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Manifest Destiny
In 1840 nearly 7 million Americans lived in the trans-Appalachian west. Many of these people left their homes in search for economic opportunity, in 1845 a Journalist named John O'Sullivan put a name to the idea. Westward migration was an essential part of the republican project, he argued it was Americans "Manifest Destiny" to carry the "great experiment of Liberty" to the edge of the continent to "overspread and to possess the whole of the land which Providence has given us" O'Sullivan wrote. -
The Louisiana Purchase
On April 30th 1803 the United States purchased 827,000 square miles of land west of the Mississippi River from France for 15 million. Each acre was less than 3 cents. this purchase doubled the size of the U.S which greatly strengthened the country, martially and strategically, provided a powerful impulse to the West Ward expansion. -
The Indian Civilization Act
This fund paid white missionaries and church leaders to partner with the federal government to make schools in "Indian territories" to teach Native children the Euro-American ways and tribal practices replaced with Christian practices. The years following the U.S systematically removed the tribes from their homelands to land west of the Mississippi River which they aimed at achieving "the great work of regenerating the Indian race" -
Underground Railroad
The underground railroad started at the place of the enslavement. The routes followed natural and man-made modes of transportation- rivers, canals, bays, Atlantic Coast, ferries and River crossings, road and trails. As research continues new routes are discovered. The routes helped many African Americans who used these routes to escape their enslavement. The people who worked for the Underground Railroad had a passion for justice and drive to end the practice of slavery. They risked their lives. -
Fugitive Slave Act
Law enforcers were required to arrest people suspecting of escaping enslavement on something as little as a claim. The Commissioner when they bring in the suspected slave, they get $10 if they are a fugitive, but only $5 if they aren't. If a person was aiding a fugitive by providing any help was subject to six months imprisonment and a $1,000 fine. -
Bleeding Kansas
The violent war going from 1855-1859. The war was between the sides of anti-slavery and pro-slavery forces, which significantly shaped American politics and contributed to the Civil War. Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska act which formally organized the territory west of Missouri and Iowa and opened it to settlers. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
in 1854 a Senator named Stephen Douglas of Illinois presented a bill that was destined to be one of the most consequential pieces of legislation in our national history. this bill was made to "organize the Territory of Nebraska" an area covering the present-day States of Kansas, Nebraska, Montana, and the Dakotas. Contemporaries called it "the Nebraska bill". Today, we know it as the Kansas-Nebraska Act. -
Dredscott VS Sandford Case
In 1846 an enslaved African American named Dred Scott and his wife, Harriet, used for their freedom. They claimed that they were free due to their residence in a free territory where slavery was prohibited. Soon enough the case caught the attention of the Supreme Court, the case grew attention which soon came to be an enormous political implications fro the entire nation