Fuentes Primarias De la Expansión Hacia el Oeste (Primary Sources of Westward Ex

The Homestead Act was passed in 1862, when states that had seceded from the Union could no longer block it in congress. The act opened land in the west for all Americans, including freed slaves, granting 160 acres to settlers under the condition that they farm it for five years. The result was that 1.6 million claims, covering 420,000 square miles, were granted, making residents of millions of people in the land west of the Mississippi River. This book richly explores this fascinating part of history.

Manifest Destiny the name given in the 1840s to a belief that the coast-to-coast expansion of the United States was both inevitable and justified, regardless of the means. Standing in the way were not only the native populations, but also the descendants of Spanish settlers who had lived in the Southwest for centuries. The racist belief that white men rightfully should expand their institutions into the area brought the United States into conflict with Mexico. War was declared in 1846, and by the time the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed in 1848, ending the war, the US had gained territory that contains all or part of the states of California, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and New Mexico. This book richly explores this fascinating part of history.

When President Thomas Jefferson bought the Louisiana Territory from cash-strapped France in 1803, he doubled the size of the United States without really knowing what he was getting. He dispatched Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and their Corps of Discovery to explore a territory that would include part or all of fifteen future states and to seek a water route to the West Coast. Westward expansion began immediately, all for the bargain price of 15 million dollars. This book richly explores this fascinating part of history.

People today refer to the Midwestern and prairie states as flyover country. During the Civil War, crossing those areas was the biggest obstacle in uniting the East and West Coasts of our divided nation. An act of Congress in 1862 authorized the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific railroad companies to build a railroad that would link the coasts. Seven years later, on May 10, 1869, an overwhelmingly immigrant labor force completed the task when a rail line was join in Promontory, Utah. The states had become united at last.

The United States grew rapidly from the time of the Louisiana Purchase to the building of the Transcontinental Railroad. All of this expansion came at the expense of Native American populations that had either lived in the region for centuries or been forced there from ancestral homes in the East. Tribes memorably fought on their own and together in a doomed effort to retain the land and a lifestyle that had long sustained their families. This book outlines some of the major conflicts of the Westward Expansion, and of the treaties and were signed, and often broken, by representatives of the tribes and the government of the United States.

California became a territory in the United States when the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed in 1848. That treaty ended the Mexican War. Several days before its signing, gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill in what is now Sacramento. The non-Native population of the territory was less than one thousand in 1848, but the gold rush increased that number to one hundred thousand by the end of 1849. The gold rush not only made many people wealthy, it brought ecologic devastation while speeding up California's statehood. This book richly explores this interesting history.