westward expansion
Spreading toward sunset
Westward expansion refers to the 19th-century movement of American settlers, government, and infrastructure across the North American continent toward the Pacific Ocean.
The term encompasses territorial acquisition, migration patterns, and the ideology of Manifest Destiny that justified this growth as inevitable and divinely ordained.
It is inseparable from the displacement and devastation of Indigenous peoples, the extension of slavery into new territories, and conflicts like the Mexican-American War.
The railroad accelerated westward expansion after the Civil War.
- Oregon TrailEmigrant route westward
- Great PlainsCentral North American grassland
- Indian Removal ActLaw authorizing tribal expulsion
- homesteadingSelf-reliant land-based lifestyle
- Louisiana Purchase1803 territorial acquisition
Manifest Destiny · Little Bighorn · wagon trains · settler colonialism · frontier · wild west · fur trade · border disputes · Rocky Mountains · Mexican-American War · Santa Fe Trail · covered wagon · prairie schooner · pioneers · mining industry · cattle drive · resistance movements · Homestead Act
- American frontierfrontier, pioneers, homesteading, homesteads, pioneer trails
- Americas HistoryAmerican Revolution, Aztec Empire, colonial era, colonization, Columbus
- US HistoryAmerican Revolution, US history, Civil War, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln
- Westward ExpansionOregon Trail, Lewis and Clark, covered wagons, pioneers, frontier
- frontierfrontier, pioneer, pioneers, settlers, settler
- Types of Expansionurban sprawl, empire building, colonization, annexation, business growth
westward expansionretreat
Sanctuary or withdrawal
retrenchment · shrinkage · withdrawal · consolidation · pullback
westward expansionland back
Indigenous sovereignty movement
decolonization · indigenous sovereignty · reservation system · Trail of Tears