"An account of several families and individuals making the long and often dangerous trek across the United States from Missouri to the West Coast in the 1800s"--
From the creators of Voices from the Oregon Trail and Colonial Voices, an unflinching story of two young runaway slaves on the Underground Railroad, told in their voices and those who helped and hindered them It's the 1850s and enslaved siblings Jeb and Mattie are about the make a break for freedom. The pair travel north from Maryland to New Bedford, Massachusetts along the Underground Railroad. Each spread tells about a step of their journey through a poem in the first person perspective. The main and repeating voices are Jeb and Mattie, but we also hear from the stationmasters and conductors, those who offer them haven, as well as those who want to capture them. Like its predecessors in the Voices series, this richly researched and beautifully illustrated picture book brings a difficult chapter of American history to life for young readers.
A major one-volume history of the Oregon Trail from its earliest beginnings to the present, by a prize-winning historian of the American West. Starting with an overview of Oregon Country in the early 1800s, a vast area then the object of international rivalry among Spain, Britain, Russia, and the United States, David Dary gives us the whole sweeping story of those who came to explore, to exploit, and, finally, to settle there. Using diaries, journals, company and expedition reports, and newspaper accounts, David Dary takes us inside the experience of the continuing waves of people who traveled the Oregon Trail or took its cutoffs to Utah, Nevada, Montana, Idaho, and California. He introduces us to the fur traders who set up the first “forts” as centers to ply their trade; the missionaries bent on converting the Indians to Christianity; the mountain men and voyageurs who settled down at last in the fertile Willamette Valley; the farmers and their families propelled west by economic bad times in the East; and, of course, the gold-seekers, Pony Express riders, journalists, artists, and entrepreneurs who all added their unique presence to the land they traversed. We meet well-known figures–John Jacob Astor, Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, John Frémont, the Donners, and Red Cloud, among others–as well as dozens of little-known men, women, and children who jotted down what they were seeing and feeling in journals, letters, or perhaps even on a rock or a gravestone. Throughout, Dary keeps us informed of developments in the East and their influence on events in the West, among them the building of the transcontinental railroad and the efforts of the far western settlements to become U.S. territories and eventually states. Above all, The Oregon Trail offers a panoramic look at the romance, colorful stories, hardships, and joys of the pioneers who made up this tremendous and historic migration.
Meet Ranger! He's a time-traveling golden retriever who has a nose for trouble . . . and always saves the day! Ranger has been trained as a search-and-rescue dog, but can't officially pass the test because he's always getting distracted by squirrels during exercises. One day, he finds a mysterious first aid kit in the garden and is transported to the year 1850, where he meets a young boy named Sam Abbott. Sam's family is migrating west on the Oregon Trail, and soon after Ranger arrives he helps the boy save his little sister. Ranger thinks his job is done, but the Oregon Trail can be dangerous, and the Abbotts need Ranger's help more than they realize!
This book relays the factual details of the Oregon Trail and the United States' westward expansion in the 1800s. The narrative provides multiple accounts of the event, and readers learn details through the point of view of a pioneer, a Native American in a territory crossed by the trail, and a U.S. soldier at a government outpost. The text offers opportunities to compare and contrast various perspectives in the text while gathering and analyzing information about an historical event.