Key Events
The 1803 land acquisition that doubled the size of the United States, purchased from France for $15 million
What is The Louisiana Purchase?
The U.S. president from 1845 to 1849 who oversaw the annexation of Texas, the Oregon Treaty, and the Mexican-American War.
Who is President James K. Polk?
This belief justified the right of Americans to expand westward, claiming it was their divine mission to spread democracy and civilization.
What is Manifest Destiny?
The annexation of Texas, California, and other western territories reignited fierce debates over this contentious issue
What is slavery?
This infamous forced migration of Native Americans in the 1830s, primarily affecting the Cherokee, saw thousands relocated to present-day Oklahoma.
What is the Trail of Tears?
The 1845 incorporation of this territory into the United States, which had declared its independence from Mexico in 1836. What is this event?
What is the Texas Annexation?
Known as the "Father of Texas," he led American settlers into Mexican-controlled Texas and played a key role in the region's push for independence.
Who is Stephen F. Austin?
The desire for new farmland to grow crops like cotton and wheat drove settlers westward, especially after the depletion of soil in the East.
What is the Need for Arable Land?
The discovery of this precious metal in 1848 spurred a massive migration westward, changing the demographics of California forever?
What is gold?
Signed into law by President Andrew Jackson in 1830, this act authorized the forced relocation of Native American tribes to lands west of the Mississippi River.
What is the Indian Removal Act?
Which primary document "brought an end to the Oregon boundary dispute by settling competing American and British claims to the Oregon Country, which had been jointly occupied by both Britain and the U.S. since the Treaty of 1818."
What is the Oregon Treaty?
Source: https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=3&psid=3930
The influential senator and statesman who opposed Manifest Destiny, fearing its expansion would exacerbate tensions over slavery and disrupt national unity.
Who is Henry Clay?
The U.S. government's desire to gain access to the Pacific Coast for trade with Asia contributed to this westward expansion.
What is the Pursuit of Economic Opportunity?
Which famous 'compromise' stated, “And be it further enacted. That in all that territory ceded by France to the United States, under the name of Louisiana, which lies north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north latitude, not included within the limits of the state, contemplated by this act, slavery and involuntary servitude, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the parties shall have been duly convicted, shall be, and is hereby, forever prohibited”
What is the Missouri Comprimise?
As settlers moved westward during Manifest Destiny, these areas were established by the U.S. government to confine Native American tribes, often on land far from their ancestral territories.
What are Indian Reservations?
The 1846–1848 conflict that resulted in the U.S. acquiring over 500,000 square miles of territory, including California and much of the Southwest.
What is The Mexican American War?
The journalist who coined the term "Manifest Destiny," advocating for the U.S. expansion across the North American continent as a divine right.
Who is John L. O’Sullivan?
This early 19th-century period of technological progress, including the steamboat and railroad, made westward migration faster and more feasible.
What is the Transportation Revolution?
This 1854 act allowed settlers in two new territories to decide the issue of slavery by popular sovereignty, effectively repealing the Missouri Compromise and escalating tensions between North and South.
What is the Kansas-Nebraska Act?
Which famous Native American leader stated the following in 1810, "The white people have no right to take the land from the Indians, because they had it first; it is theirs. They may sell, but all must join. Any sale not made by all is not valid."
The 1854 land acquisition in which the United States purchased parts of present-day southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico from Mexico for $10 million.
Gadsden Purchase
Who said the following about which land acquisition to the legislature of Tennessee in 1803 “The acquisition of Louisiana … by giving the exclusive navigation of the Mississippi, it avoids the burthens & sufferings of a war, which conflicting interests on that river would inevitably have produced, at no distant period. it opens too a fertile region for the future establishment of their [descendants] in the progress of that multiplication so rapidly taking place in all parts.”
Which famous document stated, “We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety.”
What is the Monroe Doctrine?
The concept of Manifest Destiny fueled this ideology that American culture and government were superior and should be spread across the continent.
What is American Exceptionalism?
This 1794 battle, a decisive victory for General "Mad Anthony" Wayne, led to the Treaty of Greenville and opened the Northwest Territory to American settlement, marking the end of major Native American resistance in the region.
What is The Battle of Fallen Timbers?