Mr. Jose A. Sanchez,
Alhambra High School
 U.S. experiencing high birth rate and increases in
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population due to immigration.
The U.S. population grew from more than five million
in 1800 to more than 23 million by mid-century. It's
estimated that nearly 4,000,000 Americans moved to
western territories between 1820 and 1850.
The United States suffered two economic depressions —
one in 1818 and a second in 1839. These crises drove
some people to seek their living in frontier areas.
Frontier land was inexpensive or, in some cases, free.
Opportunity to expand new commerce by building
West Coast ports and increase trade with countries in
the Pacific.
 The recognition of America’s
independence.
 The establishment of American boundaries
between the Atlantic on the east to the
Mississippi River on the west.
 American fishing rights in Newfoundland.
 The pledge to protect British loyalists.
 The victorious nation had accumulated a
massive debt – more than $11 million in
national debt and state debts of more than
$65 million. America promised to pay all
debts, including personal.
 John Jay, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Henry
Laurens and William Temple Franklin in Benjamin
West’s 1783-1784 painting. The British commissioners
refused to pose, and the painting was never finished.
 Concerned about French intentions, President
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Thomas Jefferson sent James Monroe and Robert R.
Livingston to Paris to negotiate the purchase of the
Louisiana Territory.
Surprised and delighted by the French offer of the
whole territory, they immediately negotiated the
treaty.
By a treaty signed on Apr. 30, 1803, the United States
purchased from France the Louisiana Territory
The Louisiana territory was more than 2 million sq
km (800,000 sq mi) of land extending from the
Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains.
The price was 60 million francs, about $15 million.
The United States signed the Convention of 1818
with Great Britain in order to settle some issues
left open by the Treaty of Ghent, which four years
earlier had ended the War of 1812.
 The new treaty stated that Britain and the United
States would jointly occupy Oregon Territory
(an arrangement that lasted until 1846), and
clarified the northern border of the Louisiana
Purchase.
 The land acquired by the United States in the
treaty, known as the Red River Basin, would
ultimately become part of the states of
Minnesota and North Dakota.
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 The Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819, settled a border
dispute in North America between the United States
and Spain.
 The treaty was the result of increasing tensions between
the U.S. and Spain.
 In addition to ceding Florida to the United States, the
treaty settled a boundary dispute along the Sabine
River in Texas and firmly established the boundary of
U.S. territory and claims through the Rocky
Mountains and west to the Pacific Ocean.
 In exchange for the U.S. paying residents' claims against
the Spanish government up to a total of $5,000,000 and
relinquishing its own claims on parts of Texas west of
the Sabine River and other Spanish areas.
 In 1842, Secretary of State Daniel Webster met with the
British Foreign Minister, Alexander Baring, the first Baron
Ashburton. The resulting Webster-Ashburton Treaty
reached agreement on the following points:
 Boundaries: Clearly defined borders were drawn between
Maine and New Brunswick, and also in the Great Lakes
area; the United States received control of 7,015 square
miles of the disputed territory and Britain, 5,012 square
miles
 African slave trade: The United states agreed to station
ships off the African coast in an effort to detect Americans
engaging in the slave trade.
 One question of growing concern, the Oregon boundary
issue, was not addressed in this agreement.
 In the last years of the Spanish empire, Spain decided to
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allow some Americans to settle in Texas.
By 1835, approximately 20,000 American, Mexican, and
European settlers had arrived in Texas, bringing with them
an additional 4,000 slaves.
In 1835, fighting broke out between the Mexican Army and
Anglo-American colonists who were angry with the Mexican
government for attempting to limit the practice of slavery
and for violating the Mexican constitution.
In 1836, they declared Texas an independent state, called the
Republic of Texas.
In 1845, the Republic of Texas voluntarily asked to become a
part of the United States, and the government of the United
States agreed to annex the nation.
The Republic of Texas included the present-day state of Texas
as well as portions of New Mexico, Kansas, Colorado, and
Wyoming.
 The Oregon territory was claimed from the sixteenth
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century by Spain, Russia, Britain, and the United States.
By the mid-1820s, only the American and British claims
endured; a "joint occupation” lasted until 1846.
The British were chiefly fur traders associated with the
Hudson's Bay Company,
Americans were attracted by new religious freedom and
fertile soil; this spurred a massive migration of
thousands of American families westward along the
Oregon Trail.
In June 1846, the Senate, preoccupied with war against
Mexico, quickly approved the Oregon Treaty with
Britain, setting the boundary at the 49th parallel.
 On April 25, 1846, after the U.S. cavalry ignored an order
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from the Mexican army to retreat to the Nueces River and
instead advanced south to the Rio Grande, fighting broke
out.
Three weeks later, Congress declared war on Mexico.
Fighting continued for more than a year, and ended in
September 1847.
In February 1848, the two countries signed the Treaty of
Guadalupe-Hidalgo. The treaty recognized Texas as a U.S.
state, and ceded a large chunk of land — about half the area
that belonged to the Mexican republic — to the United
States for the cost of $15 million.
The Mexican Cession included land that would later become
California, Nevada, and Utah, as well as portions of Arizona,
New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming.
 The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo had
described the U.S.-Mexico boundary
vaguely, and following the MexicanAmerican War, the United States and
Mexico continued to dispute the border
between the two countries.
 In 1853 President Franklin Pierce sent
James Gadsden to negotiate with Mexico.
 The Mexican government was in
desperate need of money, and it agreed to
sell a small strip of land along the U.S.Mexico border to the United States for $10
million. The