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Western Expansion
of giving them work. If freedmen were given land in the west, they could have started a successful life farming while providing our country with the supplies they needed. Some form of an act or agreement would have done this idea justice, and granted the freedmen land in the west, as long as they cultivated it. This method would have solved an economic as well as a social dilemma in the nation.
Some may believe that other methods should have been enacted in setting up the western frontier, but by further examination they appear inferior to agriculture. Mining did not inhabit the same areas as farming, so essentially it could have been initiated before it, but it would not have provided the nation with the food that was needed. Ranching and allowing cattle to roam free across the fertile lands would have been wasting the resources and, overall, prosperous harvesting. Allowing the Native Americans to spread themselves out across the expansive land also would be a waste, because of the potential for minerals and farming that the Natives did not have the technology to take advantage of. Ultimately, farming was the best way to begin to settle the western frontier.
The western frontier had the potential to become something beneficial and prosperous to the United States. If managed more carefully and logically, the west could have produced even more that it did during that time period. By giving railroads the initial opportunity, the U.S. failed to take advantage of the raw power it had, in the form of the West. Farmers and their agricultural agenda should have had the precedence in setting up the western frontier