what kind of difficulties did pioneers who traveled overland trails to the west face
Westward Expansion Trails Early emigrants once called the California Trail an elephant, due to the difficult journey. If you wanted to get to California in pre-railroad times, you were guaranteed an arduous trek. California emigrants faced the greatest challenges of all the pioneer emigrants of the mid-19th century. In addition to the Rockies, these emigrants faced the barren deserts of Nevada and the imposing Sierra Nevada Range. The travelers of the California Trail often quipped that if you had "seen the elephant," then you had hit some hard traveling.
Trail of Tears The Trail of Tears was a series of forced removals of Native American nations from their ancestral homelands in the Southeastern United States to an area west of the Mississippi River that had been designated as Indian Territory. The forced relocations were carried out by various government authorities following the passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830. The relocated people suffered from exposure, disease, and starvation while en route, and more than four thousand died before reaching their various destinations. The removal included members of the Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations. The phrase "Trail of Tears" originated from a description of the removal of the Cherokee Nation in 1838.[1][2][3]