Topic: Expansion
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Jefferson to Meriwether Lewis
Jefferson sent these detailed instructions to Meriwether Lewis in June 1803. The president wanted Lewis and his associate, William Clark, to gather all sorts of information on their expedition, but...
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Jefferson to William Henry Harrison
In this letter to the governor of the Indiana territory, President Jefferson explained how he would get the American Indians to give up their lands to white farmers. Jefferson’s plan...
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Jefferson’s Sixth Annual Message to Congress
President Jefferson delivered this address to Congress a few months after Lewis and Clark returned from their expedition. In a message dominated by foreign policy problems and issues, mostly related...
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Jefferson’s Third Annual Message to Congress
In this message to Congress, Jefferson argued that Louisiana was well worth its $15 million price. The vast territory included both the Mississippi River and the port of New Orleans....
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Junction of the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers
This watercolor by the Swiss artist and explorer Karl Bodman shows the intersection of the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers, which is now located in western North Dakota. In April 1805,...
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Lewis and Clark
This etching shows Lewis and Clark meeting with some American Indians. It was one of several illustrations included in the journals of Patrick Gass, a member of the Lewis and...
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Louisiana Purchase Treaty
This treaty was signed by representatives from the U.S. and France on 30 April 1803. For $15 million, the Americans bought some 828,000 acres west of the Mississippi River, doubling...
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Maine Not to be Coupled with the Missouri Question
The author of this poem believed that Maine’s statehood should not depend on the admission of Missouri as a slave state. The Missouri Compromise—by which Missouri became a slave state...
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Map of Free and Slave States
As this map indicates, the further expansion of slavery into the West was the central issue in American politics by 1856. The map’s publishers showed free states in pink and...
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