There were many drivers behind the Westward expansion of America in the 1900s. Chief among these were the views of U.S. leaders that more territory was required for industry such as agriculture, the rise of railroad expansion, increased immigration, and fears that leaving the West open to European or other nations put U.S. interests and security at risk.
The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 was seen by President Thomas Jefferson as a necessity in light of the fact that American farmers needed new land for agricultural production, the population of the Eastern Seaboard states was growing at a phenomenal rate due to immigration, and the new nation of America was also legitimately concerned with ensuring her ônational security and sovereigntyö (Oates 179).
The Louisiana Territory, an area larger than Western Europe stretching from the Mississippi River westward to the Rocky Mountains and from CanadaÆs Lake of the Woods to the Gulf of Mexico, would give the new nation access to one of the worldÆs potentially richest trading areas. The Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, and Red Rivers and their tributaries could act as ôfunnels carrying goods to the Mississippi and down-river to new Orleans,ö a major port city (Oates 180). Jefferson wanted to put an end to European ambitions to the Western continent and to ensure that French control of this vast territory would pose no threat to the United States. Later expansion was viewed as securing U.S. interests from often violent indigenous tribes in the area or Mexico ambitions to expand its own territory.
With the Louisiana Purchase secure, the migration of farmers and others to the West began almost immediately. Unfortunately, in this movement West, indigenous peoples were encountered for whom the prospect of settled land ôownedö by non-tribal peoples was less than acceptable. Oates (182-183) maintains that to legitimize the Westward expansion, U.S. leaders established the pr
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