More Perfect Union: Colonization, Expansion, And Their Impact On Native Americans

In 1803, The United States of America bought the Louisiana Purchase from France. Because of this purchase, the United States doubled the size of the nation. The territory stretched from the Rocky Mountains to the Mississippi River and from the Canadian Border to the Gulf of Mexico. This purchase is considered one of Thomas Jefferson’s greatest achievements as president. Jefferson was excited to learn what this new land held.

The amount of acres that was bought was unbelievable because it doubled the size of America. The Louisiana purchase was 828,000 square miles. The land we bought was previously owned by France. This is still considered one of the biggest achievements in history.

Thomas Jefferson was one of the founding fathers to buy land totaling 828,000 square miles and that was the Louisiana purchase on top of that. The Louisiana Purchase stretched from the Mississippi River in the east to the Rocky Mountains in the west. The Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the United States acquired a large area of land from the French. It was the single largest purchase of land ever by the United States and doubled the size of the country. And, in 1803, Napoleon offered to sell the entire Louisiana Territory to the United States for $15 million.

In 1803 the United States double in size through the Louisiana purchase. This purchase was deemed as the most significant

The Louisiana purchase of 1803 acted as a turning point in the aid of furthering the development of westward expansion by nearly doubling the size of the United States. The westward expansion assisted in the establishment of jobs, land, hope, and a new beginning. President Thomas Jefferson desired to purchase New Orleans and the surrounding territory, which later took the name known as the Louisiana Territory, from the French in order to secure trading routes for the United States. He wanted to prevent any disruption in American economics that would come from disrupted trade. Jefferson, was aware of the need for action and he was concerned with the threat of disunion.

Page 1: The United States was growing and needed more landIn 1803, the United States purchased a large area of French land through the Louisiana Purchase. There had been rapid growth in the United States. Through the Northwest Territory, people had been expanding westward to plant crops and raise livestock beyond the Appalachian Mountains. People needed more land to expand as these lands became more popular, so the west was the obvious choice.

The Louisiana Purchase The Louisiana purchase was one of the biggest land purchases in history. In 1803, the United States paid around $15 million dollars for around 800,000 square miles of land. This was arguably the greatest achievement of thomas jefferson’s presidency. The louisiana territory was a wild card in the european game of imperialism.

This purchase is important to American History due to the significant increase in the amount of land owned by the American government. Furthermore the purchase of the Louisiana territory was significant because as Jefferson stated “The fertility of the country, its climate and extent, promise in due season important aids to our treasury, an ample provision for our posterity, and a wide-spread field for the blessings of freedom”

In the 1800s, Native Americans had few rights in the United States. Even though Native Americans have lived in North America for longer than any European settler or explorer, they had always been viewed as uncivilized and inferior when compared to White settlers because of their origins. The belief of Manifest Destiny, which is the idea that God meant for the United States to own all of North America, caused Natives to be pushed out of their homes. President Andrew Jackson passed an act that forced Natives to succumb to white culture or relocate to reservations. Natives that relocated had to walk the Trail of Tears to get to the reservations.

The Louisiana Purchase was the purchase of the Louisiana territory by the United States from France in 1803. The U.S. paid fifty million dollars and a cancellation of debts worth eighteen million dollars which averages to less than three cents per acre. The Louisiana territory included land from fifteen present U.S. states and two Canadian provinces. The territory contained land that forms Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska, portions of Minnesota, large portions of North Dakota; large portions of South Dakota, parts of New Mexico, the northern portion of Texas, the area of Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado. The Louisiana Purchase was smart move by the United States.

Native Americans flourished in North America, but over time white settlers came and started invading their territory. Native Americans were constantly being thrown and pushed off their land. Sorrowfully this continued as the Americans looked for new opportunities and land in the West. When the whites came to the west, it changed the Native American’s lives forever. The Native Americans had to adapt to the whites, which was difficult for them.

When the Europeans began colonizing the New World, they had a problematic relationship with the Native Americans. The Europeans sought to control a land that the Natives inhabited all their lives. They came and decided to take whatever they wanted regardless of how it affected the Native Americans. They legislated several laws, such as the Indian Removal Act, to establish their authority. The Indian Removal Act had a negative impact on the Native Americans because they were driven away from their ancestral homes, forced to adopt a different lifestyle, and their journey westwards caused the deaths of many Native Americans.

The western expansion had a large impact on the United States. Although it had a positive impact on the country as they gained an economic growth, it had a negative impact on the Native Americans who had experienced a decrease in population. Western expansion began in 1803 with Thomas Jefferson purchasing the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million as the U.S. population increased drastically. “...from around 5 million people in 1800 to more than 23 million by 1850,” (History.com) According to History.com, the purchase of Louisiana Territory gave them another 828,000 square miles, which stretched from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains.

This period was described as [one] whose Constitution is so perfect that no man suggests change and whose fundamental laws as they stand are satisfactory to all..” However, while both Native Americans and European immigrants theoretically experienced similar rights to those of citizens and were granted citizenship/naturalization in the early twentieth century, both groups lived in crude and unsatisfactory conditions in the 19th century; it would be inaccurate to describe their situation as “satisfactory” at all. During the 19th century, Native Americans lived unsatisfactory lives due to forced assimilation and the dissolution of their identities and sovereignty. At the beginning of the 19th century, Native Americans and Americans had gotten into a series of conflicts as a result of American migration to the west, the lands that the Native Americans

Throughout the 19th century Native Americans were treated far less than respectful by the United States’ government. This was the time when the United States wanted to expand and grow rapidly as a land, and to achieve this goal, the Native Americans were “pushed” westward. It was a memorable and tricky time in the Natives’ history, and the US government made many treatments with the Native Americans, making big changes on the Indian nation. Native Americans wanted to live peacefully with the white men, but the result of treatments and agreements was not quite peaceful. This precedent of mistreatment of minorities began with Andrew Jackson’s indian removal policies to the tribes of Oklahoma (specifically the Cherokee indians) in 1829 because of the lack of respect given to the indians during the removal laws.