CHAPTER ONE THE ROAD TO THE RAILROAD In the late 1700s the British ruled 13 North American colonies When the American Revolutionary War 1775 1783 ended the colonies became the United States of America This sparked the beginning of a transformative period for the United States The new country stretched from the Mississippi River to the Atlantic Ocean It reached from the Great Lakes almost to the Gulf of Mexico The Louisiana Purchase included 827,000 square miles 2 14 million sq km of land 5
Columbus landing in the Americas with the Spanish flag in 1492 In just a short time the United States doubled in size In 1803 the United States bought a big chunk of land from France France had claimed the plains between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River But now the United States owned that land The deal was called the Louisiana Purchase By 1848 the country spread all the way from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean 6
The Changing Face of North America However North America was not empty when Europeans first arrived In 1492 Christopher Columbus landed in the Americas North America was already home to millions of people They had lived there for thousands of years These people became known as Native Americans But actually they belonged to hundreds of different nations As the border of the United States crept westward white settlers followed Some of the first white people who moved west of the Mississippi were fur trappers and traders Other westward travelers wanted land for farming and raising animals Some white settlers thought it was their religious duty to move west This belief was part of an idea known as the Manifest Destiny In 1848 gold was discovered in California After that discovery many more people moved west hoping to get rich 7
