Primary sources of Westward Expansion

The new ways governments, law enforcement agencies, and businesses can keep tabs on people is jaw dropping. This book examines the many new methods of data collection, the rationale behind developing them, the pros and cons of developing these new technologies, and the difficulties of restricting the use of these technologies before laws can be passed to protect citizens from abuses. This technology is getting more sophisticated as well as more common,...

The Homestead Act was passed in 1862, when states that had seceded from the Union could no longer block it in congress. The act opened land in the west for all Americans, including freed slaves, granting 160 acres to settlers under the condition that they farm it for five years. The result was that 1.6 million claims, covering 420,000 square miles, were granted, making residents of millions of people in the land west of the Mississippi River.

The United States grew rapidly from the time of the Louisiana Purchase to the building of the Transcontinental Railroad. All of this expansion came at the expense of Native American populations that had either lived in the region for centuries or been forced there from ancestral homes in the East. Tribes memorably fought on their own and together in an doomed effort to retain the land and a lifestyle that had long sustained their families. This book...