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Northwest Ordinance of 1787
A law passed in 1787 to regulate the settlement of the Northwest Territory, which eventually was divided into several states of the Middle West. -
Louisiana Purchase
Was a land deal between the United States and France, in which the U.S. acquired approximately 827,000 square miles of land west of the Mississippi River for $15 million. -
Lewis and Clark Expedition
A journey made by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson, to explore the American Northwest, newly purchased from France, and some territories beyond. -
War of 1812
A war between Britain and the United States, fought between 1812 and 1815. The War of 1812 has also been called the second American war for independence. -
Purchase of Florida from Spain
Was a treaty between the United States and Spain in 1819 that ceded Florida to the U.S. and defined the boundary between the U.S. and New Spain. -
Missouri Compromise
A settlement of a dispute between slave and free states, contained in several laws passed during 1820 and 1821. -
Erie Canal
An artificial waterway built across New York state in the early nineteenth century, linking Lake Erie and the Hudson River. -
Indian Removal Act
Was passed by Congress on May 28, 1830, during the presidency of Andrew Jackson. The law authorized the president to negotiate with southern Indian tribes for their removal to federal territory west of the Mississippi River in exchange for their ancestral homelands. -
Trail of Tears
The Cherokee nation was forced to give up its lands east of the Mississippi River and to migrate to an area in present-day Oklahoma. -
Annexation of Texas
was the 1845 incorporation of the Republic of Texas into the United States of America. -
Mormon Movement
Is the collection of independent church groups that trace their origins to a Christian primitivist movement founded by Joseph Smith in the late 1820s. -
Oregon Territory
This was an ongoing dispute until the Treaty of 1846, which set the boundary at the 49th parallel, where it is today. -
California Gold Rush
Was a period in American history which began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. -
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
Officially entitled the Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Limits and Settlement between the United States of America and the Mexican Republic, is the peace treaty signed on February 2, 1848, in the Villa de Guadalupe Hidalgo -
Gadsden Purchase
Was an agreement between the United States and Mexico, finalized in 1854, in which the United States agreed to pay Mexico $10 million for a 29,670 square mile portion of Mexico that later became part of Arizona and New Mexico. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
It allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. -
Homestead Act
Encouraged Western migration by providing settlers 160 acres of public land. -
Transcontinental Railroad
It was the project of two railroad companies: the Union Pacific built from the east, and the Central Pacific built from the west. The two lines met in Utah. -
The Dawes Act
Adopted by Congress in 1887, authorized the President of the United States to survey American Indian tribal land and divide it into allotments for individual Indians. -
Spanish-American War
A war between Spain and the United States, fought in 1898. The war began as an intervention by the United States on behalf of Cuba.
