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Timeline of Events in Westward Expansion

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Timeline of Events in Westward Expansion

1622	Indian chief Powhatan's younger brother, Opechanough, starts the first Indian war by attacking colonists in Jamestown, Virginia, to protest white use of Indian land.
1754	The French defeat George Washington and his men at the Battle of Fort Necessity on July 3–4, beginning the French and Indian War.
1763	The first Treaty of Paris is signed, ending the French and Indian War. Under the treaty, France relinquishes its claim to Canada and the Ohio Valley to England and hands over its holdings west of the Mississippi River to Spain.

1763	Hoping to end Indian attacks in the Ohio Valley, the British issue the Proclamation of 1763, which recalls all settlers from west of the Appalachian crest and forbids further emigration into the area.
1769	Catholic missionary Father Junipero Serra and the Spanish army establish the first of twenty-one missions along the coast of California. Serra directs soldiers to round up the Native North Americans and bring them, by force if necessary, to the missions.
1775	After years of hunting in and exploring the rich forests of Kentucky, Daniel Boone cuts the first road over the Cumberland Gap to found Boonesborough in Kentucky.
1776	The Revolutionary War begins. Among the many factors contributing to the war are clashes between colonists and the British over access to land west of the Appalachians.
1783	The Revolutionary War ends. The second Treaty of Paris grants the newly formed United States of America its independence. The United States gains all of the territory from the Great Lakes south to the Gulf of Mexico and from the Appalachian Mountains west to the Mississippi River.
1783	To raise revenues, the newly formed U.S. government claims all of the Indian lands east of the Mississippi River (consisting of present-day Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee) to sell to settlers. The Chippewa, Delaware, Kickapoo, Miami, Ottawa, Potawatomi, Shawnee, and Wyandot nations and some Iroquois warriors join together to oppose the invasion of U.S. settlers into their territory.

1785	The Ordinance of 1785 establishes a pattern for surveying and dividing all territories westward from the point where the Ohio River leaves the state of Pennsylvania.
1787	The Northwest Ordinance, also known as the Ordinance of 1787, provides for the orderly creation of future states, establishes a system of laws in the territories, forbids slavery, and guarantees certain civil rights.
August 20, 1794	The Battle of Fallen Timbers takes place near present-day Fort Wayne, Indiana. Bands of Shawnee and Miami Indians led by Little Turtle (Miami), Blue Jacket (Shawnee), and others go into battle against General Anthony Wayne, known to the Indians as "Blacksnake." The Indians are forced to retreat when British support disappears.
November 19, 1794	The Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation between England and the United States (also called Jay's Treaty) is signed, reestablishing trade between Great Britain and its former colonies. In late 1794 the British agree to withdraw from fur trading and military posts they occupy in U.S. territory. With the withdrawal of the English, Indian nations lose an important ally against the United States.
May 1803	The United States purchases from France more than 800,000 square miles of land west of the Mississippi River for $15 million. The Louisiana Purchase doubles the size of the United States. This territory today makes up the states of Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and parts of Colorado, Minnesota, and Wyoming.

Sacajawea helped guide the Lewis and Clark expedition. (Drawing by Alfred Russel. Reproduced by permission of Corbis-Bettmann.)

Shawnee chief Tecumseh. (Reproduced by permission of the Granger Collection, New York.)

May 14, 1804	Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and theirentourage set out from St. Louis, Missouri to determine whether the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean are linked by a river system. Finding no such water connection, they pioneer an overland route across the Rocky Mountains.
1805	Tenskwatawa becomes known as the "ShawneeProphet." The Prophet travels widely among the western tribes, urging Native Americans to reject European ways and renew Indian traditions. Tenskwatawa'sbrother, Tecumseh, uses these teachings to create a military and political confederacy of Indian tribes.
September 23, 1806	The Lewis and Clark expedition returns to St. Louis after nearly twenty-eight months of exploration. The expedition had been given up for lost, and its return is celebrated throughout the country.
November 7, 1811	Battle of Tippecanoe takes place in theIndian village of Prophetstown in present-day north-western Indiana. Governor William Henry Harrison of Indiana attacks the Indian village with one thousand soldiers and defeats the Shawnee in the absence of their chief, Tecumseh.
1812	The War of 1812 begins. In a war that is often called the Second War for Independence, Americans seek to finally eliminate the British presence in the Old Northwest and to end British attacks on American ships carrying goods to France.
October 5, 1813	The Battle of the Thames takes place along the banks of the Thames River north of Lake Erie inpresent-day Ontario, Canada. Indian leader Tecumseh hungers for a final showdown that will once and for all drive the Americans from Indian lands. The British troops fighting alongside Tecumseh retreat after a powerful charge by mounted U.S. soldiers. Surrounded and out-manned, Tecumseh and his men fight on in bloody, hand-to-hand combat. Many Native Americans are killed, including Tecumseh.

The Battle of Tippecanoe. (Reproduced by permission of CORBIS/Bettmann.)

1814	The Treaty of Ghent ends the War of 1812. The British agree that all the territory south of the Great Lakes tothe Gulf of Mexico belongs to the United States. The British also agree not to give any help to their Indian allies in this territory.
1817	Work begins on the 363-mile-long Erie Canal, which will link Rome, New York, and Buffalo, New York.
1820	The U.S. Congress approves the Missouri Compromise,which outlaws slavery within the Louisiana Purchase territory north of 36°30' latitude. Missouri enters the Union as a slave state, while Maine enters as a free state.
1821	Mexico gains its independence from Spain and opens its borders with the United States.
1821	William Becknell leads a small caravan from Franklin, Missouri, to Santa Fe, in present-day New Mexico, becoming the first American to travel on what is known as the Santa Fe Trail.
1823	William Ashley begins the annual rendezvous forAmerican fur trappers in the Rocky Mountains. Trappers gather at the annual mountain man Rendezvous to sell their pelts and gather a year's worth of supplies.
1824	A Cherokee language alphabet with eighty-five letters is perfected by Cherokee scholar Sequoya. The letters are borrowed from the Roman alphabet but they bear no relation to their sounds in English. Along withother letters they represent all the vowel and consonant sounds in the Cherokee language. Sequoya's alphabet makes the Cherokee the first literate Indian tribe.

The Erie Canal. (Reproduced by permission of Archive Photos, Inc.)

1825	The Erie Canal is completed and within one year it collects $750,000 in tolls.
1825	James Ohio Pattie leaves Santa Fe in what is now New Mexico and travels into present-day Arizona on what becomes the Gila Trail.
1827	The Cherokee Indians, in an attempt to prevent the U.S. government from forcing them off their land, form the Cherokee Republic. The Cherokee establish acapital in New Echota, in present-day Georgia. Theywrite a constitution that calls for three branches of government, similar to the U.S. Constitution.
1828	The first Native American newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix, begins publication.
1828	The Georgia state legislature passes a series of laws that abolish the Cherokee government making it easier to claim Cherokee territory.
1829	Gold is discovered on Cherokee land in present-day Georgia. Gold seekers arrive in overwhelming numbers and lawlessness begins. Georgia increases its efforts to relocate the Cherokee to lands west of the Mississippi River.
May 28, 1830	The U.S. Congress votes in favor of the Indian Removal Act, calling for the removal—voluntary or forced—of all Indians to lands west of the Mississippi.
1834	Congress establishes Indian Territory, which coversparts of the present-day states of Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Kansas, far smaller than the "all lands west of the Mississippi" that whites had once promised.

December 29, 1835	A small group of Cherokee sign the Treaty of New Echota, selling all remaining Cherokee land east of the Mississippi River to the United States. The majority of Cherokee oppose the treaty.
1835–42	The Seminole Wars begin in the winter of 1835. After Seminole Indians refuse to leave their land in Florida, they are led by war chief Osceola in a fightagainst U.S. army troops in the swamps of Florida. The war costs the U.S. government more than $20 millionand the lives of fifteen hundred troops. Osceola is captured during a truce and dies in prison in 1838. The war continues until 1842, at which time most Seminole are moved west of the Mississippi River.
April 21, 1836	Mexican president Antonio López de Santa Anna and a large army lay siege to a band of Texans holed up at the Alamo Mission. After a ten-day battle, every American man is killed. "Remember the Alamo" becomes the battle cry of Texans who fight back against Santa Anna and win independence for the Republic of Texas on May 14, 1836.
October 22, 1836	The Republic of Texas claims all land between the Rio Grande and Nueces rivers. Sam Houston is sworn in as president.
1836	The Spanish mission system in California collapses.Native Americans leave the missions to find that the land has been changed forever. Animals and crops introduced to the area by the Spanish make it virtuallyimpossible for California Indians to live off the landin the way they had before the Spanish came.
1836	American inventor Samuel Colt patents the revolver or repeating pistol.

Eagle Rock at Scotts Bluff on the Oregon Trail in Nebraska. (© Dave G. Houser/CORBIS. Reproduced by permission.)

1836	Narcissa Prentiss Whitman and Eliza Spalding, two Protestant missionaries, become the first white women to cross the Rocky Mountains when they travel westward with their husbands.
1836	U.S. settlers move in on Creek Indian land in Alabama and purchase all available food. Drought andfamine make life impossible for the Creek. Facing starvation, the Creek agree to go to Indian Territory.
1838	The U.S. Army forms the Corps of Topographical Engineers to look at western lands with an eye toward settlement. The Corps of Engineers makes maps and surveys of the frontier until the 1860s.
October 1838–March 1839	The removal of the Cherokee Indians from Georgia to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) begins when General Winfield Scott andseven thousand federal troops are sent to the Cherokee's homeland to insist that the Cherokee leave. Scott's troops imprison any Cherokee who resist and burn their homes and crops. The Cherokee remember the trek as the "Trail Where They Cried," while U.S.historians call it the "Trail of Tears." More than four thousand Cherokee die on the forced march before they reach their destination in March 1839.
1843	The Oregon Trail is opened from Idaho to the GrandeRonde Valley in Oregon. The Great Migration, the name given to the first major exodus of emigrants westward, draws one thousand settlers onto the Oregon Trail.
1844–45	The U.S. Congress passes laws to build militaryposts to protect settlers moving from the East to California and Oregon. These forts cause conflict with Indian tribes along the route.

March 1845	President John Tyler signs a resolution to bring Texas into the Union. Because the border of Texas is still contested, Tyler's action angers the Mexican government and it breaks off diplomatic relations withthe United States. A conflict soon arises between the two countries over the official border. Texas and the United States claim the Rio Grande as the southern border. Mexico argues that the Nueces River, a few hundred miles to the north, is the actual border.
1845	Mormon leader Brigham Young leads his followersfrom Nauvoo, Illinois, more than 1,000 miles to the Salt Lake valley in present-day Utah.
January 1846	President James Polk orders General ZacharyTaylor to advance a force of thirty-five hundred U.S. troops to the Rio Grande River.
May 11, 1846	President Polk sends a war message to Congress declaring that Mexico "has invaded our territory and shed American blood upon American soil." On May 13 Congress declares that a state of war exists by act ofMexico, votes a war appropriation of $10 million, and approves the enlistment of fifty thousand soldiers.
June 14, 1846	California's Bear Flag Revolt begins when settlers claim their independence from Mexico and raise a flag bearing a black bear and a star at Sonoma.
June 15, 1846	Britain and the United States sign the Oregon Treaty, granting the territory south of the 49th parallel to the United States. Though Britain had occupiedthis territory first, by 1845 American settlers significantly outnumbered British settlers in the area.
1846	Trade along the Santa Fe trail reaches an estimated $1,000,000 from a traffic flow of 363 wagons and 750 men; by 1860 trade tops $3,500,000.

Gold rush miners in California. (Reproduced by permission of The Granger Collection, New York.)

1846	The Donner Party, a group of eighty-one men, women,and children, sets off on the Oregon Trail, heading toward California. Unable to cross the snow-covered mountains, members of the Donner Party eat dead members of their party in order to survive the long winter. Of the original party only forty-two survive.
November 1847	Members of the Whitman mission in Washington territory are massacred by Cayuse Indians, who believe the missionaries have started a devastating measles epidemic.
January 24, 1848	James Marshall discovers gold at Sutter'sMill in California, thus beginning the California GoldRush.
February 2, 1848	The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is signed ending the Mexican-American War. The treaty grants the United States all or part of the present-day states of Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. It is a territorial addition second only to the Louisiana Purchase and virtually doubles the size of the country.
1848	By the end of 1848, five thousand Mormon settlers have traveled to Salt Lake City.
1849	An estimated thirty-two thousand people take the overland routes to California in 1849, most in pursuit of gold.
1850	The U.S. Congress passes a series of laws to address the growing divisions over the slavery issue and disputesover the land acquired in the Mexican-American War. The famous Compromise of 1850 addresses the problem of slavery in the new territories of New Mexico and California. It outlaws the slave trade in Washington, D.C., but allows it everywhere else throughout the South. In addition, California is admitted to the Union as a free state, and a new and tougher fugitive slave law replaces the poorly enforced Fugitive SlaveAct of 1793.

1851	Tensions between the army and the Navajo Indians escalate quickly after the army constructs Fort Defiance in present-day eastern Arizona.
1856	The first of the Mormon handcart companies (settlers carrying their belongings in carts they push by hand)leave Iowa City in June, arriving in Salt Lake City four months later.
1858	John Butterfield's Overland Mail Company opens for service September 16. The company transports mailfrom St. Louis to Tipton, Missouri, by train and then transfers it to stagecoaches for the trip to San Francisco, California.
1859	Miners flock to Nevada to exploit the so-called Comstock Lode of gold and silver and later that year to Colorado when gold is discovered near Pike's Peak.
April 3, 1860	The Pony Express opens, providing the firstrapid overland mail service to the Pacific coast.
April 30, 1860	A force of one thousand warriors led by Navajo chiefs Manuelito and Barboncito attacks Fort Defiance in present-day eastern Arizona, killing a numberof soldiers before being driven from the fort. No longer able to overlook isolated Indian raids, after 1860 the army is determined to destroy the Navajo.
October 24, 1861	Telegraphers send the first message from San Francisco to Washington.
1861	General James H. Carleton of the U.S. Army forms Indian reservations in New Mexico. Carleton plans to slowly gather Apache and Navajo onto the reservations. Although Carleton declares his intentions are to gently assimilate American Indians to U.S. culture, he kills many Indians while trying to force them ontoreservations.

An emigrant party with their covered wagons. (© Hulton Getty / Liaison Agency. Reproduced by permission.)

1861	The Central Pacific Railroad is chartered in Californiato build the western section of the transcontinental railroad.
1861–72	The Apache Wars begin in southern Arizona in 1861 when Apache chief Cochise escapes from an army post in Arizona with hostages. In 1871 Cochise opposes efforts to relocate his people to a reservation in New Mexico. In 1872 he finally agrees not to attack the U.S. Army in exchange for reservation land in eastern Arizona.
1862	The Homestead Act of 1862 is passed by the U.S. Congress. Nearly 470,000 homesteaders apply for homesteads in the next eighteen years.
1862–64	Little Crow's Uprising. The Santee Sioux, led by Little Crow, revolt against corrupt Indian agents in Minnesota who refuse to provide Indians with food they had been promised. The Sioux attack Minnesota settlements and the uprising quickly spreads to the eastern Dakotas. The uprising is defeated and 303 Sioux are sentenced to be hanged. President Abraham Lincoln overturns most of the execution orders, but 38 Indians are hanged, the largest mass execution in American history. Little Crowand his followers escape to Canada.
1863	John Bozeman blazes the Bozeman Trail after learning of a gold strike in present-day southwestern Montana.
1863	The Nez Percé of Oregon and Idaho are forced to sign the Thief Treaty. The treaty forces the Indians to vacate lands wanted by whites, who had discovered gold on the land in 1860. The treaty reduces the Nez Percé land to one-tenth its former size.

A cowboy on a cattle drive. (Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration.)

November 29, 1864	Colonel John M. Chivington leads a force from Colorado in an unprovoked attack on a Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho camp at Sand Creek, killing an estimated five hundred men, women, and children.The Sand Creek Massacre is one of the first Indian battles to attract significant attention in the east.
1864	The "Long Walk" of the Navajo begins. Forces led byKit Carson trap a huge number of Navajo in Canyon de Chelly in present-day Arizona, a steep-sided canyon in which the Navajo had traditionally taken refuge. The Navajo are marched southeast to Bosque Redondo, with many dying along the way.
1866	The first of the great cattle drives begins in Texas. Cowboys round up cattle and drive them northwardto rail lines that reach into Kansas. In the years to come some eight million longhorn cattle travel the trails north to Kansas from ranches across Texas andthroughout the Great Plains.
1867	Joseph McCoy, an Illinois livestock dealer, founds the town of Abilene, Kansas, as a gathering point for cattle drives from Texas. Rail lines stretching eastwardfrom Abilene deliver cattle to eastern markets.
August 12, 1868	U.S. military authorities force Navajo chiefs to sign a treaty agreeing to live on reservations and cease opposition to whites. The treaty establishes a 3.5 million-acre reservation within the Navajo nation's old domains (a small portion of the original Navajo territory).

May 10, 1869	The first transcontinental United States rail-road is completed with the Golden Spike ceremony. The railroads joining the Atlantic and Pacific coastsare linked at Promontory Point, Utah, north of the Great Salt Lake.
1869	Brigadier General Ely S. Parker, a Seneca tribal leaderand close friend of President Ulysses S. Grant, is appointed commissioner of Indian Affairs. It is the first time an Indian holds this post.
1870	Wodziwob, a Paiute Indian living on the California/Nevada border, is credited with beginning the GhostDance religion, which promises Indians that they will return to the life they had before European contact.The Ghost Dance movement lasts about two years in California, but it continues to exist in other areas for more than twenty years.
1870	The U.S. Supreme Court, in the case of McKay v. Campbell, decides that Indians are not U.S. citizens since their allegiance is to their tribe, not to the United States. Because of this ruling Indians are denied protections guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
1871	The famous cattle town of Dodge City, Kansas, is founded. Within a year the settlement boasts of ageneral store, three dance halls, and six saloons, andsoon becomes a gathering place for cowboys fresh off the range.
1871	The U.S. Congress stops the practice of making treaties with Indians. Congress allows "agreements," which do not recognize tribes as independent nations. At the end of the treaty era, American Indian tribes still control one-tenth of the forty-eight states, or about one-fourth of the land between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains. By the early 1900smuch of this land is owned by the U.S. government.

1874	An expedition led by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer discovers gold in the Black Hills of South Dakota, sacred land for the Lakota Sioux, Cheyenne, and other tribes. In violation of the FortLaramie Treaty, gold miners flood the Black Hills.Soon Indian and U.S. Army forces are fighting overthis land.
1875	The results of the first river-borne exploration of theColorado River are published by American geologistJohn Wesley Powell. After the American Civil War, the canyon of the Colorado River was the last unexploredregion of the United States.
1875	U.S. president Ulysses Grant vetoes a bill that would protect the buffalo from extinction.
1875	In the winter of 1875, thousands of Indians from a number of tribes gather on the banks of the Little Bighorn River in southern Montana. There they plan their strategy for the defense of the Black Hills, ignoring or never learning of the U.S. Army's threat to hunt down and kill any Indians found off their reservations. For its part the army plans a major attack on the tribes for the spring of 1876.
June 25, 1876	At the Battle of Little Bighorn forces led by General George Armstrong Custer are defeated by combined Native American forces. The Indians' victory is their last major triumph against the whites.
1877	After the Battle of Little Bighorn, all of the Nez Percé Indians are ordered to report to reservations. ChiefJoseph of the Nez Percé leads a band of his people on a long, torturous journey to elude army forces, but they are eventually captured just 40 miles from the Canadian border.

1880	Cattle drives up the Chisholm Trail reach their peak.
July 18, 1883	Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show opens in Omaha,Nebraska. With riding, target shooting, and showmanship in an open-air spectacle, the show becomes an American favorite for the next twenty years.
1883–84	The Fence Cutter's War begins when a drought in Texas makes good grazing land scarce. Small ranchersand homesteaders pressure lawmakers to ban thefencing of public lands. When they receive no assistance, they band together in small groups with names like the Owls, Javelinas, or Blue Devils and, under the cover of night, tear down the offending fences.
1885	The cowboy era ends. Increased settlement of Kansasleads to the closing of the cattle towns, and expanding railroad lines mean that ranchers no longer have to drive cattle to railheads. Huge blizzards that strikethe plains in 1886 and 1887 kill off cattle by the thousands, proving that cattle can't be left to fend forthemselves. Finally, farmers claim increasing amounts of western land, and ranchers are forced to purchaseand fence land for their cattle. Men who were oncecowboys now become mere farmhands—but the legend of the cowboy lives on.
September 4, 1886	U.S. troops capture Apache chief Geronimo after four years of warfare with his band on theMexican border.
April 22, 1889	In the Oklahoma Land Rush some fifty thousand settlers claim lands just opened to settlement, thus ending the Indian's claim to this territory.

Chiricahua Apache prisoners, including Geronimo (lower right corner). (Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration.)

Hunkpapa Sioux leader Sitting Bull. (Reproduced by permission of The Granger Collection, New York.)

1889–90	The second Ghost Dance movement arises among Indians living on the Northern Plains, encouraging them to believe that they would return to the days before contact with whites had ruined their culture. The Ghost Dance religion spreads to many tribes throughout the West. The Bureau of Indian Affairs outlaws the Ghost Dance, and the army cracks down on participants.
February 10, 1890	Sioux chief Sitting Bull—hero of the 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn—is shot dead by Indian police at Grand River as Sioux warriors of the Ghost Dance uprising try to rescue him.
December 29, 1890	The Battle of Wounded Knee ends thelast major Indian resistance to white settlement in America. Nearly 500 well-armed troopers of the U.S. 7th Cavalry massacre an estimated 300 (out of 350) Sioux men, women, and children in a South Dakota encampment. The Army takes only 35 casualties.
1890	The Superintendent of the Census for 1890 declares that there is no longer a frontier in America. The census report's conclusion about the closing of the frontier encourages President Theodore Roosevelt to beginsetting aside public lands as national parks.
1890–1900	At the end of the nineteenth century, most non-Indians believe that Native Americans as a group will not survive much longer. The term "Vanishing Americans" comes to be applied to Native Americans. This idea is used to justify continued taking of Native lands and moving the people to places far away. From an estimated population of 15,000,000 in the year 1500, the American Indian population declines to a low point of 237,196 in the 1900 U.S. Census.

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Timeline of Events in Westward Expansion from Westward Expansion Reference Library. ©2005-2006 by U•X•L. U•X•L is an imprint of Thomson Gale, a division of Thomson Learning, Inc. All rights reserved.