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President Thomas Jefferson purchased the territory of Louisiana from the French government for $15 million
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Lewis and Clark initiated peaceful relations with dozens of Native American tribes.
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Texas joined the union as a slave state in February 1846; in June, after negotiations with Great Britain, Oregon joined as a free state.
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In 1843, one thousand pioneers took to the Oregon Trail as part of the “Great Emigration.”
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The Treaty of Guadelupe Hidalgo ended the Mexican War and added more than 1 million square miles, an area larger than the Louisiana Purchase, to the United States.
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Douglas came up with a middle ground that he called “popular sovereignty”: letting the settlers of the territories decide for themselves whether their states would be slave or free
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“Free-soil” settlers established a rival government, and soon Kansas spiraled into civil war. Hundreds of people died in the fighting that ensued, known as “Bleeding Kansas.”
