Westward Expansion

The Westward expansion began for the United States with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. For $15 million dollars, President Thomas Jefferson purchased from France 828,000 square miles, including most of 14 current states, thus doubling the size of America. Jefferson now had the land, but how to populate it was another story. On a three year expedition, Lewis and Clark were sent by Jefferson to explore the lands to get a better understanding of the geography and resources of the West. During the 1830s to 1840s, to promote further territory expansion, the “manifest destiny” came into play – which was the idea that America was destined to expand across the entire country westward. Quickly, the nation expanded.

In the mid-1800s, many Americans began to move westward, with a variety of motivations. Farmers were drawn west by all of the fertile, open land in the west, offered to them cheap by the Homestead Act. The California Gold Rush was another reason many moved west. Gold was discovered in California, and miners flocked there, hoping to strike it rich. Additionally, cattle ranchers were attracted to the west because their beef cattle thrived on the abundant grasses and open range of the Great Plains. Later on, newly built railroads, including the first transcontinental railroad, made transportation of people and goods west much more feasible, and opened the West to rapid settlement (History Alive). Although Westward Expansion was a time of full

The U.S. government encouraged westward expansion through the Louisiana Purchase and the Homestead Act. President Thomas Jefferson acted on the Louisiana Purchase, after buying the land from France for millions of dollars, he also believed in the idea of moving west and thought of it as a

land of the United States of America. Western expansion was a great part of the growth of the

Ever since Jamestown, America has come a long way. In the middle of the nineteenth century American’s were eager to move west. They wanted to see the span of the United States from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. Jefferson was able to double the size of the United States by negotiating with France, which ended up being known as the Louisiana Purchase. Americans saw empty land waiting to be filled. They thought the open land meant opportunity and potential wealth. By moving west, they could share their unique way of government and the freedom it represented. They believed that America would be a great nation.

Westward expansion was a time of successes and failures, a time celebrations and grief, a time full of life and death but in the end it shaped how America is the way is today. Westward expansion was put in action because of the belief of Manifest Destiny, the belief that it is America fate to expand from the Atlantic to Pacific ocean. The economical, political and humanitarians impacts were necessary to achieve the goal of manifest Destiny and Westward Expansion.

America’s westward expansion really affected the lives of the Native Americans in several ways. Since Americans were wanting land for farming, ranching, and mining, it took away the Native Americans land for hunting and gathering. In general, this dramatically changed the face of American history.

The story of the United States has always been one of westward expansion, beginning along the East Coast and continuing, often by leaps and bounds, until it reached the Pacific, what Theodore Roosevelt described as "the great leap westward." The acquisition of Hawaii and Alaska, though not usually included in discussions of Americans expanding their nation westward, continued the practices established under the principle of Manifest Destiny. Even before the American colonies won their independence from Britain in the Revolutionary War, settlers were migrating westward into what are now the states of Kentucky and Tennessee, as well as parts of the Ohio Valley and the Deep South. Westward expansion was greatly aided in the early 19th century in the year of 1803 by the Louisiana Purchase , which was followed by the Corps of Discovery Expedition that is generally called the Lewis and Clark Expedition; the War of 1812, which secured existing U.S. boundaries and defeated native tribes of the Old Northwest, the region of the Ohio and Upper Mississippi valleys, and the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which forcibly moved virtually all Indians from the Southeast to the present states of Arkansas and Oklahoma, a journey known as the Trail of Tears. In 1845, a journalist by the name of John O’Sullivan created the term "Manifest Destiny," a belief that Americans and American institutions are morally superior and therefore Americans are morally obligated to spread those institutions in order to free people in the Western Hemisphere from European monarchies and to uplift "less civilized" societies, such as the Native American tribes and the people of Mexico. The Monroe Doctrine, adopted in 1823, was the closest America ever came to making Manifest Destiny official policy; it put European nations on notice that the U.S. would defend other nations of the Western Hemisphere from further colonization. The debate over whether the U.S. would continue slavery and expand the area in which it existed or abolish it altogether became increasingly contentious throughout the first half of the 19th century. When the Dred Scott case prevented Congress from passing laws prohibiting slavery and the Kansas-Nebraska act gave citizens of new

Westward expansion is one of the major historical changes in the world. Prior the expansion, the U.S had bordered Allegheny Mountains (Westward), St. Lawrence (North) and the Atlantic Ocean to the south during

As the population of the West soared and the prospects of statehood for western territories appeared clearer and clearer, the nation battled over the future of slavery in the West. This battle was one reason for the Civil War, which slowed the acceleration of expansion. However, the last three decades of the nineteenth century saw the return of accelerating expansion due to the successful struggle to contain the Plains Indians in reservations, and the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869. By the

Westward expansion was a new thing and time in our country and had many impacts on the American people and ways of life. The government made it available to buy a lot more of land in the West. Our government gave opportunities for people to move west for a better life or more land in the west. The government gave opportunities like the homestead act where the government would give families 160 acres of land if they moved west at the time this deal was going on. This act was signed into law by President Lincoln in 1862. People moved west for any opportunity they could. People moved for a new life, more land, and more opportunities in

How do you see progress, as a process that is beneficial or in contrast, that it´s a hurtful process that everyone at one point of their lives has to pass through it? At the time, progress was beneficial for the United States, but those benefits came with a cost, such cost that instead of advancements and developments being advantageous factors for humanity, it also became a harmful process in which numerous people were affected in many facets of life. This all means that progress is awsome to achieve, but when achieved, people have to realize the process they had to do to achieve it, which was stepping on other people to get there.

In the book, “There is No True History of the Westward Expansion,” Robert Morgan claims that history is not just made up of a few heroes and villains, and that average citizens are to be responsible for Westward Expansion. He gives his reasonings and beliefs as to why he claims what he believes.

During the westward expansion many important events happened. The Pony express was one of them it was a mail delivery system. Another very important event was the Transcontinental railroad, it was the first train track ever made! Both of these events were very hard to accomplish but we did accomplish them so that was good.

Late in the nineteenth century the Western Expansion had an impact on the growth on American society and the economy but what benefits and challenges were associated with this development? The Westward Expansion had numerous reimbursements but it also came with a number of challenges to be faced, with the burst in technological advances, wealth, transportation, monopolies, the decline of family owned farms and removing Native Americans from their sacred lands. Wealth and power drove Americans to go westward and take part in the American dream. The Gold Rush in California increased the population in the West drastically; the Gold Rush was the discovery of gold in California, specifically Sacramento in the year 1848. The Homestead Act also encouraged folks to travel west but it had its limitations, the Homestead Act supplied terrain to colonists as long as they would enhance the land in some sort of way and this interested a lot of family owned farm businesses to venture out West and rebuild on a new-fangled landscape; what eventually ended up happening to these farmers was devastating, most fell victim to a lifetime of debt that would never be paid off. The limitations set on the Homestead Act was that you had to be over the age of twenty one and planned on becoming a resident, other than that all you had to do was come and claim your land. Traveling west was risky due to the diseases, weather conditions, sickness, and geological changes, a bunch people died due to the harsh