How Did the U s Again the Western Territory

West Expansion summary: The story of the U.s.a. has always been one of westward expansion, beginning along the Eastward Coast and continuing, oftentimes by leaps and bounds, until it reached the Pacific—what Theodore Roosevelt described every bit "the great leap Due west." The acquisition of Hawaii and Alaska, though non usually included in discussions of Americans expanding their nation westward, continued the practices established under the principle of Manifest Destiny.

Even earlier the American colonies won their independence from Britain in the Revolutionary War, settlers were migrating westward into what are at present us of Kentucky and Tennessee, as well every bit parts of the Ohio Valley and the Deep South. Westward expansion was profoundly aided in the early 19th century by the Louisiana Purchase (1803), which was followed by the Corps of Discovery Expedition that is generally called the Lewis and Clark Trek;  the War of 1812, which secured existing U.South. 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 named John O'Sullivan coined 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 costless 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; information technology put European nations on notice that the U.S. would defend other nations of the Western Hemisphere from farther colonization.

The debate over whether the U.S. would continue slavery and expand the area in which it existed or abolish information technology altogether became increasingly contentious throughout the outset half of the 19th century. When the Dred Scott instance prevented Congress from passing laws prohibiting slavery and the Kansas-Nebraska act gave citizens of new states the correct to decide for themselves whether their state would be free or slaveholding, a moving ridge of settlers rushed to populate the Kansas-Nebraska Territory in order to make their position—pro- or anti-slavery—the dominant one when states were carved out of that territory.

The slavery debate intensified after the Republic of Texas was annexed and new lands caused as a result of the Mexican War and an agreement with United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland that gave the U.Southward. sole possession of a portion of the Oregon Territory. The question was just settled by the American Civil State of war and the passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution prohibiting slavery.

When gilt was discovered in California, caused through the treaty that ended the war with United mexican states in 1848, waves of treasure seekers poured into the area. The California Aureate Rush was a major factor in expansion west of the Mississippi.

That due west expansion was greatly aided past the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869, and passage of the Homestead Act in 1862. That act provided complimentary 160-acre lots in the unsettled Westward to anyone who would file a merits, alive on the land for five years and make improvements to it, including edifice a dwelling.

From the Louisiana Buy of 1803 through the migration that resulted from the Transcontinental Railroad and the Homestead Human activity, Americans engaged in what Theodore Roosevelt termed "the Slap-up Leap Westward." In less than a century, westward expansion stretched the United States from a scattering of states along the Eastern Seaboard all the way to the Pacific. The acquisition of Hawaii and Alaska in the mid-19th century assured westward expansion would keep into the 20th century.

The great losers in this westward wave were the Native American tribes. Displaced as new settlers moved in, they lost their traditional way of life and were relegated to reservations. Nonetheless, w expansion provided the United States with vast natural resources and ports along the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf coasts for expanding trade, primal elements in creating the superpower America is today.

Timeline of Westward Expansion

Manifest Destiny

Manifest Destiny, a term coined by journalist John O'Sullivan in 1845, was a driving force in 19th century America's western expansion—the era of U.South. territorial expansion is sometimes called the Age of Manifest Destiny. It was the notion that Americans and the institutions of the U.S. are morally superior and therefore Americans are morally obligated to spread those institutions in club to free people from the perceived tyranny of the European monarchies.

Those beliefs had their origins in the Puritan settlements of New England and the idea that the New World was a new first, a chance to right problems in European regime and society—a chance to become things correct. Thomas Paine'due south 1776 pamphlet, Common Sense, echoed these sentiments in arguing for immediate revolution for independence: "We have every opportunity and every encouragement before us, to form the noblest, purest constitution on the face of the earth. We have information technology in our ability to brainstorm the earth over once again."

Manifest Destiny establish its greatest support among Democrats, particularly in the northeastern states, where Democratic newspapers preached a utopian dream of spreading American philosophies through nonviolent, noncoercive ways. The Whig Party stood in opposition, in part considering Whigs feared a growing America would bring with information technology a spread of slavery. In the case of the Oregon Territory of the Pacific Northwest, for instance, Whigs hoped to run into an independent commonwealth friendly to the United States only not a function of it, much like the Commonwealth of Texas but without slavery. Democrats wanted that region, which was shared with United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland, to get role and parcel of the The states.

Citizens of the Midwestern states were more inclined to active acquisition of territory, rather than relying on noncoercive persuasion. As the century wore on, the S came to view Manifest Destiny every bit an opportunity to secure more territory for the creation of additional slaveholding states in Central America and the Caribbean area.

Although Manifest Destiny's proponents envisioned the apply of nonviolent means to achieve their goals, in do America'southward westward expansion was profoundly hastened by a war with Mexico and the tearing suppression of the native tribes of the West. Information technology besides nearly resulted in war with Peachy Britain over the Oregon Territory. Learn more than about Manifest Destiny.

Louisiana Purchase

In 1803, during President Thomas Jefferson'due south administration, the U.S. purchased the Louisiana Territory from France for 50 one thousand thousand francs and the cancellation of debts totaling about 18 million francs. This purchase more than than doubled the surface area of the U.S., removed France entirely from Northward America, and secured access to New Orleans and transport along the Mississippi River.

France'south Louisiana Territory stretched from New Orleans and the Gulf of United mexican states northward through the plains into what is today role of Canada, and from the Mississippi River due west to the Rocky Mountains—encompassing all or part of 15 states and two Canadian provinces. To secure New Orleans and the trade road to the western territories, Thomas Jefferson sent envoys to purchase New Orleans from France, authorizing them to pay upwards to $10 million. Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte offered them the entire territory for $15 1000000.

The constitutionality of the purchase was questioned by many members of the U.S. House of Representatives and even past Jefferson himself, but the security and economic benefits of acquiring the territory won out, and the treaty was ratified on October 20, 1803. Learn more than almost the Louisiana Purchase

The Corps of Discovery Expedition (Lewis and Clark Trek)

In late 1802, Jefferson asked his private secretary and military counselor, U.S. Army captain Merriweather Lewis, to program an trek through the Louisiana Territory to survey its natural resources, expect for "the nearly direct & practicable water communication across this continent," and explore the Pacific Northwest in club to discover and claim it before Europeans could. Following the purchase of the Louisiana Territory, finalized in October 1803, Jefferson expanded the mission of the Corps: they would also plant friendly, diplomatic contact with equally many of the Native American tribes as possible.

In June 1803, Lewis selected William Clark to be joint commander of the trek, which would be a corps in the U.Southward. Army created solely for the expedition. Over the adjacent twelvemonth, they assembled the Corps of Discovery, a 32-man mixed group of soldiers, skilled civilians, and Lewis' slave York. Forth the mode they were joined and aided by a French trader named Toussaint Charboneau and his Shoshone wife, Sacagawea, who gave birth to her get-go child—named Jean Baptise—on Feb 11, 1805, just before they departed with the Corps of Discovery on Apr seven.

After a two and half yr journey—the first transcontinental trek—the Corps of Discovery arrived back in St. Louis on September 23, 1806. They had achieved their objectives, except for the discovery of a Northwest passage via water to the Pacific, although the road that they took became part of the Oregon Trail. Their journey helped open the American west to further exploration and settlement, providing valuable geographical and diplomatic data, giving the U.Southward. a foothold in the region's fur merchandise and making contact with more than than 72 Native American tribes. Their scientific data alone provided great advances, including the discovery of 178 new plants and 122 previously unknown species and subspecies of animals. Learn more near the Lewis And Clark Expedition

The War of 1812

The War of 1812 is sometimes called the second war for independence in the U.S. since information technology was fought against British colonial Canada, which centrolineal Tecumseh, the Shawnee leader of a confederation of native tribes. The Americans initially saw themselves both as defenders of their own state and as liberators of the Canadian settlers, only after the outset handful of battles fought on the Canadian border in Michigan and near Niagara Falls, it became clear that the Canadians did not want to exist "liberated." Instead, the war unified the Canadians and is viewed with great patriotic pride to this solar day.

The war lasted for three years and was fought on three fronts: the lower Canadian Frontier forth the Great Lakes, along the border with Upper Canada—now Quebec—and along the Atlantic Declension. Although both countries invaded each other, borders at the cease of the war remained the same. At that place was no clear victor, although both the U.S. and Britain would claim victory. Learn more than about the War Of 1812

The War of 1812 did have a articulate loser, notwithstanding: the native tribes. Tecumseh's confederation was profoundly weakened when he was killed on October 5, 1813, at the Battle of the Thames. The confederation completely dissolved at the end of the war when the British retreated back into Canada, breaking their promises to help the tribes defend their lands confronting U.S. settlement. Prior to the war, many settlers in Ohio, the Indiana Territory, and the Illinois Territory had been threatened by Indian raids; post-obit the war, the tribes were either restricted to always-shrinking tribal lands or pushed further westward, opening new lands for the U.s.' westward expansion.

Missouri Compromise and the Kansas-Nebraska Act

When the slaveholding territory of Missouri applied for statehood in 1819, it led to a confrontation between those who favored the expansion of slavery and those who opposed it. An understanding called the Missouri Compromise was passed by Congress 2 years later, under which states would be admitted in pairs, 1 slaveholding and one free. So, in the 1857 Dred Scott case the Supreme Court ruled Congress had no right to prohibit slavery in the territories. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 repealed the police that prohibited slavery above the 36 degrees, 30 minutes longitude line in the old Louisiana Purchase. Territories would henceforth accept the right of popular sovereignty, with the settlers of those territories, non Congress, determining if they would allow or prevent slavery within their borders. As a result, settlers on both sides of the upshot poured into the Kansas and Nebraska territories, eager to found their sides' claim, swelling the population there faster than would have occurred otherwise. Learn more nigh the Kansas-Nebraska Act

Monroe Doctrine

Dec 2, 1823, the U.S. adopted the Monroe Doctrine, which stated that America would view whatsoever boosted colonization in the Western Hemisphere by any European land as an act of aggression. It was the closest that Manifest Destiny would come up to existence written into official government policy. The doctrine was authored mainly by John Quincy Adams, who saw it every bit an official moral objection to and opposition of colonialism. Although the doctrine was largely ignored—the U.S. did not have a big army or navy at the time to enforce it—United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland supported information technology, mainly on the seas, as part of Pax Britannica. The Monroe Doctrine implied that the U.S. would aggrandize westward into remaining uncolonized areas—indeed, it necessitated expansion to free or annex European colonies. Learn more about The Monroe Doctrine.

Indian Removal Act and the Trail of Tears

On May 28, 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act into police force, which formally changed the course of U.S. policy toward the Native American tribes. It had immediate impact on the and so-called Five Civilized Tribes—the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee-Creek, and Seminole—who had been until so been permitted to act as autonomous nations on their lands the southern U.South. While removal to Indian Territory (Oklahoma) was supposed to be voluntary, the Indian Removal Deed immune the U.S. authorities to put enormous pressure level on the chiefs to signs removal treaties and provided some legal standing to remove them past strength.

The starting time treaty signed post-obit the passage of the human action was on September 27, 1830: the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek removed the Choctaws from land east of the Mississippi River in exchange for state in Oklahoma and money. The U.S. Army and the newly formed Bureau of Indian Diplomacy did not plan the removal well, resulting in delays, food shortages, and exposure to the elements, including a blizzard in Arkansas during the first phase of the tribe's removal. A Choctaw chief who was interviewed in tardily 1831 shortly after the blizzard chosen the removal a "trail of tears and decease" for his people—a phrase that was widely repeated in the press and seared into popular retention when information technology was practical to the brutal removal of the Cherokee from Georgia in 1838.

Georgia had been 1 of the strongest supporters the Indian Removal Act. Tensions betwixt the Cherokee and settlers had risen to new heights with the discovery of gold near Dahlonega, Georgia, in 1829, leading to the Georgia Gilded Rush—the get-go U.S. gilt rush. The state put enormous pressure on the Cherokees to sign a treaty, and a minority of the tribe signed the Treaty of New Echota in 1835. Later on much legal maneuvering, the treaty was narrowly passed in the House and Senate in 1836 without Main John Ross's agreement or that of the bulk of Cherokees. From May xviii to June 2, 1838, the Cherokees were rounded upwardly into forts equally settlers began moving onto their lands. Some Cherokee were forced to alive in the forts—little more than stockades—on Army rations for up to v months before starting their journey to Indian Territory. Of the approximately 16,000 Cherokees, more 4,000 died every bit a upshot of conditions in the forts, some from the journey—on human foot, by wagon and steamboat—to Oklahoma, and some from the consequences of the relocation. Well-nigh ane,000 Cherokees stayed backside, living on private lands or eking out an existence in the wilderness. Read more almost the Indian Removal Human activity.

The Oregon Trail And Oregon Territory

Disputes over who owned the Oregon Territory nearly led to a tertiary war betwixt the United States and Britain. Ultimately, the question was settled peacefully in a manner that gave the United States articulate possession of its first of import Pacific port, the expanse of Puget Sound.

The Oregon Territory stretched from the northern border of California into Alaska, betwixt the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific. United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland, Kingdom of spain, Russia and the U.S. all laid claim to parts or all of it. The U.Due south. claim was based on the fact that in 1792 Helm Robert Gray had sailed 10 miles upwardly a river, which he named for his vessel, the Columbia. Past international principle, his journey gave the United States a claim to all the area tuckered past the river and its tributaries.

President John Quincy Adams, who dreamed of an America that stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific, used threats and affairs to terminate Kingdom of spain'southward claims to the northwest in Transcontinental Treaty, signed in February 1819. This treaty as well defined the western borders of the Louisiana Buy, which had been somewhat vague. The southern borderline would be the 42nd parallel, the top of nowadays California, and would extend across the Rockies to the Pacific.

That left the northern purlieus to be defined. The Anglo-American Convention of 1818 between the U.Due south. and U.k. placed the border of British Due north America (Canada) along the 49th parallel, from the Corking Lakes to the Rockies, and opened all of the Oregon Territory to citizens of either country. Under the treaty, the question of dividing that region could be revisited every 10 years. In 1824, Russia abandoned its claims south of the 54 degrees, xl minutes parallel (54-40).

In the 1840s, Americans began their major push due west of the Mississippi, into lands that were largely unsettled except past the indigenous tribes. Some went in search of land, some in search of gold and silvery, and in the example of the Mormons, in search of religious liberty. Four trails provided their primary pathways: the Santa Fe Trail into the Southwest, the Overland Trail to California, the Mormon Trail to the Bang-up Salt Lake (in the future state of Utah), and the Oregon Trail to the Northwest. Braving harsh conditions, attacks past Indians or wild animals, and isolation, their numbers rose into the tens of thousands. Increasingly, Americans talked of the prospect of a transcontinental railroad.

The Oregon Territory took on renewed importance to America's dream of Manifest Destiny. In the presidential election of 1844, Democrat James Thou. Polk narrowly won on a platform of national expansion. The youngest president up to that time, Polk tended toward confrontational diplomacy. Britain had long offered to split the Oregon Territory, along the line of the Columbia River. The U.S. preferred the 49th parallel as the boundary. The simply surface area of contention was Puget Sound, which promised its owner a deep-water port for trade with China and Pacific Islands.

In March 1845, the British ambassador spurned Polk'southward offering to divide Oregon along the 49th parallel, not even informing his regime of the offer. Polk then demanded the whole territory, north to the 54-40 line. In April 1846, Congress authorized Polk to end the joint agreement of 1818. Americans took up the slogan "54-40 or fight," and war loomed with United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland. The British, nonetheless, saw little value in another war with its sometime colonies in order to protect the involvement of the Hudson Bay Company along the Pacific Declension. An agreement was reached that carve up the Oregon Territory along the 49th parallel (excepting the southern portion of Vancouver Isle) in commutation for free navigation along the Columbia for the Hudson Bay Company. Despite the "54-40 or fight" rhetoric, the Us didn't need war with Britain; a war with Mexico was breaking out.

Mexican-American War

In 1845, during the administration of President John Tyler, the U.Due south. annexed the Republic of Texas (present-day U.South. state of Texas and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, and New Mexico). Texas had won independence from Mexico in 1836, although United mexican states refused to officially acknowledge the republic or its borders.  Tyler's successor, James K. Polk, who had campaigned on a platform that supported Manifest Destiny and expansion, secretly sent diplomat John Slidell to United mexican states Metropolis to negotiate the purchase of provinces of Alta California and Santa Iron de Nuevo México—present-day California, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and parts of Colorado, Wyoming, Texas, Kansas, and Oklahoma. Upon learning Slidell was in that location to purchase more territory instead of compensate Mexico for Texas, the Mexican authorities refused to receive him. Slidell wrote to Polk, "We can never get along well with them, until we take given them a good drubbing." Polk began preparations to declare war based on Slidell'southward handling.

In Jan 1846, to defend the disputed Texas border and put pressure level on Mexican officials to work with Slidell—and peradventure to provoke the Mexicans into a military response—Polk ordered General Zachary Taylor with a small U.S. Army contingent to the north banking company of the Rio Grande. Texas and the U.Due south. government said the Rio Grande was the southern edge Texas; Mexico said the border was nigh 200 miles farther northward, along the Nueces.

On April 25, 1846, a patrol under Helm Seth Thornton encountered a strength of 2,000 Mexican soldiers; 11 Americans were killed and the balance captured. Ane wounded man was released past the Mexicans and reported news of the skirmish. Polk received word of the conflict a few days before he addressed Congress. The Thornton Thing, which "shed American claret upon American soil," provided a more solid footing for his annunciation of war, though the veracity of the account is nevertheless questioned today.

Some opposed the war on grounds that war should not be used to expand the U.S. Some idea that Polk, a Southerner, wanted to expand slavery and strengthen the influence of slave owners in the federal regime. Despite the opposition past Whigs—Polk was a Democrat—the U.Southward. declared war on Mexico May 13, 1846. Many Whigs continued to question the validity of Polk's state of war, including a freshman Congressman from Illinois, the future president Abraham Lincoln.

American success on the battlefield was swift. By August, Full general Stephen Westward. Kearny had captured New Mexico—there had been no opposition when he arrived in Santa Fe. Securing California would take longer, although on June 14, 1846, settlers in Alta California began the Big Conduct Flag Defection against the Mexican garrison in Sonoma, without knowing of the declaration of war. Armed resistance by the Californios didn't end until mid Jan 1847.

In Northeastern Mexico, Taylor had immediate success in the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma. Cumulative U.Due south. victories threw the Mexican authorities into turmoil, and in mid-August, its former president Antonio López de Santa Anna saw an opportunity to come out of cocky-imposed exile in Republic of cuba. He promised the U.S. that he would negotiate a peaceful end to the war and sell New United mexican states and California, if given safety passage through the U.S. blockade. Once in Mexico City, however, he reneged on the agreement and seized the presidency. Taylor pushed southward into Monterrey, United mexican states, in September. After a difficult-won victory, Taylor negotiated the surrender of the city and agreed to an eight-week armistice, during which the Mexican troops would exist allowed to become costless.

Polk, upset by these conciliatory terms and nervous about Taylor condign a political rival, began to shift Taylor'south men to other commanders to participate in Major General Winfield Scott's invasion of central Mexico. In January 1847, Santa Anna learned of the U.South. plans and moved to defeat Taylor, and so assault Scott on the declension. Instead, Taylor, with about 500 regulars and some 4,500 volunteers who had not however seen combat, was able to defeat Santa Anna'southward force of about 22,000 men at the Battle of Buena Vista on February 23, 1847. Santa Anna began the long march back to United mexican states City.

Scott's forces captured Veracruz past the end of March 1847 and began the campaign toward United mexican states City, which they captured and occupied on September thirteen, 1847. Although the fighting was largely over, the war didn't end until February 2, 1848, with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, in which Mexico renounced all rights to Texas, set up the permanent border at the Rio Grande, and ceded state that is now California, Utah, and Nevada, too as parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Wyoming, and Colorado for $15 one thousand thousand. In 1853, James Gadsden, the American government minister to Mexico, arranged for the purchase of what is now part of southern Arizona and New Mexico for an additional $xv million. Read more almost the Mexican American War.

California Gold Rush

On January 24, 1848, James W. Marshall discovered golden in the American River at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada range northeast of Sacramento. Although he and Sutter tried to keep it a underground, word got out—the first printed notice of the discovery was in the March fifteen, 1848, San Francisco newspaper The Californian. Not long after, gold was discovered in the Feather and Trinity Rivers, as well located northeast of Sacramento.

The first people to blitz the gilt fields were those already living in California, just as word slowly got out overland and via the port urban center of San Francisco, people from Oregon, United mexican states, Republic of chile, Republic of peru, and Pacific Islands arrived 1848 to find their fortunes. In 1849, there was such a huge influx of gold-seekers—approximately xc,000—that they would be referred to collectively as "forty-niners." They came over the Rockies from other parts of the U.Southward. Strange treasure hunters came by ship from Australia, New Zealand, People's republic of china and other parts of Asia, and some from Europe, mainly France. It is estimated that by 1855 some 300,000 people had streamed into California hoping to strike it rich. Silverish discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove California's population growth and development—over the course of the golden rush, California went from a military-occupied part of Mexico to being a U.S. possession to statehood as part of the Compromise of 1850. The port town of San Francisco went from a population of about one,000 in 1848 to become the 8th largest city in the U.S. in 1890, with a population of nearly 300,000. Read more than about the California Gold Rush.

Klondike Gilt Blitz

The Klondike gold rush consisted of the arrival of thousands of prospectors to the Klondike region of Canada also as Alaska in search of gilt. Over 100,000 people set out on the year long journey to the Klondike, with less than one third ever finishing the backbreaking journeying. Just a small pct of the prospectors establish gold, and the rush was soon over. Read more about the Klondike Gold Rush.

Transcontinental Railroad

The first physical plan for a transcontinental railroad in the The states was presented to Congress by dry-appurtenances merchant Asa Whitney in 1845. Whitney had ridden on newly opened railway lines in England and an 1842–1844 trip to Red china, which involved a transcontinental trip and the transport of the goods he had bought, further convinced him that the railroad was the future of transport. In 1862, Congress passed the first of five Pacific Railroad Acts that issued government bonds and country grants to the Union Pacific Railroad and the Central Pacific Railroad. The human action, based on a bill proposed in 1856 that had been a victim of the political skirmishes over slavery, was considered a war measure that would strengthen the spousal relationship between the eastern and western states.

The Central Pacific started work in Sacramento, California, in January 8, 1863, but progress was slow due to the resource and labor shortage caused past the Civil State of war. The Central Pacific faced a labor shortage in the west and relied heavily on Chinese immigrants, who represented over fourscore percent of the Central Pacific's laborers at the height of their employment. The California Gilded Rush and the building of the Transcontinental Railroad brought the first swell waves of emigration from Asia to America. Learn more about the Transcontinental Railroad

The Wedlock Pacific likewise faced war shortages as well as incompetence, corruption, and lack of funds; it broke ground in Omaha, Nebraska, on Dec 12, 1863, but the first rail wasn't laid until July 10, 1865. Since construction began in earnest after the end of the war, virtually of the workers on the Union Pacific were Army veterans and Irish immigrants who had come to the U.S. considering of the Irish gaelic Tater Famine.

When the railroad was completed on May 10, 1869, with the formalism driving of the last spike at Promontory Summit, Utah, it had already facilitated further population of the western states in concert with the Homestead Deed. The railroads led to the pass up and eventual end to the use of emigrant trails, wagon trains, and stagecoach lines, and a further constriction of the native population and their territories. The supposed Groovy American Desert—the western Great Plains—was rapidly populated. Telegraph lines were also congenital along the railroad right of mode as the rail was laid, replacing the first single-line Transcontinental Telegraph with a multi-line telegraph.

Homestead Deed

The Homestead Act of 1862 was intended to make lands opening up in the westward bachelor to a wide diversity of settlers, not just those who could afford to buy land outright or buy country nether the Preemption Act of 1841, which established a lowered state cost for squatters who had occupied the land for a minimum of 14 months. In the 1850s, Southerners had opposed three similar efforts to open the west out of fear that western lands would exist established as free, non-slaveholding areas. Virtually of those objecting to such legislation left Congress when the Southern states seceded, allowing the Homestead Act to be passed during the American Ceremonious War. Learn more nearly the Homestead Act

The Homestead Human action required settlers to complete three steps in order to obtain 160-acre lots of surveyed authorities country. First, an awarding for a state claim had to be filed, and then the homesteader had to live on the land for the next v years and make improvements to it, including building a 12 by 14 shelter. Finally, later on five years, the homesteader could file for patent (deed of title) by filing proof of residency and proof of improvements with the local land office, which would so send paperwork with a certificate of eligibility to the General Land Part in Washington, DC, for final approving. The land was free except for a minor registration fee. Homesteaders could also apply for patent later on a 6-month residency and after making small improvements, but they would have to pay $1.25 per acre for the land.

The showtime homesteader was Daniel Freeman, a Union Army sentinel scheduled to go out Cuff County, Nebraska Territory, on Jan 1, 1863. On New Years Eve, he met local Land Office officials and persuaded them to open early so he could file a land claim. By the stop of the century, more than 80 million acres had been granted to over 480,000 successful homesteaders. In total, about 10 percent of the U.Southward. was settled because of the Homestead Act, which was in effect until 1976 all states except for Alaska, which repealed the Homestead Human action in 1986.

Other Events of Westward Expansion

Pony Express: The Pony Express was a system of equus caballus and riders prepare up in the mid-1800s to deliver mail and packages. It employed 80 deliverymen and between iv and five hundred horses. Read more about Pony Express.

Boxing Of The Alamo: The battle of the Alamo was fought from 2/23-6/6/1826 between the United States and Mexico for what is now San Antonio, Texas. It resulted in Mexico taking control. Read more about Battle Of The Alamo.

French Indian War: The French and Indian War was fought from 1756-1763 between the British and the French. It took identify in North America and involved many Native American people. Read more almost French Indian War.

The Sand Creek Massacre: The Sand Creek Massacre was the brutal attack of Cheyenne Indians consisting mostly of women and children by Union Soldiers that occurred, despite the flying of an American flag to bear witness that they were peaceful and a white flag after the attack began, in Colorado in 1864. . Read more than nigh The Sand Creek Massacre.

Oregon Territory: The Oregon Territory was the name given to the area that became the state of Oregon. It became an official state in February of 1859. Read more about Oregon Territory.

The Oregon Trail: The Oregon Trail is a reference to the path that stretches 2,000 miles across the The states. It was used by thousands of people to populate the western frontier. Read more than about The Oregon Trail.

Black Hawk War: The Battle of Blackness Hawk refers to several conflicts betwixt the Us authorities and a group of Native Americans called the British Band. They were led by a Sauk warrior named Black Hawk. Read more nigh Black Hawk War.

The Mount Meadows Massacre: The Mount Meadows Massacre refers to an effect where militia men from Utah attaché a grouping of wagon travelers that had made camp for a residuum. . Read more about The Mount Meadows Massacre.

John Jacob Astor: John Jacob Astor was a wealthy merchant and fur trader whose enterprise was played an of import role in the westward expansion of the United States. Read more about John Jacob Astor.

O.K. Corral: The O.K. Corral refers to a fight at this corall in Tombstone, Arizona. It's one of the most famous gunfights in American history and has many films made about information technology. Read more than virtually the gunfight at the O.G. Corral.

Davy Crockett: Davy Crockett was a famous Tennessee outdoorsman who also served many political offices in North America. He was office of the Texas Revolution and died at the Alamo. Read more most Davy Crockett.

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Source: https://www.historynet.com/westward-expansion/