America Reaching for Both Oceans
Storyboard Text
- Louisiana Purchase
- Look, I see a mountain!
- Indian Removal in the South West
- Leave or our men will kill you!
- Texas
- Let us have slavery!
- We don't like your laws!
- There was a river that Americans were using to move around, and Spain previously owned it before France bought it and closed off some good riverways, and Thomas Jefferson wanted the area near the river because it would be significant to traders and voyagers on the port. After buying it for a cheap price of 15 million dollars, Louis and Clark went on an expedition with Sacagawea to map the unknown west side of the US so American settlers could know where they were heading. This was significant because now white male American settlers could have their own farms.
- Mexican/American War
- LALALALA, I'M GOING TO MAKE LOUD NOISES AND YOU CAN'T STOP MEEEEE!
- President Jackson wanted to remove Native Americans who had already been living in the United States so he could expand his civilization, so he sent them through a deadly trip called the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma. 1/3 of Native Americans died, impacting most of the tribes in the land that Americans had stolen. It also impacted the Americans, especially President Jackson, because now they had a president focused on violence to Native Americans.
- Oregon Territory
- Fifty four forty or death!
- Mexico had rule over Texas, and when American settlers came to live there, they didn't like a lot of their policies or the fact that they couldn't have a slave market, so they got mad. This planted an idea in the Anglo-Americans' heads that they should rebel so they could have Texas as a state for slavery, and it started the rebellion. This impacted Texas and Mexico because now they would have a whole war over that land and the policies and beliefs that come with it.
- American Indians and "Westward Expansion."
- Let's fire arrows over the hill and make it rain arrows.
- Anglo-Americans in Texas wanted to have Texas all to themselves, so there began to be battles, including one infamous one at San Antonio's Alamo, where Mexican soldiers surrounded the Alamo, a Texan fort, teasing them with loud music and taunts, before finally running in and killing almost everyone. This made the Anglo-Americans extremely angry, and the war started, ending out with Texas and Mexico signing a treaty that Texas would become its own state independent to Mexico. It was significant in the making of Texas and the completion of America, and also significant because thenTexas could become a slave state and almost throw off the balance of the slave state/no slavery states.
- There became a saying by President James Polk called 'Fifty-four forty or death!' which signified that he wanted the border for America to be at the 54° 40' line or he'd fight for it. Finally, he got an agreement with Britain that he would indeed get the border at 54° 40', allowing America to stretch from ocean to ocean! This, of course, meant American citizens would then be moving into that territory, where Native Americans were already living, and it was significant to Americans and Native Americans because now there would be disputes over who got which land.
- Americans knew that they had Native Americans in their land when they bought the Oregon territory, and they knew they had to do something about it, so they began attacking the Native Americans. This was significant to the Native Americans because a lot of their land was being stolen and taken from them, and significant to America because their land was expanding and there were many battles and massacres that decreased the Native Americans' population and the Americans' population.
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