In the early part of the 19th century, as the barely decades-old America began expanding its borders to include more and more territory to the west, there was a marked increase in the desire and drive of its people to move westward and make a new beginning in the “wild blue yonder” of the largely unspoiled nation, ushering in the era of Westward Expansion.
This era is marked both by its positives, such as the times of great economic prosperity and the heroic and adventurous westward surge of the American people, as well as by its negatives, embodied in large part by the forced and often brutal removal of Native Americans from their lands, and by the continued practice of slavery in many states, both established and new.
Political disputes between North and South inevitably ensued, each demanding equal representation (by number of states) in Congress. Then literally overnight, America doubled in size with the Louisiana Purchase, eventually adding thirteen more new states to the union. Captains and heroes both, Lewis and Clark explored and mapped much of this new frontier.
Pioneers would expand all the way to the Pacific Ocean, following the Oregon Trail to the Pacific Northwest and the more southerly California Trail, blazing these trails for other settlers to follow for decades to come.
Their journey fraught with many hardships along the way—disease, hunger, poverty, inclement weather, inhospitable land, even death—the American people persevered, never losing sight of what history records as their greatest asset: their indomitable spirit.
-Colin
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