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American pioneers, were White Americans, Hispanic/Latino American, Asian Americans, and African American who had marched on westward from the British Thirteen Colonies and later the United States, to settle and develop areas of the nation within the continent of North America. Others migrated east from Asia or north from Latin America.
The pioneer concept and ethos greatly predate the settlement of the Western United States, with which they are commonly associated, and many places now considered "East" were settled by pioneers from even further east. For example, Daniel Boone, a key figure in U.S. history, settled in Kentucky, when that "Dark and Bloody Ground" was still undeveloped.
One important development in the Western settlement were the Homestead Acts, which provided formal legislation for settlers which regulated the settlement process with little to no concern for the existing inhabitants of the land. Pioneers also settled on land that was once inhabited by American Indian tribes.
After the United States was officially formed upon the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, federal coordination and legislation began to give settlement a more unified approach.
The Land Ordinance of 1785 was the first official action by the federal government in deciding how political organization of new territories would be handled. Then in 1787 the Northwest Ordinance declared that states could not individually claim new lands, and that westward expansion would be handled by the federal government. In implementing the Land Act of 1804, the government took its first steps towards legislating the manner in which land would be individually claimed by and distributed to settlers.
One federal effort to encourage western travel and settlement was the publication of The Prairie Traveler in 1859, three years before the Homestead Act was passed. Randolph B. Marcy, Captain of the U.S. Army, was commissioned by the War Department to provide a guide for those moving west. It provided not only mileage and stopping points during travel, but also gave advice about what to take on the journey, how to interact with Native Americans and also how to respond to threatening situations such as encounters with bears.The Prairie Traveler by Randolph B. MacyThe Prairie Traveler, Randolph B. Macy
There were many other forms of this process, such as land runs including the Land Run of 1889, when parts of the territory of Oklahoma were first made available to settlers on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Pioneers in the East often had to clear the land, owing to lush forests there. In the Midwest, the task was to bring agricultural fertility to the Great Plains.
Some pioneers moved westward with the intent of claiming land for their families. Others, such as Animal trapping, moved west for commercial reasons, and then remained there when their businesses proved to be profitable.
Various figures in American folklore and literature typify the pioneer. The Deerslayer was the most successful of an early series, the Leatherstocking Tales, about pioneer life in New York. Little House on the Prairie, a century later, typified a later series of novels describing a pioneer family. Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett are two real-life icons of pioneer history.
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> 161 photographs of frontier geography and personalities; these are pre-1923 and out of copyright
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