Westward Growth: The Louisiana Purchase and Corps of Discovery

Apply geographic tools, spatial thinking, and regional analysis to understand North America's physical and political landscape.

Analyze the diverse cultures of Indigenous nations and evaluate the multifaceted impacts of European contact and colonization.

Examine the establishment, key leaders, and motives behind the founding of early English settlements across North America.

Compare the geographic environments, economic systems, and forms of labor across the New England, Middle, and Southern colonies.

Examine the origins, expansion, and institutionalization of slavery across the colonies, the transatlantic slave trade, and forms of Black resistance.

Explain the ideological, economic, and political causes of the American Revolution and analyze the core arguments of the Declaration of Independence.

Analyze key military leadership, turning-point battles, the French alliance, and the path to victory culminating in the Treaty of Paris.

Examine the diverse roles, motivations, and viewpoints of Loyalists, Patriots, African Americans, Native nations, women, and British leaders during the Revolutionary War.

Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation, the significance of Shays' Rebellion, and the foundational compromises of the U.S. Constitution.

Evaluate the geopolitical importance of the Louisiana Purchase and trace the scientific, geographic, and diplomatic journey of the Corps of Discovery.

Analyze the causes, naval conflicts, major land battles, and nationalistic aftermath of the War of 1812.

Analyze New England's early industrial revolution, maritime trade networks, and the economic links between northern mills and southern slavery.

Examine 19th-century Indigenous resistance movements, legal battles for sovereignty, and the impact of federal Indian removal policies.

Explain how Indigenous nations fought for self-government and resisted forced removal, focusing on the Mashpee Revolt in Massachusetts and the Trail of Tears in the Southeast.

Analyze the state-by-state abolition of slavery in the North, the ban on transatlantic slave importation in 1808, and the expansion of the domestic slave trade into the western states.