The Louisiana Purchase (1803), negotiated during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson (reign 1801–1809) and concluded under Napoleon Bonaparte (as First Consul of France, reign 1799–1804; Emperor 1804–1814/15), doubled the territorial size of the United States and reoriented its strategic horizon toward continental expansion. Acquired through treaty rather than conquest, the vast trans-Mississippi lands transformed the geopolitical balance of North America and set in motion sustained exploration, surveying, and settlement. What had previously been an uncertain interior became the focus of state-sponsored expeditions, commercial ventures, and migratory flows that would redefine the political, economic, and demographic landscape of the 19th century.
Jefferson’s Corps of Discovery, led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark (1804–1806), established a transcontinental route via the Missouri and Columbia river systems, expanding geographic knowledge and reinforcing American claims to the Pacific Northwest. Over subsequent decades, traders, missionaries, military surveyors, and settler caravans traced and formalized overland corridors toward Oregon, California, and the Southwest. By 1820, approximately two million of the nation’s ten million inhabitants lived west of the Appalachians, reflecting accelerating internal migration. The concept of “Manifest Destiny,” coined in 1845, articulated a prevailing ideological justification for expansion, though this process also entailed displacement and dispossession of Native American nations.
About the Author
Related Images
Map of the Louisiana Purchase
Map of the United States on the Eve of Civil War, 1861
Map of Spanish Conquest & Exploration in North America
Map of the United States, 1874
Map of the United States Under the Compromise of 1850
Map of the USA Expansion after the Treaty of Paris in 1783
Cite This Work
APA Style
Netchev, S. (2023, March 20). Map of Westward Exploration and Settlement of the USA c.1855. World History Encyclopedia. https://www.worldhistory.org/image/17202/map-of-westward-exploration-and-settlement-of-the/
Chicago Style
Netchev, Simeon. "Map of Westward Exploration and Settlement of the USA c.1855." World History Encyclopedia, March 20, 2023. https://www.worldhistory.org/image/17202/map-of-westward-exploration-and-settlement-of-the/.
MLA Style
Netchev, Simeon. "Map of Westward Exploration and Settlement of the USA c.1855." World History Encyclopedia, 20 Mar 2023, https://www.worldhistory.org/image/17202/map-of-westward-exploration-and-settlement-of-the/.
