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Louisiana Purchase
This land origionallly belonged to Spain, Spain sailed to France, and France didn't let the U.S. have New Orleans even when the U.S. needed New Orleans to gain access from the MS River to the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic. T.J. sent Monroe and Livingston to negotiate wth Napoleon Bonaparte because 1)France needed money from war with England, 2)They lost Haiti, so it would be difficult to protect LA territory. The U.S. then paid $15 million for the land which doubled our country size. -
Lewis and Clark Expedition (completed)
In May 1804, this expedition started near St.Louis. It’s goal was to discover information about: 1)geography, 2)people, 3)natural resources. The explorers traveled up the Missouri River traveling through the plains, which are rolling, wide-open grasslands. All the way, they kept diaries and made maps. Lewis and Clark started their return in March 1806 and arrived in St.Louis the following September. -
Erie Canal(OPENING)
***Transportation by steamboat led to a period of canal building.
The most important early canal in America was the Erie Canal
This canal, more than 350 miles long, was built between 1817 and 1825. The canal linked New York City with the Great Lakes -
Indian Removal Act of 1830
President Jackson wanted to open up the land from Georgia to Mississippi for farming. This was passed by Congress, it ordered Indians to give up lands East of Mississippi to trade for land in Oklahoma(=BAD LAND!!). -
Texas Becomes a State
In 1845, Texas joined the United States as the 28th state. The state's invasion caused the Mexican–American War in 1846. -
Mexican War
That year, the mexican army attacked and defeated Texan soldiers at the Alamo, a fort in San Antonio. -
Oregon Territory Part of U.S.
In the James Polk election of 1844, '54 40N' was one campaign slogans. By 1846 there were more Americans in the area so we had to do something. Instead of war we made agreement with Britain. We called it the 49 parallel was the border. This gave us WA, OR, ID, part of MT, and WY. -
Gold Rush
In 1848, GOLD was discovered in California. This led to the start of the Gold Rush. Pioneers nicknamed “forty-niners” struck out for California. Mining towns developed. After a few years, however, gold became hard to find. Mining companies had to blast away earth to get the gold. Miners would have to dig deep down to locate gold ore. The miners’ work was hard, and it could be dangerous. Keeping law and order in mining towns was not always easy. -
Texas Independence
Soon after the Texans lost at the Alamo, Texan troops under Sam Houston, defeated the Mexican forces. -
California Becomes a State
In 1849, Californians seeked to be a state and after an intense debate in the U.S. Congress about the slavery issue, California entered the Union as a free, nonslavery state from the Compromise of 1850. -
Gadsden Purchase
The U.S. paid Mexico an additional $10 million for the Gadsden Purchase, a strip of land along the southern edge of present day Arizona and New Mexico. -
End of Building the Transcontinental Railroad
After 1840, Americans built railroads rather than canals because of the steam locomotive. Railroads were much cheaper to build. Goods could be transported faster by rail than by steamboat. In 1869, soon after the Civil War, the first transcontinental railroad connected the two sides
