History Curriculum/Book 15
Book fifteen of the curriculum
The History of the U.S. Westward Expansion
The fifteenth book in the curriculum and the eighth of the Early American set. Eighteen chapters across four weeks — from a treaty signed in Paris in 1803 that doubled the size of the United States, through the first cabins west of the mountains, a line drawn across the map at 36°30′, a president who wanted roads and canals and an observatory, the Indian Removal Act and the Cherokee Nation's case against it, Texas as a Mexican province, a republic and a state, the presidents who argued over annexing it, the Oregon Trail, Polk and the phrase "manifest destiny", the war with Mexico, the gold at Coloma, the Latter-day Saints' exodus to the Great Basin, the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas–Nebraska Act, Bleeding Kansas, the towns of the south-western border, California and Nevada, the Homestead Act, and the wars on the Plains and in the mountains that ended at Wounded Knee. TWO THINGS TO KNOW BEFORE YOU START. First, the first-person accounts in both printed editions are HISTORICAL FICTION — written to tell the story, built on the surviving record, and not the words of the people named. That matters here because the record for this period is large and most of it is free: the treaties, the acts of Congress and the roll calls, the presidents' annual messages, the Cherokee Nation's memorials to Congress, the Supreme Court's opinions, the Texas Declaration of Independence and Travis's letter from the Alamo, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in English and Spanish, overland diaries by the thousand, and the testimony of Native leaders as interpreters and reporters took it down. You can check almost everything in this book, which is exactly why the invented parts of it matter. Second, at the back of the Ultimate Guide, after the eighteen chapters, there are Cross-Curricular sections — Social Studies, Math, Science, English and a set of Testing pages — to use alongside this course. They are not a fifth week and there is nothing to hand in for them.
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4 Weeks, 18 Chapters, Choose 8+ to Read
Pick the chapters you want to read each week. The living books and the sources are one click away.
Week 1
Setting the Stage for Westward Expansion, 1803–1829
a treaty signed in Paris that doubled the country and an expedition sent to find out what had been bought, the first families over the mountains and the Wilderness Road, a territory asking to be a state and a Congress that split over slavery to answer it, and a president who wanted the national government to build roads, canals and an observatory while the states wanted the land of the Creek and the Cherokee
Pick two or more of these chapters to read. Finish two of the ones you choose to open Week 2.
K–5th Grade
The Louisiana Purchase
Going West
6th–8th Grade
Abe Lincoln Grows Up
Westward Expansion: An Interactive History Adventure
9th–12th Grade
Undaunted Courage
Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates
The Purchase, and the Men Sent to Walk It
- Louisiana Purchase Treaty (treaty of cession and two money conventions) dated Paris, 30 April 1803; Senate consent 20 October 1803READ ARTICLE I AND NOTICE THERE IS NO MAP IN IT. France ceded Louisiana "with the Same extent that it now has in the hand of Spain, & that it had when France possessed it". Nobody at the table could say where the western edge was, which is why the Adams–Onís Treaty had to be negotiated sixteen years later. Three documents, one price: $15 million, including the American claims the United States agreed to pay.
- Jefferson's instructions to Meriwether Lewis 20 June 1803The job description of the expedition, in Jefferson's own hand: find "the most direct & practicable water communication across this continent for the purposes of commerce", and record everything on the way — soils, animals, minerals, and the languages, laws and trade of every nation. Hold the journals up against this list and see how much of it the captains did.
- Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition: the meeting with Cameahwait 17 August 1805The day Sacagawea recognized her brother Cameahwait, in Lewis's own words and spelling. The UNL edition prints every journal-keeper's entry for the day side by side, which is the best way to see how several men recorded one event, and where they differ.
Settlers, River Towns and the Man Who Became a Legend
- John Filson, The Discovery, Settlement and Present State of Kentucke, with "The Adventures of Col. Daniel Boon" Wilmington, Del.: James Adams, 1784THE FIRST BOONE STORY EVER PRINTED, while Boone was alive — and he did not write it. Filson wrote it in the first person from interviews. Boone later said it was true, but the voice is Filson's. When you meet a Boone quotation, ask whose words it is in.
- Fragment of Col. Auguste Chouteau's Narrative of the Settlement of St. Louis events of 1763–1764; manuscript undated; English translation printed St. Louis: G. Knapp & Co., 1858The founding of St. Louis told by the fourteen-year-old who cleared the site in February 1764. It was written down much later and survives only as a fragment, and this is a translation of it. It is also the only eyewitness account there is.
- Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition: arrival at St. Charles 16 May 1804St. Charles in May 1804, described by men passing through: about a hundred houses, about 450 people, mostly French. A plain count from the expedition's own record, to set beside the Guide's description of the town.
The Line Drawn Across the West
- The Missouri Compromise (Act of 6 March 1820) 6 March 1820Find the eighth section: slavery prohibited in the rest of the Louisiana Purchase north of 36° 30'. Maine was admitted by a separate act. The line held for thirty-four years, until the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 declared it "inoperative and void".
- Thomas Jefferson to John Holmes ("a fire bell in the night") 22 April 1820"This momentous question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union." A private letter from a retired President who held enslaved people himself. Read the whole of it: it is the geographical LINE that alarms him, and he says why.
- Adams–Onís Treaty (Transcontinental Treaty) with Spain signed Washington, 22 February 1819; ratifications exchanged 22 February 1821Follow the line on a map: up the Sabine, the Red and the Arkansas to the 42nd parallel, "and thence, along the said parallel, to the South Sea". Those last words gave the United States a legal claim to the Pacific coast. Then look at what it gave up west of the Sabine, which was Texas.
Week 2
Second Phase of Manifest Destiny, 1829–1848
the Indian Removal Act and the Cherokee Nation's memorials and lawsuits against it, a Mexican province settled by American colonists that became a republic and then a state, four presidents and a Senate that could not agree on whether to take it, the wagon road to the Willamette and a boundary argument with Britain settled at the 49th parallel, and a president elected to add territory who did
Pick two or more of these chapters to read. Finish two of the ones you choose to open Week 3.
K–5th Grade
The Trail of Tears
A Picture Book of Davy Crockett
6th–8th Grade
Soft Rain: A Story of the Cherokee Trail of Tears
Bound for Oregon
9th–12th Grade
A Line in the Sand: The Alamo in Blood and Memory
The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West
Removal, in the Words of Both Sides
- Jackson's message to Congress "On Indian Removal" (from the Second Annual Message) 6 December 1830Jackson's own case for removal, six months after he signed the Act of 28 May 1830. Read it beside his first annual message of 8 December 1829, where he said emigration "should be voluntary", and ask whether the two messages describe the same policy.
- Memorial of the Cherokee Nation to Congress December 1829 (tabled in the House 8 February 1830)"We have never ceded nor forfeited the occupancy of the soil and the sovereignty over it." The Cherokee argument rests on law: on the treaties the United States had signed with them. The House tabled it. List what this memorial and Jackson's message agree on as FACT, and where they part.
- Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. (6 Pet.) 515 decided 3 March 1832 (January Term 1832)The Supreme Court held that Georgia's laws had no force in the Cherokee Nation. JACKSON'S FAMOUS REPLY IS NOT IN ANY DOCUMENT FROM 1832. "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it" was first printed by Horace Greeley in 1864. The judgment itself is the document; read its last paragraph.
Texas, From the Walls of the Alamo to the Joint Resolution
- William Barret Travis, letter from the Alamo ("Victory or Death") 24 February 1836GENUINE, and the original is in the Texas State Archives. Four pages: the appeal "To the People of Texas & all Americans in the world", Travis's postscript about the corn and the cattle, and notes the couriers added as it travelled east. Look at the images of the pages, not just the transcription.
- Sam Houston's official report of the Battle of San Jacinto (page 4) 25 April 1836The commander's report four days after the battle, in his own copy. The war cry is in it: the advancing line "sung the war cry 'Remember the Alamo'". His casualty count is Texian 2 killed and 23 wounded, Mexican 630 killed, 208 wounded and 730 prisoners. The Mexican figures are his count, not a Mexican return.
- Joint Resolution of Congress for Annexing Texas 1 March 1845Why a joint resolution? A treaty needs two-thirds of the Senate, and the 1844 treaty had been rejected 35 to 16. A resolution needs a simple majority; it passed the Senate 27 to 25. Read what Texas kept: its public lands, its debts, and the right to divide into as many as four more states.
Oregon, and the Phrase That Named an Era
- 1844 Democratic Party Platform adopted by the Democratic National Convention at Baltimore, 27–30 May 1844The 1844 language, documented: "Our title to the whole of the Territory of Oregon is clear and unquestionable" and "the re-occupation of Oregon and the re-annexation of Texas". Note the "re-". THE SLOGAN "FIFTY-FOUR FORTY OR FIGHT" IS NOT IN THE PLATFORM and has not been found in print during the 1844 campaign.
- "Annexation", United States Magazine and Democratic Review, vol. 17, no. 85, pp. 5–10 (first printed use of "manifest destiny") July–August 1845THE FIRST PRINTED "MANIFEST DESTINY", in the original issue: "the fulfilment of our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions". The article is about Texas, and it is UNSIGNED. The attribution to the editor, O'Sullivan, is traditional and has been questioned.
- Oregon Treaty (Treaty with Great Britain in regard to limits westward of the Rocky Mountains) signed 15 June 1846The line at 49°, with Vancouver Island left to Britain. It was signed on 15 June 1846, a month into the war with Mexico. Compare this line with the 54° 40' claim and with what Polk's first annual message asked Congress to do.
Week 3
The Paths Westward, 1846–1857
a war with Mexico declared in May 1846 and ended by a treaty its own negotiator had been recalled before signing, gold in a millrace at Coloma and three hundred thousand people who came for it, the Latter-day Saints' exodus from Nauvoo to the Great Basin, and the presidents and senators who tried to settle what the new territory would be — slave or free — with the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas–Nebraska Act
Pick two or more of these chapters to read. Finish two of the ones you choose to open Week 4.
K–5th Grade
The Josefina Story Quilt
The Great Pioneer Projects You Can Build Yourself
6th–8th Grade
The Journal of Wong Ming-Chung: A Chinese Miner
Patty Reed's Doll: The Story of the Donner Party
9th–12th Grade
Between Here and Zion: The 1861 Mormon Trail Diary of Asenath Wilcox
The War Declared, Questioned and Ended
- Polk's war message (Special Message to Congress on Mexican Relations) 11 May 1846The exact words are "shed American blood upon the American soil". The skirmish of 25 April 1846 happened between the Nueces and the Rio Grande, land both nations claimed. Read how much of the message argues that the Rio Grande was the boundary; Polk argues it, he does not assume it.
- Abraham Lincoln's "Spot Resolutions" (printed resolution and preamble) 22 December 1847A first-term Whig congressman asks the President to name the "spot". Eight numbered questions, and each one tests a fact the war message stated. The House never acted on them. Read them as a checklist against the war message.
- Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo signed 2 February 1848; Senate consent (amended) 10 March 1848; ratifications exchanged 30 May 1848Mexico accepts the Rio Grande line and cedes California and New Mexico for $15 million plus claims. Read Articles VIII and IX: property and citizenship for the Mexicans who stayed. Then note that the Senate struck out Article X on land grants. Trist signed the treaty after he had been recalled.
Gold, and What It Cost to Reach It
- Henry William Bigler, diary (two original pages recording the discovery) entry for Monday, 24 January 1848WRITTEN THE SAME DAY: "this day some kind of mettle was found in the tail race that looks like goald first discovered by James Martial, the boss of the Mill." This entry is why 24 January 1848 is the accepted date.
- "The Discovery of Gold in California", Hutchings' Illustrated California Magazine, vol. 2, no. 5, pp. 193 ff. (accounts by Sutter and Marshall) November 1857Marshall's own account, nine years later: "on or about the 19th of January — I am not quite certain to a day, but it was between the 18th and 20th of that month". The discoverer himself was a few days off. Compare it with Bigler: this is the difference between memory and a record made on the day.
- Patrick Breen, diary kept at Truckee Lake (the Donner Party) 20 November 1846 – 1 March 1847The only diary kept in the Donner camp: weather, food, and deaths, a line or two a day. It ends on 1 March 1847, the day a rescue party arrived. Read it for what it records and for what a man under those conditions chose to leave out.
Zion in the Desert, and a Compromise in Washington
- Wilford Woodruff, journal entry for the entry into the Salt Lake Valley 24 July 1847The day Brigham Young first saw the valley, recorded that evening by the man whose carriage he was riding in. "THIS IS THE RIGHT PLACE" IS NOT IN THIS ENTRY. Woodruff attributed the words to Young in a speech in 1880; see how the same moment is told thirty-three years apart.
- Buchanan's Proclamation 74, "Rebellion in the Territory of Utah" 6 April 1858The federal government's account of the Utah War, and its offer of a full pardon to all who submitted. Read it as the President's case. Brigham Young's proclamation of martial law of 15 September 1857 tells the same events the other way.
- The Compromise of 1850 (the five acts) 9–20 September 1850Five separate acts passed after Clay's single "omnibus" bill had failed and after Taylor's death on 9 July 1850. Match each act to one of Clay's resolutions of 29 January and note what changed between the resolution and the act.
Week 4
The Aftermath and Other Important Events, 1827–1890
a fort on the Missouri that became the gateway to Kansas and the fighting over whether Kansas would allow slavery, the towns of the south-western border from Santa Fe to Tombstone, the missions, the Comstock and the railroad in California and Nevada, the Homestead Act of 1862 and the settlement of the northern Plains, and the wars between the United States and the Native nations of the West from Sand Creek to Wounded Knee
Pick two or more of these chapters to read.
K–5th Grade
Wagon Wheels
Who Was Sitting Bull?
6th–8th Grade
Sing Down the Moon
Caddie Woodlawn
9th–12th Grade
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
The Earth Shall Weep: A History of Native America
Trails, Frontier Towns and the Men Who Took Them
- Josiah Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies, or the Journal of a Santa Fé Trader (first edition, 2 vols.) New York: H. G. Langley, 1844 (covering trips of 1831–1840)A Santa Fe trader's own account of eight crossings, with his own table of the trade year by year. Use it to check any figure for wagons, goods or duties. Independence, Missouri, appears here as it was when the trade used it.
- Report of the Special Committee Appointed to Investigate the Troubles in Kansas (Howard Committee), with the views of the minority 1856 (report submitted 1 July 1856)Sworn testimony about the Kansas elections of 1854–55, with a MAJORITY and a MINORITY report bound in the same volume. The two reports read the same evidence differently. Read one witness in full before you read either conclusion.
- Occupation of Mexican Territory: message of the President with Kearny's proclamation to the people of New Mexico (p. 20), the Organic Law ("Kearny Code") (p. 27) and Sloat's proclamation to California (p. 102) transmitted 22 December 1846 (Kearny's proclamation, Santa Fe, 22 August 1846; Sloat's, Monterey, 7 July 1846)The proclamations by which U.S. commanders announced American rule in New Mexico and California, printed for the House in December 1846 after members asked what had been done. Kearny's proclamation says the United States "absolves all persons residing within the boundaries of New Mexico from any further allegiance to the republic of Mexico" (p. 20), before any treaty had ceded New Mexico.
Land, Rails and the Vote
- The Homestead Act 20 May 1862 (in effect 1 January 1863)160 acres for five years' residence and a filing fee. Read the eligibility clause: heads of households or anyone over 21, citizens or those who had declared the intention to become one, who had "never borne arms against the United States". That last phrase was written in 1862.
- "The Pacific Railroad. The last spike driven and the junction formed", Richmond Palladium (Richmond, Ind.), p. 2 11 May 1869 (dispatch dated Promontory Summit, Utah, 10 May)The completion of the railroad as the country read it the next morning: "The last rail is laid: the last spike driven. The Pacific Railroad is completed." Check the distances the dispatch gives for each company's line.
- An Act to Grant to the Women of Wyoming Territory the Right of Suffrage and to Hold Office approved 10 December 1869; printed in the territory's General Laws, Cheyenne, 1870, p. 371Two sections, passed by a territorial legislature in December 1869. "Every woman of the age of twenty-one years, residing in this territory, may, at every election ... cast her vote." Wyoming kept it and entered the Union with it in 1890.
The Treaties, and the Wars Fought Over Them
- Treaty of Fort Laramie with the Sioux and Arapaho 29 April 1868 and following (signatures collected into November 1868); proclaimed 24 February 1869Read Article 2, which sets apart the Great Sioux Reservation, Black Hills included, for "absolute and undisturbed use and occupation", and Article 12, which requires three-fourths of adult men to sign any cession. The war of 1876 and the dispute that followed it turn on those two articles.
- "Massacre of Cheyenne Indians", in Report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, vol. 3 report dated 1865 (38th Congress, 2nd session, S. Rep. 142); attack at Sand Creek 29 November 1864Sworn testimony taken within months of 29 November 1864, including Chivington's own statement. A congressional committee, an Army commission and the territorial governor each published their account, and they differ. Read testimony from each before any conclusion.
- Chief Joseph's reply to General Howard, as printed in the Bismarck Tri-Weekly Tribune, p. 4 26 October 1877 (surrender at the Bear Paw Mountains, 5 October 1877)THE EARLIEST PRINTING FOUND of "I will fight no more forever", in a Dakota paper on 26 October 1877. It gives the words as a reply carried by Nez Perce messengers. Three weeks later Harper's Weekly printed a version it said "our artist" wrote down "as it fell from the lips of the speaker". In 1879 Joseph himself told it as "From where the sun now stands I will fight no more", without "forever".
What comes with the book
The Ultimate Guide
The textbook itself — the eighteen chapters these lessons are built from.
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Living History
Heroes and Villains Series: Westward Expansion — Told By Those Who Were There. The Heroes & Villains series, in the first person.
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The Adventure Box
Cards, lesson plans, activities, coloring pages and the craft kit for this era.
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