Thomas Jefferson was looking to expand the Untied States Territories. The French fought wars with Great Britain, desperate for money. Bought the land for $15 million from the French. Doubled the size of the United States and opened opportunities for the westward expansion.
Stephen Long
They spent 123 miles of their 8,000 miles in Kansas. They liked Kansas, they explained it as "Great beauty...variety of game...deer seemed plentiful...abundance of wild raspberries.
Jackson's Speech
Zebulon was the first to travel the territory by land. He thought and explained Kansas as worthless and couldn't do anything with it.
Indian Removal Act
Instead of traveling by land, Stephen Long traveled by steamboat. On the map, he labeled Kansas as "The Great American Desert." Seeing Kansas as a desert, influenced the U.S. governments settlement policies for years later on.
Jackson's speech basically states would you rather have Kansas covered with forests with a few thousand "savages" or covered with cities, towns, and farms with more than 12,000,000 happy people.
All of these former events led up to the Indian Removal Act. They forced American Indians to relocate to Kansas and other areas, Many tribes found living there hard, and lost many tribe members on the journey there. Tension started rising between tribes.