Many people were responsible for the westward expansion of the United States. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were among the first Americans to explore and precisely map the western territories. During their expeditions they were aided by a Shoshone woman named Sacagawea and her French-Canadian husband Toussaint Charbonneau, during which they served as translators. Their expedition helped thousands of settlers move west. Jorge Donor was a settler who was migrating west with a group of settlers (known as the Donor Party) to settle there. During the expedition Jorge Donor decided to take a shortcut called the Hastings Cutoff to eliminate travel time (ironically this lengthened their journey and caused many tragedies). To survive they began to eat their animals and then turned to cannibalism to survive until they were rescued. The California Gold Rush brought many settlers westward to seek their fortune. The first person to discover gold in California was James Marshall. It was because of his discovery that thousands of people flocked to California. While many promises of wealth were made in the East, not everyone would take to golf. An example of this was Jean Nicholas Furlough who came to California from Belgium to get rich, although he never did. Settings The expansion of the West occurred in many places west of the Mississippi. One of the most important scenarios was the Louisiana Purchase which was purchased in 1803, the 828,000 square miles of land nearly doubled the size of the U......middle of paper......and settled in the 'west in the end, some of them had to move due to new lands, minerals and ultimately to expand the territory of the United States. Many things have been done to colonize and colonize the West, such as wars, treaties, and good old fashioned exploring the land to colonize it. There were many costs to the westward expansion of the United States, including 20,000 settlers who died due to hardship during settlement, 13,283 soldiers killed during the U.S.-Mexico War, and hundreds of millions of dollars wasted on wars, treaties and land sales. On the optimistic side, there have been many benefits from US expansion. During this period the United States doubled its size, GDP, and population. The United States also earned the respect of other countries and gained more trading partners. There were many effects that westward expansion had on U.S. culture.