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The Oregon Trail, the longest of the overland routes used in the westward expansion of the United States, was first traced by settlers and fur traders for traveling to the Oregon Country. The main route of the Oregon Trail stopped at the Hudson's Bay Company Fort Hall , a major resupply route along the trail near present-day Pocatello and where ...
Captain's ensign of Columbus's ships. For his westward voyage to find a shorter route to the Orient, Columbus and his crew took three medium-sized ships, the largest of which was a carrack (Spanish: nao), the Santa María, which was owned and captained by Juan de la Cosa, and under Columbus's direct command.
Maps of the New World had been produced since the 16th century. The history of cartography of the United States begins in the 18th century, after the declared independence of the original Thirteen Colonies on July 4, 1776, during the American Revolutionary War (1776–1783). Later, Samuel Augustus Mitchell published a map of the United States ...
After 1815, the United States shifted its attention away from foreign policy to internal development. With the defeat of the eastern Indians in the War of 1812, American settlers moved in great numbers into the rich farmlands of the Midwest. Westward expansion was mostly undertaken by groups of young families.
The first great expansion of the country came with the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, which doubled the country's territory, although the southeastern border with Spanish Florida was the subject of much dispute until it and Spanish claims to the Oregon Country were ceded to the US in 1821.
The Mitchell Map. The Mitchell Map is a map made by John Mitchell (1711–1768), which was reprinted several times during the second half of the 18th century. The map, formally titled A map of the British and French dominions in North America &c., was used as a primary map source during the Treaty of Paris for defining the boundaries of the newly independent United States.
One of Thomas Jefferson's goals was to find "the most direct and practicable water communication across this continent, for the purposes of commerce." He also placed special importance on declaring US sovereignty over the land occupied by the many different Native American tribes along the Missouri River, and getting an accurate sense of the resources in the recently completed Louisiana Purchase.
The Pacific Railroad Surveys (1853–1855) were a series of explorations of the American West designed to find and document possible routes for a transcontinental railroad across North America. The expeditions included surveyors, scientists, and artists and resulted in an immense body of data covering at least 400,000 square miles (1,000,000 km ...