Part one of term paper
After the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, a large amount of land west of the original 13 states and the Northwest Territory was acquired. The open land, additional benefits and other existing problems encouraged Americans to expand westward. The American people began to realize that the future of the country lay in the development of its o ...

Part two of term paper
... and distinct cultures, who had populated the land for thousands of years-from the desert of the Southwest and the grassy prairies of the Great Plains to the high valleys of the Rocky Mountains and the salty beaches of the Pacific Coast-Americans considered the west to be an empty wilderness. And in less than fifty years, from the 1803 purchase of Louisiana Territory to the California gold rush of 1849, the nation would expand and conquer the West" (Herb 3). The ocean had always contro ...