Louisiana Purchase Research Paper

Originally, there were 13 colonies that declared independence from England and formed the United States of America. In the Proclamation of 1763, they said that they would not cross the Appalachian Mountains. After the War of 1812, the British abandoned their forts in the West and more and more people moved into the West. As people moved west, our country began to grow into the vast nation we have today.
The first land gained by the Early Americans were the Northwest Territories. This land was located west of the original colonies, namely Pennsylvania, northwest of the Ohio River, and stopped at the Mississippi River. The Northwest Ordinance, passed by the American government, had established the precedent for settling the land within the

Sold by France in 1803, the Louisiana Purchase added an additional 828,000 square miles to the United States, doubling its size. By the command of Thomas Jefferson in 1804, Lewis & Clark set out on the 8,000 mile expedition to the Pacific in hopes of finding a water route and clearing the path for westward expansion. The Louisiana Purchase added New Orleans to the list of prominent American trading ports. Along with New Orleans and Louisiana, the purchase also added the whole of Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, and Oklahoma. The purchase also added large sections of South Dakota, North Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, and some of

American acquired a foothold in Hawaii due to the sugar trade. In the 1890s, congress passed the McKinley Tariff which raised import rates on sugar. This undermined Hawaii’s sugar trade and put the islands into economic depression. American plantation owners knew that if Hawaii became a part of the United States than the tariff would no longer apply and sugar rates would return to their previous condition. Making Hawaii a state would be difficult as the native Hawaiians blamed foreign interference as the root of Hawaii’s problems. January 1893, the sugar planters staged a coup d’état along with military marines, all without presidential approval. The president at the time Grover Cleveland was an outspoken anti-imperialist and was ashamed at how the Americans acted on Hawaii. Cleveland aimed to restore Queen Liliuokalani to her throne but American sentiment favored otherwise, forcing the matter to be prolonged till Cleveland left office. When the Spanish-American War broke out, the military significance of the Hawaiian naval bases were too important and outweighed all other considerations. The new president, William McKinley, signed the treaty annexing Hawaii to the United States. Hawaii was granted statehood in 1959 making it the 50th