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Immigration and Westward Expansion: Timeline
The timeline of the immigration and experiences of Yohannes Gertz. -
The Start
My name is Viktor Gertz, it was a nice winter in Germany, but the wrongs of other people have finally crossed the line. With my large sums of my debt still piling, the men whom I owe money to, come to collect. Only they find nothing, for I am very poor. With this, My family was taken from me, and my farmland has been destroyed. Because of my debt, my family is gone, and my home destroyed. I plan to start my journey to America tommorow, my yearning for a new start ends, when I arrive to America. -
Christmas Miracle?
During my oceanic voyage, we came across a band of looters, pirates even. They rummage through, and take all of our belongings, not that I had much for them to take, a little money was all I had taken. But as they began to leave, to my dismay, I realized that they were people I knew. The people who wanted my money were the ones who took my family, and land, because I left Germany, they followed me. I must be on higher alert nowadays, danger seems to come around every corner. -
Discrimination
Life here seems unique. It is nothing like Germany. But at the same time I feel at home here, welcome even. But I have begun to notice that the Irish have not been taken too kindly, and there seems to be horrible discrimination against their kind. I feel I must do something about this, but what am I, compared to the millions who already live here? However, I still believe the men from Germany have followed me here, which could mean I would be the next victim of these rude remarks. -
The Homestead Act
Today I learned of the Homestead act. This had brought my spirits up from the brink, that it could ba possibility fo rme to obtain land that I have been searching for. I must somehow get to the west, if I have to get a strenuous job to even move from this area, then so be it. -
Factories, and a Railroad
I have begun to work in small and insignficant factories, at firstt it was for chicken farmers, and then with leather tanners. But soon, I found a new job, one that could possibly give me the opportunity to claim a piece of that treasured land to the west that I so dearly seek. I now plan to apply for a railroad job, but I know it won't be easy, because I am sure that there will be heavy competition. I think that because i am an immigrant, many will underestimate me in claiming farmland. -
Railroad Work takes its Toll
I am aging faster than I could have ever imagined. With all of this work on the railroad, I have found that I'm growing more tired, and that I soon may be of no use to my fellow workers. When I moved here almost 9 years ago, I never would have thought that life would end up like this. I came here to claim land that I wanted to start a new life on, but it seems like that will be a much harder task than I had once thought. -
A Change of Heart...
I've been talking to many other fellow workers. They have the same hopes as me, to work a piece of their own land, we decide that together we would try to find a way to share a piece of land between ourselves. Our boss, at first, scoffed at the idea, as we would normally expect, but today we believe he had a sudden change of heart. "Finish the railroad, and you will be payed, and I will point you in the right direction, if it's land that you men seek." We grew ecstatic, and hugged him. -
We Complete our Railroad
As our boss had said, we were payed, and told us of a piece of land that would be auctioned off by tommorow at sunset. He told us we would need a very good bargaining chip, and that there was no chance we could get it without something that was very precious. I told him that it's our destiny, and that we will find whatever it is the auctioneer seeked, and we certainly couldn't pay for the land, we were saving that money for tools and animals. -
The Auction
We all thought it was hopeless, to find something that would instantly buy the land, but we never let that dwell in our mind, for we had more important things to mull over. Haans, a fellow immigrant has found some silver spoons, and a gold nugget. This would definetly help to buy that land. We decided to fork over some of our pay, which was meager enough. When we arrived to the auction, we found it was a small place, and there were many other immigrants as well. Maybe the odds were in our favor. -
Happy Ending
We had won the land. Not that it wasn't hard however, there was heavy competition, and we ended up forking over the rest of the money we had, better than getting it stolen I suppose. But I did not care whether we poor or not, we had already purchased tools, and animals, the land was already ours. I suppose you could say this was a happy ending. And I suppose in some ways...it is. My troubled past cannot burden me any longer.
