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On December 26th, I, Engelbert Schulze, decided to immigrate from my home country of Germany to the United States for many reasons including the deteriorating economy and my criminal records.
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I start my three month journey to America as a steerage passenger on January 26, 1863. My experience on the boat was to say the least, unpleasant. Since I was a steerage passenger, I wasn't important to anyone, the space was way too crowded for the amount of people there, and the whole boat smelled ransid.
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The first thing I see when I get off the ship is the statue of liberty. It stands representing the freedom and independence of America. I was then transported to Ellis Island where the conditions matched those of the ship. The atmosphere was dirty and it was insanely crowded. I also noticed that the inspectors were very harsh on us. I watched countless people before me get sent to the detention room. I then realized that I had to lie about my criminal record just to get accepted into America.
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After months of roaming the streets of New York with little to no food and shelter, I decided that the only way for me to survive was to move west to start a new life and farm my own crops. I had also overheard conversations of free land in the west along with many other pull factors including the gold found in California.
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The group of people or settlers that I was most associated with in the west was, of course, my family. I also met some new men who had gone west in search of the gold discovered in California. (1848) My family and I had many experiences in the west such as a shortage of vital supplies and much illness.
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Another experience that my family and I had in the West was enocuntering Native American from The Plains Indians Tribe.
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My family and I arrived at our destionation in Oklahoma and because of the Homestead Act of 1862 were able to claim our land as our own. I later built a house from scratch and we became hardworking crop producers. If it weren't for the Homestead Act of 1862, my family and I would've never gotten our land and lived the life we wanted.
