1. Westward Expansion Unit
US Territorial Expansion

2. Answering our Essential Question:
How did the US acquire all the territory it has today?

3. Manifest Destiny
The idea that it was America’s destiny to control all of the land from the Atlantic to the Pacific -this idea drives US expansion in this period (the 1800s) and is a major theme in US history
Yet this idea ends up working like an excuse for what happens to groups of people like Native Americans and Mexicans.

4. American Progress by John Gast 1872

5. Territorial Expansions
1803 Louisiana Purchase- President Thomas Jefferson buys almost 1 million square miles of land for $15 million from France
1819 US purchases Florida from Spain
1846 the Oregon Treaty settled the border at the 49th parallel in the Pacific Northwest with Great Britain

6. Louisiana Purchase

7. Territorial Expansion
1845 annexation of Texas (annexation: taking control of a territory and adding it to a country) -Americans settled in Mexican owned Texas territory in the 1820s and on -Once they outnumbered Mexicans, the Americans rebelled and became independent
- After much debate however, they are eventually annexed by the U.S. as a new state, which leads to the…

8. Territorial Expansion
1846 Mexican War- When Texas was annexed by the US they claimed the border with Mexico was the Rio Grande River, and Mexico disagreed not only with the annexation, but also the borders. President Polk sent troops to occupy the contested land and eventually in May war broke out.

9. Results of the Mexican-American War
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo settles southern US border along the Rio Grande River,
Mexico formally recognizes the annexation of Texas
MEXICAN CESSION: Mexico cedes or gives up to the US the region from Texas to California and in exchange the US pays Mexico $15 million

10. Territorial Expansion Continued
1853 Gadsen Purchase: the agreement with Mexico where the US bought parts of present-day Arizona and New Mexico for $10 million

11. Territorial Expansion Continued
1867
US purchases Alaska from Russia for 7.2 million dollars!

13. BUT WAIT!!! WE FORGOT ONE PLACE…

14. HAWAII

15. The Hawaiian Islands The Hawaiian Islands had been linked with
the US economically since the 1790s: - merchant ships used it as a stop before
they sailed to Asia.
Christian missionaries had schools and
churches on the islands.
Many American businessmen established
themselves on the island with the Sugar
cane plantations.

16. Americans convinced the King in 1887 to amend Hawaii’s constitution to include voting rights—but they were limited to wealthy landowners.
In 1891 Queen Liliuokalani abolished the constitution in an attempt to correct things, but she was overthrown in by the American planters.

18. Hawaii continued
The president at the time, President Harrison, signed the treaty of annexation
But the next president, President Cleveland, ordered a full investigation of the situation- which revealed that the people of Hawaii did not approve!
Cleveland refused to approve the annexation and apologized.
However, the US still had strong business interests and the next President McKinley favored annexation and during the Spanish American War in 1898, Congress proclaimed it an American Territory.

19. Interactive Map/Timeline of US territory
SprMovie=ustimemapweb