Pioneer Life by Luc

As thousands animal drawn wagons raced there way west others were just settling down on the prairies, or building shelter in the enormous rocky mountains. No Pioneer lived easy lives, but every pioneer was ready to brave the elements.

Of course there had to be reasons to move west. You would be leaving everything you owned behind and often there were fatalities, and you would be leading a entirely new life. There were many reasons, like the most popular, gold. People would go crazy for gold, they would brave the rocky mountains, or they would go to california to hope to win it big. There were also people who were fleeing to the west for religious freedom. There were even sometimes escaped slaves that fled west knowing that if they went North they would be caught. Some of the earliest people who went west were mountain men and fur traders , they would just live off of the land and not having to worry about all the expenses of being in the crowded city. Lastly, there were cattle ranchers who were looking for big, good, and cheap land to raise their cattle.

The hardest part of being a pioneer was the wagon trip no doubt. The trip would take about four to eight months to complete on a regular basis, many pioneers would give up and go home, but the devoted would stay and make it the whole way to the west. To make sure that you could make it to the west you would have to have a wagon. The standard wagon could hold up to five tons in supplies, that would come in handy if you were going the whole way to the pacific Ocean.





This is the inside of a covered wagon in the 1700- the 1800.

Once you started out on your way west you would start to drain your supplies. Sometimes Indians would tax you for coming into their lands, this often resulted in going to bed hungry because of shortage of supplies. Though, sometimes that wasn’t the case, some Indian tribes would trade with the settlers to make their trip west easer. They would trade food for clothing, and clothes for food. The pioneer children would make friends with the Indian children, and sometimes the pioneer children would fight their parents to stay. Part of this reason was that some young children did not know why they were coming along on west.

Some of the most common deaths were diseases. Probably the most common death was cholera, you get this disease when you drink polluted water. So many people died from this disease and other diseases the major pioneer routes had ten graves per mile. Speaking of graves when pioneers died there families or friends would have to bury them on the side of the road without proper burial rites. Pioneers would hide the graves, and put heavy rocks on top of the grave so native americans did not find them and take the clothes, animals would also find the body’s and eat them. To prevent this pioneers would make a bonfire over the grave and then they would run over the site with their wagon multiple times so it looked like the dirt had only seen the underside of the wagons wheels.

At last the journey to the west was over and people could settle down in there log cabins in the mountains, or the sod houses on the prairies. Though when I say they settled down I didn't mean that they would lead easy lives, with the dust bowls, the grasshopper plagues and the freezing cold winters pioneers never had easy lives. Children on the prairies would sometimes have to do chores that mean life or death for the families. They would plow fields, milk cows, tend the livestock, and help around the house. Up in the mountains some kids would help mine for gold, but that was very rare, normally they would chop firewood and they would help around the house and cook meals.

When you went to school in the west you would probably be in a single house school with kids that were five years younger than you. Since many people were poor, they only had a few chalkboards and they normally cleaned them with water or spit. When you wanted a drink in school hours you would have to go outside to a pail that collected rain water.

No matter where you were, where you came from, and no matter how rich you were the pioneers rarely lived easy lives. The pioneers would have to brave the frigid winters, they would have to deal with the numerous grasshopper plagues, and they would have to not breath in the disgusting dust in the dust bowls. Pioneers rarely ever lived easy lives.