today on the daily bellringer we're taking a look at the Oregon Trail
hello welcome to the day of the bellringer please don't forget to subscribe and take a look at the
questions down in the description and as always I'd love to see your answer to question number
five in the comments below so today the Oregon Trail and I promise we're going to survive this
episode without dying from dysentery now if you didn't get that reference that means you're not
as old as me or you're not a fan of retro 1980s or early 90s videogames but if you're interested
actually I do have a link down in the description to a online site where you could play the Oregon
Trail video the Oregon Trail really in the early to mid 1840s this became a big thing thousands
of Americans began to you know basically get Oregon fever that they wanted to move west and
they're really prompted by several things if you think about course we have Lewis and Clark
who had explored that whole Louisiana territory that was beginning to pull people to the west
we had manifest destiny and of course you know if you wanna see more map manifest destiny check out
my other video talking about manifest destiny which was pulling Americans to the west but
then also we had an economic depression the panic of 1837 that basically made a lot of people see
that there wasn't a lot of opportunity for them where they were at and so they wanted to move
west to create a new life alright now the first journey West I guess you would say or the guy
who really at first establishes this trail is a guy named Marcus Whitman he was a Protestant
missionary who basically was convinced he could convert Native Americans to Christianity in the
West and so in 1835 he begins to go west and he follows this pathway all the way to the Rocky
Mountains but he turns back the following year he tries the trip again in 1836 with a small
group with with women and children with him and he actually makes it across the Rocky Mountains
all the way to Fort Vancouver Washington and what his party did was basically prove that you could
make this trip even though it was dangerous it could be made with a family so the next big move
of Americans to the West takes place with the emigration of 1843 this was a one big group of
a hundred and twenty wagons over a thousand people thousands of heads of livestock that
began to journey West heading from Missouri to Oregon and really once they made it to Oregon this
really opened up the floodgates to more pioneers following behind them and following the trail so
Americans began to organize societies or clubs to gather information and start planning this huge
trip and also Americans began to save money for these wagons these covered wagons that we think
of today that come stow go wagons or you know the the Prairie schooners where you want to call them
basically kind of like the RV or mobile home of the West that basically you have everything
that you needed in this wagon the wagon cost somewhere around two hundred fifty dollars in
1840s money horse today that would be closer to seventy five hundred dollars so this was a pretty
big investment of course people would be selling their home selling all their belongings to start
gathering the materials they need it but these wagons they could carry up to six tons usually
pulled by six horses or oxen and every like I said everything was in this wagon it was the
you know the mobile home or RV of the of this journey most settlers started the journey from
Independence Missouri and they tried to depart somewhere in April or May because if they left
in April or May they knew that they could make the entire journey before winter really set in
because you do not want to get caught out west and the Rocky Mountains or the Sierra Nevada
mountains in the winter and I might make another video about what happens if you get caught there
because there were some settlers that got caught but before leaving they would have to get enough
food together for a five to six month 2,000 mile journey and you got to think about that that's on
foot that's not driving or anything I mean they could maybe average close to maybe 10 or 15 miles
a day and so this is a very very difficult journey so the journey had several different routes but
most pioneers would cross the Great Plains to Fort Kearney which is in present-day Nebraska
from there they would then follow the Platte River for over six hundred miles until they reached Fort
Laramie which is in Wyoming the next big landmark was Independence Rock where a lot of settlers
would carve their names onto this rock and it kind of marked the halfway point that you needed
and the reason they called it Independence Rock was because it was expected that you reach this
before July 4th otherwise you weren't gonna make the journey before winter set in so independence
Rock was a big landmark from there they would then start crossing the Rocky Mountains and then they
would find the Colombian River and follow that and then to Oregon City so the entire route basically
went from Independence Missouri all the way to Oregon City now it's estimated that one in ten
settlers died on the journey because again you know you're out in the middle of nowhere if you
get any kind of illness like cholera dysentery you get hurt anything like that there's not
really anybody around that could help you now the the trail did have several different branches I
mean yes the main trail went to Oregon but there were trails that would lead into Washington and
then ones that leave into California and it's estimated that over 400,000 Americans made the
trip heading west but as more and more Americans headed west of course little towns a little supply
post would popped up along the way making the journey much safer but by the late 1800s of
course we had the Transcontinental Railroad that is built and basically with the building of the
railroads that basically eliminated the need for the trail itself so again hopefully you
learn something there don't forget to answer question number five in the comments below and
don't forget to check out the link to play the Oregon Trail game online ok thanks for watching
you