Territorial Expansion
In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson purchased this territory from France for $15 million, doubling the size of the United States overnight.
The Louisiana Purchase
This term, meaning "obvious fate," was coined by journalist John O'Sullivan in 1845 to describe the belief that God wanted America to expand from coast to coast.
Manifest Destiny
1830, President Andrew Jackson signed this law authorizing the forced removal of Native Americans from the Southeast to "Indian Territory" in present-day Oklahoma.
Indian Removal Act
Eli Whitney invented this machine in 1793, which cleaned cotton 50 times faster than by hand and made slavery highly profitable, causing the enslaved population to grow from 700,000 to 4 million by 1860.
the cotton gin
These people benefited most from territorial expansion by receiving cheap or free land through the Homestead Act and gaining access to resources like gold in California.
white settlers
In 1845, the United States annexed this independent republic, which had broken away from Mexico in 1836, adding 389,000 square miles to US territory.
The Republic of Texas
This 1872 painting by John Gast shows a floating woman in white bringing light, telegraphs, and railroads westward while Native Americans and buffalo flee into darkness.
"American Progress"
1838-1839, about 16,000 members of this "civilized" tribe were forcibly marched 1,200 miles from Georgia to Oklahoma, with 4,000 dying along the way on the journey they called "The Trail Where They Cried".
Completed in 1869, this technological achievement connected the East Coast to the West Coast, brought thousands of settlers westward, and divided buffalo herds that Native Americans depended on for survival.
Transcontinental Railroad
When the Louisiana Purchase opened new territories, these people wanted to expand into them to grow more cotton using enslaved labor, making them extremely wealthy.
plantation owners
This 1846-1848 war began after a border dispute and ended with Mexico losing half its territory to the United States.
What is the Mexican-American War?
Manifest Destiny supporters believed white Americans were bringing these three things to the "wild" West: Christianity, "civilization", and this type of advancement represented by farms, railroads, and telegraphs.
progress/technology/development
1862, this law gave 160 acres of western land to settlers for nearly free, but the land wasn't empty - it belonged to Plains tribes like the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Comanche.
Homestead Act
These are the three types of expansion that reinforced each other from 1800-1860: gaining more territory, developing inventions like the cotton gin and railroads, and expanding cotton production and slavery westward.
Land/Technology/Economic expansion
This nation lost approximately half of its territory (525,000 square miles) to the United States after losing the Mexican-American War in 1848.
Mexico
The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo forced Mexico to cede this 525,000 square-mile region, which includes present-day California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico.
the Mexican Cession
Many Americans who believed in Manifest Destiny thought this racial idea: that white people were superior to Native Americans and Mexicans and had a duty to "civilize" them.
racial superiority
This devastating 1887 law broke up tribal lands into individual 160-acre plots and sold "leftover" land to white settlers, causing Native Americans to lose 90 million acres and destroying tribal governments.
the Dawes Act
By 1860, cotton made up 60% of US exports and was frown primarily using this labor system, which expanded into Louisiana Purchase territories, Texas, and other western lands.
slavery
Between 1800 and 1890, this group of people lost approximately 90% of their land, were forced onto reservations, had their children taken to boarding schools, and saw their buffalo-based way of life destroyed.
Native Americans
In 1846, the United States negotiated with Britain to acquire this 286,000 square mile territory, which included present-day Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and parts of Montana and Wyoming.
Supporters of Manifest Destiny claimed expansion was this - meaning it would happen no matter what, like gravity or the tide, removing moral responsibility for violence and displacement.
inevitable (or unstoppable)
At these institutions, Native American children were forcibly taken from families, forbidden to speak their languages, forced to cut their hair and wear Western clothes under the motto "Kill the Indian, Save the Man."
boarding schools/Indian boarding schools
The Louisiana Purchase, Mexican Cession, and other territorial gains created this repeated political crisis: whether new territories would enter the Union as free states or slave states, leading to compromises in 1820, 1850, and 1854.
the debate over the expansion of slavery
On December 29, 1890, US troops killed 300 Lakota people - mostly women, children, and elders - at this site in South Dakota, which historians call the "end of the Indian Wars" and is considered a massacre rather than a battle.
Wounded Knee