Westward Expansion (1803-1853)
Beginning with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the United States extended its borders west. By the
1840s many Americans believed that they had both the right and the duty to spread not only their
nation’s borders, but its economic success and democratic ideas across the continent. This belief was
called Manifest Destiny.
Moving West
Groups moved west for the same reasons as the
colonists of the 1600s and 1700s – economic
opportunity and religion.
Economics
Religion
Mountain Men -
Fur
trade
California
Forty-Niners - gold rush
Convert
Native
Americans
Missionaries Mormons -
Seeking religious
freedom
Oregon Territory 1846
Louisiana Purchase 1803
Northwest Ordinance
Mexican
Cession 1848
Gadsden
Purchase 1853
13 colonies
1607-1732
Texas
1845
Florida
1819
1787 law that established the
procedure for new states. All new
states would be equal to the old
states. Slavery was abolished in the
Northwest Territory.
War With Mexico
U.S. annexation
of Texas
Texas border
dispute
between US
and Mexico
Manifest Destiny –
Yes or no?
Treaty of
GuadalupeHidalgo
U.S. – Mexican War
1846-1848
Ended war
Mexican Cession
added to U.S.
Y white farmer
N Native American
N Mexican farmer in
Southwest
Y Christian
missionary