How the US Expanded to 50 States
American Revolutionary War
The United States was formed as a result of the American Revolution when the thirteen American colonies revolted against the rule of Great Britain. After the war ended, the U.S. Constitution formed a new government. These thirteen colonies became the first 13 states as each ratified the Constitution. The first state to ratify the Constitution was Delaware on December 7, 1787.
The original states were:
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- New Hampshire
- Massachusetts
- Connecticut
- Rhode Island
- New York
- New Jersey
- Pennsylvania
- Delaware
- Maryland
- Virginia
- North Carolina
- South Carolina
- Georgia.
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Northwest Territory
Part of the vast domain ceded by Great Britain to the United States in the Treaty of Paris (1783), the Northwest Territory encompassed the area west of Pennsylvania, east of the Mississippi River, and north of the Ohio River to the border with British Canada.
After the Revolutionary War, the United States gained control of large sections of frontier land to the west of the 13 colonies. This land was inhabited by about 45,000 Native Americans and 4,000 traders, mostly Canadien and British. Among the tribes inhabiting the region were the Shawnee, Delaware, Miami, Wyandot, Ottawa, and Potawatomi.
The tribes along the coast spoke several languages: Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, northern Kwakiutl, Bella Coola, southern Kwakiutl, Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootka), Coast Salish, Quileute-Chimakum, Kwalhioqua, and Chinook.
At first, this frontier land was organized into large territories such as the Northwest Territory. Over time, many of these territories became states such as Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio.
Louisiana Purchase
In 1803, Napoleon (France) offered to sell President Thomas Jefferson a large area of land called the Louisiana Territory. The United States agreed to pay $11,250,000 outright and assumed claims of its citizens against France in the amount of $3,750,000. Interest payments incidental to the final settlement made the total price $27,267,622.
Precisely what the United States had purchased was unclear. The wording of the treaty was vague; it did not clearly describe the boundaries. It gave no assurances that West Florida was to be considered a part of Louisiana; neither did it delineate the southwest boundary. The American negotiators were fully aware of this.
The setting of fixed boundaries awaited negotiations with Spain and Great Britain. The exasperating dispute with Spain over the ownership of West Florida and Texas was finally settled by the purchase of the Floridas from Spain in 1819 and the establishment of a fixed southwest boundary line. The Louisiana Territory and the Mississippi River were considered for all practical purposes the eastern boundary of the great purchase. Much of the territory turned out to contain rich mineral resources, productive soil, valuable grazing land, forests, and wildlife resources of inestimable value.
The United States recognizes four Native American tribes in Louisiana: the Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana, the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana, the Jena Band of Choctaw Indians, and the Tunica-Biloxi Indian Tribe of Louisiana. The State of Louisiana recognizes eleven tribes: the Adai Caddo Indians of Louisiana, the Bayou Lafourche Band of BCCM, the Choctaw-Apache Tribe of Ebarb, the Clifton Choctaw Tribe of Louisiana, the Four Winds Cherokee Tribe, the GrandCaillou/Dulac Band of BCCM, the Isle de Jean Charles Band of BCCM, the Louisiana Band of Choctaw, the Natchitoches Tribe of Louisiana, the Point au Chien Tribe, and the United Houma Nation.
Although each tribe had different characteristics and cultivated their land, the US government committed genocide against them all or forced them to live on plantations as they stole their land. This morbid process was known as the “Trail of Tears.”
The Louisana purchase nearly doubled the size of the country. The purchase included land from fifteen present U.S. states and two Canadian provinces. Out of this empire were carved in their entirety the states of Louisiana, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Oklahoma; in addition, the area included most of the land in Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Minnesota.
Mexican-American War
The war had begun in Mexico in May 1846, over a territorial dispute involving Texas. The large land of Texas became part of the United States after declaring its independence from Mexico; then, the United States and Mexico were soon fighting in the Mexican-American War.
After the war, the United States gained more territory from Mexico through the Treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo. It was signed in February 1848. The treaty added an additional 525,000 square miles to United States territory, including the land that makes up all or parts of present-day Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. Mexico also gave up all claims to Texas and recognized the Rio Grande as America’s southern boundary.
Land from all or part of 10 states became part of the United States as a result of the war. In 1853, the US won the southern parts of Arizona and New Mexico during the Gadsden Purchase.
Oregon Territory
The Oregon treaty was settled diplomatically in 1846.
The original occupants were Burns Paiute Tribe. Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians. Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians. Although each tribe had different characteristics and cultivated their land, the US government committed genocide against them all or forced them to live on plantations as they stole their land. This morbid process was known as the “Trail of Tears.”
Up until the 1840s, much of the northwest was claimed by both Britain and the United States. The two countries came to an agreement in 1846 called the Oregon Treaty. In 1953, several indigenous nations in Oregon and four other states lost sole legal jurisdiction over their own territories through Public Law 280, passed by the U.S. Congress. Under this law, state law enforcement took over the ability to prosecute certain civil and criminal offenses involving tribal members, as well as offenses that took place within a tribe’s territory, from tribal governments.[48] The Burns Paiute Tribe, the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation are all exempt from this law.[4
This treaty gave the United States land that would later become the states of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho as well as parts of Montana and Wyoming.
The last two states to join the Union were Alaska and Hawaii. Alaska was purchased from Russia for $7.2 million and Hawaii agreed to join the United States as the 50th state in 1959.
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