of the men who migrated were single and dependent on services, they worked in the mining industry and the women in saloons, boarding houses, and shops. Other migrated to extract the hides of great bison. During those days bison were common in plains and their hides provided the raw material for clothing factories, it led to a decline of bison from millions to few hundred by the 1880s, with the expansion of railroads bison hunting was replaced with animal ranching on American grasslands. Once slavery was outlawed southern slaveholders also migrated towards the west in search of new opportunities.
