United States History to 1877

Expansion and Reform: 1801 to 1861

SUGGESTED INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES

• Begin the unit by asking students what new territories became part of the United States between 1801 and 1861.
• Explain that between 1801 and 1861, exploration was encouraged as America underwent vast territorial expansion and settlement.
• Provide a brief overview of the new territories added to the United States after 1801.
  • Louisiana Purchase
    • Jefferson bought land from France (the Louisiana Purchase), which doubled the size of the United States.
    • In the Lewis and Clark expedition, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark explored the Louisiana Purchase from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean.
  • Florida: Spain gave Florida to the United States through a treaty.
  • Texas: Texas was added after it became an independent republic.
  • Oregon: The Oregon Territory was divided by the United States and Great Britain.
  • California: War with Mexico resulted in California and the southwest territory becoming part of the United States.
• Note the potential for classroom instruction provided by the Louisiana Purchase is as wide as the geography of the region itself. Woven into the history of the Purchase are the histories of whole nations: an equivocal mix of lands, languages, governments, and goals. An Online Educational Resource from Louisiana State University Libraries Special Collections features a variety of age-appropriate lesson plans and classroom activities designed to utilize the vast collection of digital materials produced for this project. This resource is available at: http://www.lib.lsu.edu/special/purchase/guidelist.html.
• Explain to students that the period from 1801 to 1861 was a period of rapid western expansion in the United States. Citizens of the United States increasingly looked westward in the hope of acquiring land for agriculture and natural resources. By the 1830s, western expansion was supported by the belief in the right of "Manifest Destiny." One of the major land acquisitions was the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. President Jefferson commissioned an expedition to explore the unknown territory of the northwest.
• Have students gain some general historical background on Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and take a virtual expedition along with the Corps of Discovery by exploring the Web site that accompanies the PBS film, Lewis & Clark: A Journal of the Corps of Discovery, http://www.pbs.org/lewisandclark/index.html. Instruct students to access this site, select "Into the Unknown," and follow the directions. As students travel on the virtual expedition, they will be asked to make decisions. Students making a wrong decision will have to return to the beginning of the route.
• Give each student the Lewis and Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery worksheet, which includes questions to be answered as he/she proceeds on the trip. Also, give students a map of U.S. rivers and lakes on which to trace their route. The web site at http://nationalatlas.gov/outline.html offers a variety of such printable maps. For the Lewis and Clark: The Journey of the Crops of Discovery worksheet, CLICK HERE.
• Provide additional background information from http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0400/frameset.html. For centuries before 1800, native tribal groups had inhabited the land of the Great Plains and the West. In that sense, they "owned" it. Between 1650 and 1800, a series of European governments -- Spain, Britain, France and Russia -- all sent explorers into parts of the West and "claimed" to own the land. But in 1802, ownership of a large part of the West changed, and changed fundamentally. France sold 828,000 square miles of land west of the Mississippi River to the United States. That worked out to 4-cents per acre -- a bargain even then. The lands stretched from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian border. Thirteen states were carved from the Louisiana Territory. The Louisiana Purchase nearly doubled the size of the United States, making it one of the largest nations in the world. France's Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte decided to sell it to the United States to help finance his foreign wars. Also, he feared the United States would eventually take control of the area anyway, and France would receive no compensation Even before the purchase was complete, President Thomas Jefferson sent a confidential letter to Congress asking for money to send explorers up the Missouri River and on to the Pacific Ocean. He wanted to know if there was a way to cross the new territory by following rivers and streams. He also wanted to support the new trade in animal furs for American hunters and trappers. The explorers Jefferson chose to lead the "Voyage of Discovery" were Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. Lewis and Clark's reports captured the attention and imaginations of people across America and led the way for an entire generation of explorers, fur traders, missionaries, soldiers, immigrants, prospectors and settlers. Even though Native American people were already here, Lewis and Clark "opened up" the territory for European settlement. And the routes they chose to cross this new territory are still being used today for railroads, barge lines, interstate highways and even the Internet.
• Share maps of the Louisiana Purchase at http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0400/frameset.html.
• A Brief History of the Lewis and Clark Expedition is available from the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation, Inc. at http://www.lewisandclark.org.
• Provide background knowledge on the acquisition of Florida from Spain. Discuss the following history provided by the U.S. Department of State. The colonies of East Florida and West Florida remained loyal to the British during the war for American independence, but by the Treaty of Paris in 1783 they returned to Spanish control. After 1783, Americans immigrants moved into West Florida. In 1810, these American settlers in West Florida rebelled, declaring independence from Spain. President James Madison and Congress used the incident to claim the region, knowing full well that the Spanish government was seriously weakened by Napoleon's invasion of Spain. The United States asserted that the portion of West Florida from the Mississippi to the Peridido rivers was part of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803.
• Negotiations over Florida began in earnest with the mission of Don Luis de Onís to Washington in 1815 to meet Secretary of State James Monroe. The issue was not resolved until Monroe was President and John Quincy Adams his Secretary of State. Although U.S. Spanish relations were strained over suspicions of American support for the independence struggles of Spanish-American colonies, the situation became critical when General Andrew Jackson seized the Spanish forts at Pensacola and St. Marks in his 1818 authorized raid against Seminoles and escaped slaves whom were viewed as a threat to Georgia. Jackson executed two British citizens on charges of inciting the Indians and runaways. Monroe's government seriously considered denouncing Jackson's actions, but Adams defended Jackson citing the necessity to restrain the Indians and escaped slaves since the Spanish failed to do so. Adams also sensed that Jackson's Seminole campaign was popular with Americans and it strengthened his diplomatic hand with Spain.
• Adams used Jackson's military action to present Spain with a demand to either control the inhabitants of East Florida or cede it to the United States. Minister Onís and Secretary Adams reached an agreement whereby Spain ceded East Florida to the United States and renounced all claim to West Florida. Spain received no compensation, but the United States agreed to assume liability for $5 million in damage done by American citizens who rebelled against Spain. Under the Onís-Adams Treaty of 1819 (also called the Transcontinental Treaty and ratified in 1821), the United States and Spain defined the western limits of the Louisiana Purchase and Spain surrendered its claims to the Pacific Northwest. In return, the United States recognized Spanish sovereignty over Texas. For more information, go to http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/jd/16320.htm.
• Share the early history of Texas from the World Almanac for Kids at http://www.worldalmanacforkids.com/explore/states/texas. Anglo-American adventurers appeared in the area about 1800, but significant numbers of Anglo-American immigrants did not arrive until Stephen Austin and other empresarios (colonizers) began to locate settlements in Texas in the 1820s. Texas developed rapidly under Mexican rule, but revolution broke out in autumn 1835. The Alamo, an old Spanish fort at San Antonio, fell in March after all the Texan defenders had been killed. In the following weeks, Mexican troops defeated Texan forces across south Texas. While the armies fought in early March, a convention of Texans at Washington-on-the-Brazos adopted a declaration of independence, wrote a constitution for a Republic of Texas, and appointed one of their leaders, Sam Houston, commander in chief of all Texan armies. The Texan forces, in a dramatic reversal of fortunes on April 21, 1836, defeated the Mexican army in the Battle of San Jacinto, captured Santa Anna, and ended the revolution in victory. Although never recognized by Mexico, the Republic of Texas functioned as a nation for the next nine years. Houston, the first and third president of the republic, avoided conflict when possible, spent frugally, and worked for annexation by the U.S. With a grander dream of an empire, Texan president Mirabeau Lamar opposed annexation and pursued aggressive foreign policies, which led to more conflicts with Mexico and financial instability. Despite opposition from those within the U.S. who were against admitting another slave state and those who foresaw that annexation would precipitate a war with Mexico, Texas was admitted to the Union in 1845, and the final transfer of authority took place in February 1846. Texans participated actively in the Mexican War, which broke out a few weeks later, accepted a compromise that established the current western boundaries of the state, and continued to encourage immigration. By 1860 the population of Texas included citizens from most European nations and Mexico, although the bulk of the people were immigrants from other southern states and 30 percent of the population were slaves. For more information, go to http://www.worldalmanacforkids.com/explore/states/texas.
• Explain that countries that had early claims to Oregon were Great Britain, Russia, Spain, and the United States. In 1819, the Adams-Onis Treaty set the boundary between Spain and the United States after the Louisiana Purchase. After the Monroe Doctrine was issued in 1823, Russia gave up its claim to Oregon.
• British claims to Oregon were established by James Cook in 1788, and by Dr. John McLoughlin who ran the Hudson's Bay Company. United States claims to Oregon were through Lewis and Clark, and John Jacob Astor who founded Fort Astoria and ran the Pacific Fur Company.
• Discuss the Opening of the West. In 1812, the General Land Office was formed to oversee the disposition of new lands acquired along our expanding frontiers. The Treaty of 1846 with Great Britain had settled the territorial dispute in the far northwest. The American domain of the southwest was completed with the annexation of Texas in 1845, the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848 (Mexican Cession), and the Gadsden Purchase. By the end of 1853, California and the Oregon territory had all been brought under the American flag. By 1860, the population of the nation had doubled. The lure of ownership of lands west of the original 13 states made possible by federal policy of land donations to anyone brave enough to take the risk led to extensive migration and many people began to move west to settle on the cheap land available there. The Homestead Act of 1862 providing grants of acreage to settlers was the result of legislation under the jurisdiction of the Committee on Public Lands. With the westward expansion of the nation following the acquisition of the Louisiana Purchase, and as states and territories were added to the Union, Congress was forced to debate whether states would be admitted to the Union as slave states or free states. The settlement of this issue would result in many bitter conflicts between sections of the nation, which would last several decades and lead inevitably to the Civil War. For more information, go to http://energy.senate.gov/about/about_history.html.
• Additional information is available from the Oregon History Project at http://www.ohs.org/education/oregonhistory.
• Discuss background information on California becoming part of the United States.
• The United States in 1846 declared war on Mexico, and during the course of that war American military forces seized California. The war was fueled in part by feelings of Manifest Destiny, a popular sentiment in the United States that viewed the expansion of the nation as inevitable. The arrival in Mexican California of John C. Frémont sparked a rebellion by Anglo-Americans in the province. Their uprising became known as the Bear Flag Revolt. Military forces from the United States soon landed along the coast and marched into the interior. The Californios fought well against the Americans, scoring a victory with their long lances at San Pascual. Ultimately, however, the Mexican forces were defeated in far larger engagements elsewhere. The war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 and the cession of vast lands from Mexico to the United States. This treaty and transfer marked the end of Mexican sovereignty in California. For more information, go to http://www.californiahistory.net.
• Provide each student with an outline map of the United States. The Web site at http://nationalatlas.gov/printable/images/pdf/outline/states.pdf offers a variety of such printable maps. Have students use a map to create a visual representation of territorial growth in the United States. Allow students to use their textbook or a desk atlas to complete the map.
• Have students complete the Map Exercise: Territorial Growth of the United States worksheet to answer questions related to their maps and clarify historical events related to western expansion. For the Map Exercise: Territorial Growth of the United States worksheet, CLICK HERE.
• Have students define Manifest Destiny. Write the definition on the chalkboard. Ask students to predict why people may have believed this during the 1800s.
• Show students a series maps showing possession of land of North America in 1783, 1803, 1820, 1845, 1850, and 1869.
• Have them compare and contrast possession of European nations in the Western Hemisphere and predict what occurred to cause the changes in possession. Pass out the Growth of the United States worksheet and have students complete it as you go through the maps. Students should predict how the United States acquired each land area and how did the U.S. got it (through war, treaty, gift, purchase, etc.). For the Growth of the United States worksheet, CLICK HERE.
• Ask students if they think Manifest Destiny was achieved. (You may want to show students maps of North America throughout time and discuss what would be needed in order to achieve this.)
• After students have gone through their predictions of the six acquisitions (United States 1783, Louisiana Territory, Florida, Texas Annexation, Mexican Cession, and Oregon Territory), complete the second column of the chart using the essential knowledge for this topic.
• Give each student a map of the United States where the six sections have been drawn in. Have students use their textbook or other available resources to shade and label the six sections. As they shade the areas, have them review what country each area was acquired from and how each was acquired. Have students create a legend.

WEB SITES

http://www.pbs.org/lewisandclark/index.html
PBS Lewis and Clark

http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0400/frameset.html
Information on Lewis and Clark

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/jd/16320.htm
History of Florida

http://www.worldalmanacforkids.com/explore/states/texas.html#fw..te036900.a60.c30
History of Texas

http://www.ohs.org/education/oregonhistory/historicviewer/OregonBoundary/index.cfm
Oregon History Project

http://www.californiahistory.net/ranchos_frame_mexamwar.htm
History of California

http://edtech.kennesaw.edu/web/westward.html
Westward Expansion

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