North America's Western Frontier

The United States and Canada have actively encouraged their citizens to populate their western frontier. The Homestead Act of 1862 in the United States and the Dominions Land Act of 1872 in Canada provided settlers with land in exchange for cultivating and population of these territories. The governments completed the transcontinental railroad lines to increase western access. Gold booms of California (1849) and British Columbia (1858), and Canada's liberal immigration policies also fostered westward migration and territorial expansion (see Figures 4.6 and 4.7 for maps of British Columbia and California).

Large numbers of immigrants from Western, Southern, and Eastern Europe joined these groups in search of good agricultural land and resources.