[5][6] The term West was applied to the region in British America and in the early years of the United States, when the colonial territories had not extended far from the Atlantic coast and the Pacific seaboard was generally unknown.

The Winnebagos and Menominees used both hunting methods interchangeably and built up widespread trade networks extending as far west as the Rockies, north to the Great Lakes, south to the Gulf of Mexico, and east to the Atlantic Ocean.

These included the Arikara, Hidatsa, Iowa, Kaw (or Kansa), Kitsai, Mandan, Missouria, Nez Perce, Omaha, Osage, Otoe, Pawnee, Ponca, Quapaw, Santee, Wichita, and Yankton.

[30] Major aspects of the middle ground include blended culture, the fur trade, Native alliances with both the French and British, conflicts and treaties with the United States both during the Revolutionary War and after,[31][32] and its ultimate clearing/erasure throughout the nineteenth century.

The French period began with the exploration of the Saint Lawrence River by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with their cessation of the majority of their holdings in North America to the Kingdom of Great Britain in the Treaty of Paris (1763).

They confirmed that it was easy to travel from the St. Lawrence River through the Great Lakes all the way to the Gulf of Mexico by water, that the native peoples who lived along the route were generally friendly, and that the natural resources of the lands in between were extraordinary.

Jacksonian Democrats such as Thomas Hart Benton wanted the support of poor farmers, who reproduced rapidly, had little cash, and were eager to acquire cheap land in the West.

Democrats avoided words like "squatter" and regarded "actual settlers" as those who gained title to land, settled on it, and then improved upon it by building a house, clearing the ground, and planting crops.

The party opposed the expansion of slavery and stressed the Protestant ideals of thrift, a hard work ethic, self-reliance, democratic decision making, and religious tolerance.

Regarding themselves as the elect and just in a world rife with sin, air, and corruption, they felt a strong moral obligation to define and enforce standards of community and personal behavior....This pietistic worldview was substantially shared by British, Scandinavian, Swiss, English-Canadian and Dutch Reformed immigrants, as well as by German Protestants and many of the Forty-Eighters.

Southern and eastern European immigrants generally leaned more toward the Germanic view of things, while modernization, industrialization, and urbanization modified nearly everyone's sense of individual economic responsibility and put a premium on organization, political involvement, and education.

Development of the region was halted until 1795 by Spain's control of the southern part of the Mississippi and its refusal to allow the shipment of American crops down the river and into the Atlantic Ocean.

In 1848, The Illinois and Michigan Canal breached the continental divide spanning the Chicago Portage and linking the waters of the Great Lakes with those of the Mississippi Valley and the Gulf of Mexico.

[92] The growth of the auto industry was reflected by changes in businesses throughout the Midwest and nation, with the development of garages to service vehicles and gas stations, as well as factories for parts and tires.

The regional southern boundary was the Ohio River, the border of freedom and slavery in American history and literature (see Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe and Beloved by Toni Morrison).

[95] The region was shaped by the relative absence of slavery (except for Missouri), pioneer settlement, education in one-room free public schools, democratic notions brought by American Revolutionary War veterans, Protestant faiths and experimentation, and agricultural wealth transported on the Ohio River riverboats, flatboats, canal boats, and railroads.

Western railroads, with large land grants available to attract farmers, set up agencies in Hamburg and other German cities, promising cheap transportation, and sales of farmland on easy terms.

Leftwing rural politics continued in the 20th century in the Dakotas and Minnesota with the Farmer-Labor party[118] The second Ku Klux Klan experienced a short surge in the Midwest in the early 1920s, fueled by anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic fears.

However, the hundreds of Indiana Klan chapters collapsed overnight due to a scandal involving the kidnapping and rape and death of a young woman by its state leader.

[120] Midwestern mayors—especially Hazen S. Pingree and Tom L. Johnson, led early reforms against boss-dominated municipal politics, while Samuel M. Jones advocated public ownership of local utilities.

According to Brian Page and Richard Walker:[122] The sequence of settlement that helped define the subregions of the Midwest was roughly as follows:1800-20, from Pittsburgh down the Ohio Valley to St. Louis at the junction of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers; 1820-40, the southern Great Lakes shores, from northern Ohio to Milwaukee; 1840-60, infill of the Prairie heartland across to eastern Iowa and southern Minnesota;post-Civil War, the penetration of the northern woodlands and eastern plains from the central Midwest.The vast central area of the U.S., into Canada, is a landscape of low, flat to rolling terrain in the Interior Plains, ideal for farming and growing food.

In particular, the following areas exhibit a high degree of topographical variety: the eastern Midwest near the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains; the Great Lakes Basin; the heavily glaciated uplands of the North Shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota, part of the ruggedly volcanic Canadian Shield; the Ozark Mountains of southern Missouri; and the deeply eroded Driftless Area of southwest Wisconsin, southeast Minnesota, northeast Iowa, and northwest Illinois.

[124] Proceeding westward, the Appalachian Plateau topography gradually gives way to gently rolling hills, and then (in central Ohio) to flat lands converted principally to farms and urban areas.

[156] The region's fertile soil combined with the steel plow has made it possible for farmers to produce abundant harvests of grain and cereal crops, including corn, wheat, soybeans, oats, and barley, to become known today as the nation's "breadbasket".

This problem was solved in 1837 by an Illinois blacksmith named John Deere who developed a steel moldboard plow that was stronger and cut the roots, making the fertile soils of the prairie ready for farming.

[182] Euchre, a trick-taking card game, remains popular in the Midwest and parts of the Upper South, particularly in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania.

Notable soul and R&B musicians associated with Motown that had their origins in the area include Aretha Franklin, the Supremes, Mary Wells, Four Tops, the Jackson 5, Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, Stevie Wonder, the Marvelettes, the Temptations, and Martha and the Vandellas.

[209][210] In addition to intra-American regional overlaps, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan has historically had strong cultural ties to Canada, partly as a result of early settlement by French Canadians.

The Iowa caucuses in early January of leap years are the first votes in the presidential nominating process for both major parties, and attract enormous media attention.

[214] Between 1988 and 2012, Iowa also voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in all elections except 2004 (backing George W. Bush by less than 1%), but in 2016 and 2020 Donald Trump won the state by about 9 and 8 percentage points, respectively.