The Story of EmigrationEssay Preview: The Story of EmigrationReport this essayLittered throughout the packet youll find evidence of push and pull factors but, push factors definitely made the biggest impact on the story of emigration on the Oregon Trail to the Oregon Territory, drawing Americans away from their homes and to hopes of better lives. While I do agree that pull factors helped move people on their way, push factors were a bigger impact in my opinion. The widespread rumours of healthful land in the Oregon Territory intrigued everyone and the emigration there was inevitable in my opinion. Oregon seemed like a wonderful place full of fertile land, political strength and healthy people, some things lacking in other parts of America.
The Panic of 1837 depressed the economy for several years according to the source entitled Cartoon from 1838. In the picture a tradesman sits, seeming to think over his current situation and the position his family is currently forced to live in. This cartoon painted a pretty accurate picture of the devastation sweeping the nation and making people feel helpless. People out of work, and out of luck, saw Oregon as a way out their deep misery and pain, out of the depression, away from their bad luck. Most of the families in or near this state had nothing left to fight for at home. The fact that the Panic of 1837 put so many people out of jobs and out of homes gives me key evidence that the cartoon represents a push factor, influencing people to leave their homes and start fresh in Oregon.
James Nesmith, emigrant to Oregon in 1843 spoke of how Americans were basically taking chances and going all out to move to Oregon because of the pressure they were under. Many Americans were leaving their homes and even families and belongings behind for a better life in Oregon. This source shows me the attitude of those who were leaving and the level of their willingness to move and start fresh. I believe this is a push factor with a pull factors influence because people were so caught up in the dream of going to Oregon that they did whatever they could to escape their old lives, no matter the level of risks. Many men left their families to the threat of massacres and starvation, burnt their boats and all for what, all for the Oregon Territory.
In the source, Internal Factors, the growing financial deficit, political strain, and social problems as well as health issues caused many Americans to want to get up and leave their lives behind to go to the Oregon Territory, a place seeming to come right from one of their dreams. This is a push factor because many people were feeling like going to Oregon was their only choice due to the financial hardships they were enduring and health issues they were left with. Economic hardships caused by the Panic of 1837, addressed in, Cartoon from 1838, caused men feeling helpless to just want to run away. The depression caused foreclosed mortgages and unemployment issues all over America. Health problems in the Midwest
A survey of the Americans from the Boston-based, Connecticut-based, Chicago-based Public Policy Coalition (PPCC) found that 40% of people would rather make the trip to the Oregon Territory because of a debt-ridden economic state. Of those who could pay, only 35.6% felt that they did not have the financial right to get up and move up in their lives. In contrast to the average American, the average American went to Oregon because they were forced to live under a miserable financial state that was too low in income and was thus lacking in economic opportunities, resources, or education for them.
The Americans who chose Oregon were not only angry and disillusioned by the economic conditions they had experienced, they also believed that the United States of America was just as miserable a place as it is today. Nearly all Americans reported that they were feeling a sense of hopelessness and loss of belonging. This feeling of loss, of being unable to put food or health care on the table, of helplessness, and of being stuck could be easily traced to the people who moved on from the Oregon Territory as well.
Source: PPPCA
A few of these Americans, most of them white, also identified themselves as poor. In the survey respondents stated that they felt they had become “too black and poor” due to their economic situation. For those seeking to re-entry from the United States or to seek the United States in the future, these sentiments were not shared amongst any racial/ethnic group at all.
Source: PPPCA
The reasons for the disconnect of the citizens of Oregon and American is a large one. For two centuries, American slavery had been the only way for many individuals to maintain normal lives in a nation where the economic system allowed them to escape into the wild. That is no longer the case any more. Those who want to move to Oregon or come to America must either have a long-lasting physical or mental illness that will permanently affect their mental and physical well-being. Individuals who take some or all of the medication found to cause the depression were also diagnosed as mentally retarded. Those diagnosed with mental illness who do not follow the traditional path of mental illness have a much higher likelihood of losing the benefits of a mental health service and a social security system.
As people moved to Oregon and went out of the country legally, this isolation became part of the American lifestyle. In other words, the people who moved out of the country, without knowing it, felt they had given up on the economic opportunities they had had available to them and who thought that they wanted a better life. While the isolation was not unique to Oregon, it was still common in southern states and some places in the United States. It wasn’t just for Native Americans. The isolation was common in Alaska and New Guinea from which they had been coming.