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The Louisiana Purchase
In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson bought 530,000,000 acres of land west of the Mississippi River from French dictator Napoleon for 5 million USD. This was the catalyst of American westward expansion and, eventually, the American Civil War. The lands bought in this purchase were explored by navigators Lewis and Clarke. -
The Trail of Tears
Under President Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal Act and the Treaty of New Echota, approximately 60,000 Native American families were forcibly removed from their homes and displaced into territories designated for them by the U.S. government. -
Mexican-American War
The Mexican-American War was a conflict between Mexico and America (shocking) as a result of the annexation of Texas and border disputes. It ended with an American victory in 1848 with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and gave the United States approximately 500,000 square miles of land. This expanded the U.S. by about 1/3. -
California Gold Rush
Gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill, California in January of 1848. This led to the subsequent mass exodus of Americans westward, who dreamed of acquiring riches. This gave way to boomtowns and rapid population growth in areas said to have gold. -
Compromise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850 was a set of five bills passed by the United States in - you guessed it - 1850 largely concerned slavery. It ended the slave trade in Washington D.C., made recovery of runaway slaves easier, and amended the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin, written by Harriet Beecher Stowe and published in 1852, was an anti-slavery novel depicting the horrors and immorality of slavery. -
Kansas Nebraska Act
The Kansas Nebraska Act undid the Missouri Compromise, admitted the territories of Nebraska and Kansas as states, and brought the philosophy of popular sovereignty into law. It was the cause of Bleeding Kansas, as voters rushed to Kansas to sway the vote of whether or not it would be a slave state, -
American Civil War
The American Civil War, beginning with the Battle of Fort Sumter in 1861, was the outcome of decades of tension between the North and the South over slavery. After almost four years of conflict, the war ended in a Union victory and left the South derelict and destroyed. -
Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 and declared that all slaves were to be freed. However, not all slaves found themselves able to leave their servitude immediately, especially considering the extreme racism prominent in the United States. Life became even harder for African Americans after the passing of Jim Crow Laws.