Westward Expansion
A Louisana Purchase, The Lone state, Railroad and many more!
Introduction
In my Smore you will hopefully learn something new about the Westward Expansion. It includes prezi's, Videos, pictures, and text. Enjoy!
Texas
Believe it or not, but Texas started out as Mexico. Now you're probably wondering the whole story. We'll Mexico invited people to settle on their land but it wouldn't be their land. Americans went and brought their slaves to work for them. Mexico didn't like it so they band slavery. Americans didn't like it so they attacked the Alamo in Mexico. All the defenders ended up dead. After that they declared independence. Later after that they became a country.
Louisana Purchase
In 1801 when Jefferson became president he asked French for the territory for 3 million. They didn't accept it. So 2 years later he asked for it for 10 million, they approved but also threw in more land for 5 million more. So Thomas Jefferson ended up purchasing the Louisiana territory (828,000 square miles) in 1803 from France for 15 million. The vast land came from Canada down to New Orleans. It doubled the size of the U.S. After that they sent Lewis and Clark to see if there was a northwest passage to water and trade.
Railroads
In the early 1800's people had to walk, sail, or use covered wagon. That was really hard for some people who were trying to get to a different country or even across a whole country. If you were to cross the U.S. vertically it would take around 6 mouths in a covered wagon. If you were to do the same thing with railroads then it would take around 6 days without the risk. Therefore railroads were a dramatic change in transportation
Gold Rush
The California Gold Rush was an amazing opportunity for many people. People all around the world came to California hoping to strike it rich. These people are nick-named 49's and were said to have "Gold fever."
Trails West
Trails west lead many people to riches and opportunity. They normally traveled in covered wagons. The Organ trail led to rich soil in Organ. People traveled to California on the California Trail and the Old Spanish Trail after gold was found in that area. And lastly, The Santa Fe Trail connected Missouri and New Mexico.
Trail of tears
The trail of tears is when Native Americans are pushed out by American soldiers in 1838-1839. Only 1,000 Native Americans ended up escaping them. Around 16,000 traveled on the journey. They call it the trail of tears because many people were crying and got injured