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DOCUMENT BASED QUESTION
American Expansion
Directions: Analyze the documents and create a plan to answer the following question. You must
include your interpretations of Documents A-F and your own knowledge of the time period in your
response. A successful plan will cite and categorize key pieces of evidence from the documents
and include outside knowledge of the time period that is not included in the documents.
How did the United States’ government expand the nation?

From 1803 to 1853, the United States expanded to the west and south,
reaching the Pacific Ocean, in a variety of ways. Analyze the methods
used by the United States government to expand the nation.
Document A
TERRITORIAL ACQUISITIONS 1783-1853
Florida
Cession
1821
Wikimedia Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:United-states-territorial-acquistions-midcentury.png (altered)
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Document B
Source: Indian Removal Act, 1830.
An act to provide for an exchange of lands with the Indians residing in any of the states or
territories, and for their removal west of the river Mississippi.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in
Congress assembled, That it shall and may be lawful for the President of the United States to cause
so much of any territory belonging to the United States, west of the river Mississippi, not included
in any state or organized territory, and to which the Indian title has been extinguished, as he may
judge necessary, to be divided into a suitable number of districts, for the reception of such tribes or
nations of Indians as may choose to exchange the lands where they now reside, and remove there;
and to cause each of said districts to be so described by natural or artificial marks, as to be easily
distinguished from every other…
University of Dayton http://academic.udayton.edu/race/02rights/native10.htm
Document C
Source: Statute I, Acts of the 8th Congress, October 17, 1803 – March 27, 1804.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in
Congress assembled, That the President of the United States be, and he is hereby authorized to take
possession of, and occupy the territory ceded by France to the United States, by the treaty
concluded at Paris, on the thirtieth day of April last…
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in
Congress assembled, That for the purpose of carrying into effect the convention of the thirtieth day
of April, [1803], between the United States of America and the French Republic, the Secretary of
the Treasury…is hereby authorized, to cause to be constituted, certificates of stock, signed by the
register of the treasury, in favour of the French Republic…for the sum of eleven millions two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars…
Library of Congress http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/louisiana2.html
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Document D
Source: President James Monroe, Letter to the Spanish Government, 1818.
Throughout the whole of those provinces [the Floridas], to which the Spanish title extends, the
government of Spain has been scarcely (hardly) felt…Adventurers from every country, fugitives
from justice, & absconding (runaway) slaves, have found an asylum (shelter) there. Several
tribes of Indians, strong in the number of their warriors, remarkable for their ferocity (rage)…
inhabit (live in) those provinces. These different hordes (groups) of people…disregarding…the
authority of Spain, and protected…by an imaginary line, which separates Florida from the
United States, have violated our laws, prohibiting (stopping) the introduction of slaves,…and
have committed every kind of outrage, on our peaceable citizens, which their proximity
(nearness) to us, enabled (allow) them to perpetuate (achieve)....
…In authorizing Major General [Andrew] Jackson to enter Florida, in pursuit of the Seminoles,
care was taken not to encroach (intrude) on the rights of Spain....
Digital History http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/documents/searchdisplay.cfm?ID=391
Document E
Source: John L. O’Sullivan, Essay in the United States Magazine and Democratic
Review,1845
… It is time now for opposition to the Annexation of Texas to cease (stop)…It is time for the
common duty of Patriotism to the country to succeed…
Texas is now ours…Her star and her stripe may already be said to have taken their place in the
glorious blazon of our common nationality…Let their reception into “the family” be frank, kindly,
and cheerful as befits such an occasion…
It is wholly untrue, and unjust to ourselves, the pretence that the Annexation has been a measure of
spoliation, unrightful and unrighteous—of military conquest under forms of peace and law—of
territorial aggrandizement (exaggeration) at the expense of justice…The independence of Texas
was complete and absolute…She was released, rightfully and absolutely released, from all Mexican
allegiance…by the acts and fault of Mexico herself, and Mexico alone…
University of Puget Sound, http://www.anselm.edu/academic/history/hdubrulle/CivWar/text/documents/doc7.htm
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Document F
Source: President James K Polk, Inaugural Address, 1845.
… my duty to assert and maintain by all constitutional means the right of the United States to
that portion of our territory which lies beyond the Rocky Mountains. Our title to the country of
the Oregon is “clear and unquestionable,” and already are our people preparing to perfect that
title by occupying it with their wives and children…To us belongs the duty of protecting them
adequately wherever they may be upon our soil. The jurisdiction (authority) of our laws and the
benefits of our republican institutions should be extended over them in the distant regions which
they have selected for their homes. The increasing facilities (convenience) of intercourse
(communication) will easily bring the States, of which the formation in that part of our territory
cannot be long delayed, within the sphere of our federative Union. In the meantime every
obligation imposed by treaty or conventional stipulations (terms) should be sacredly respected.
University of Oklahoma College of Law, http://www.law.ou.edu/hist/polk.html