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How did our country expand to its current size? 2. Based on what you know about manifest destiny and the context of the time and place, do you think westward ...
Typology: Schemes and Mind Maps
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Label : Appalachian Mountains, Mississippi R., The Great Plains, The Rio Grande, the Gila R., & the Rocky Mountains
The Original 13 Colonies
Stretching from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian border, the enormous Louisiana territory was “settled” by the French in the early 18th century. In 1802, France stopped allowing U.S. merchants to use the city of New Orleans, an important commercial city located at the base of the Mississippi River, to ship their goods. President Thomas Jefferson was extremely concerned about this and sent an ambassador to negotiate a deal to purchase a small amount of territory, even as small as the eastern half of New Orleans. But France was on the brink of war with Britain, and having trouble controlling a slave uprising on the island of Haiti. They needed money, and they were worried about having to protect such a vast territory from Britain. They offered the U.S. all 830,000,000 square miles of the territory to the U.S. for a mere $15,000,000. This single transaction, made in 1803, doubled the size of the United States for about 4 cents per acre! * Perspective check: Did France have the right to sell the land?
The first Europeans to settle in Oregon country were Spanish, French, and English. By the early 1800s Britain and the United States agreed to “joint occupation,” meaning that both British and Americans could settle there. Soon the Americans largely outnumbered the British, and many Americans were anxious to secure the territory, especially president James Polk. Britain agreed to negotiate, and the territory was eventually split at the 49th parallel, the current boundary between the U.S. and Canada (which at that time was British territory). The acquisition of the Oregon territory spanned from the Pacific Ocean to the Rocky Mountains and included what is now Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and parts of Montana and Wyoming. Beaver pelts
Almost immediately after the U.S. annexed Texas, a dispute over the boundary between the U.S. and Mexico began. American troops were ordered to march to the Rio Grande, even though they knew it was contested territory. When fighting broke out near Matmoros, Mexico the American army launched an all-out war. In 1848 the treaty of Guadalupe Hidlalgo officially ended the war. Included in the terms of the treaty the United states purchased almost half of Mexico’s territory. The treaty also stated that Mexicans who remained in the state would be permitted to become U. S. citizens, and that they would be allowed to keep their property. However, the treaty was never fully honored. Mexican- Americans were stripped of nearly 20 million acres of their land by American business- men, ranchers and railroad companies, as well as by the U.S. Department of the Interior and Depart- ment of Agriculture.
