Manifest Destiny & Exploration
This term described the belief that the United States was meant to spread across North America.
What is Manifest Destiny?
Settlers moved to this region because they hoped for cheap land, farming opportunities, and a better future.
What are the Great Plains?
This law, signed during Andrew Jackson’s presidency, led to the forced movement of Native nations from the Southeast.
What was the Indian Removal Act?
These women helped families survive by cooking, sewing, farming, caring for children, and building communities in the West.
Who were pioneer women?
American settlers in Texas rebelled against this country.
What is Mexico?
President Jefferson sent these two men to explore the Louisiana Territory.
Who were Lewis and Clark?
These were two major natural obstacles settlers faced in the West: harsh weather and this lack of an important resource.
What is water?
This tragic forced journey was suffered especially by the Cherokee after removal from their homelands.
What was the Trail of Tears?
This western territory granted women suffrage in 1869.
What is Wyoming?
This famous battle became a symbol of the Texas fight for independence.
What was the Alamo?
One major goal of the Lewis and Clark Expedition was to find a practical route to this ocean.
What is the Pacific Ocean?
Rivers were important because they provided transportation, irrigation, and this basic necessity for life.
What is water for people, animals, and crops?
The U.S. government often promised Native American nations land and protection through these formal agreements, but later broke them.
What are treaties?
These large land grants shaped wealth and power in Mexican territories.
What was the land-grant system?
After Texas was annexed by the United States, conflict grew with Mexico over this issue.
What was the border dispute?
This Shoshone woman helped Lewis and Clark as a guide, translator, and symbol of peace.
Who was Sacagawea?
This new form of transportation encouraged settlement by carrying people and goods farther west.
What were the railroads?
Andrew Jackson supported removal even after the Supreme Court challenged state actions against this Native nation.
Who were the Cherokee?
Mexican settlements often included these three kinds of communities established during Spanish and Mexican rule.
What are missions, pueblos, and ranchos/presidios?
This treaty ended the Mexican-American War and gave a huge amount of land to the United States.
What is the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo?
This 1803 land deal nearly doubled the size of the United States and made westward exploration more important.
What was the Louisiana Purchase?
Farming the Great Plains was difficult because of droughts, tough soil, isolation, and this type of dangerous weather.
What are blizzards, prairie fires, or severe storms?
Studying westward expansion from multiple perspectives matters because it shows both opportunity for settlers and this for Native peoples.
What is loss of land, forced removal, suffering, or injustice?
One important difference between Mexico and the United States was that Mexico had more strongly opposed this institution.
What is slavery?
As a result of the Mexican-American War, the United States gained lands that include present-day California, Nevada, Utah, and parts of these other states.
What are Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming?