Issues of Westward Expansion

Are Americans entitled to a Manifest Destiny? This book explores 13 key issues of Western expansion from the early 1800s through the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Expert commentary and 73 primary documents represent a variety of views on each issue. Documents include presidential letters and speeches, first-person accounts and letters, newspaper and magazine opinion pieces, court decisions, and congressional debates. Voices range from those of presidents to ordinary people caught up in the events of the time.

Some of the major topics considered are:

• Lewis and Clark's expedition

• Indian and Mexican land claims

• The effect of western expansion on slavery

• Importing Chinese laborers to help build the transcontinental railroad

• Government opposition to Mormons settling in the West

• Texas annexation

• The Homestead Act

• The Sand Creek Massacre

• The Battle of Little Big Horn

• The creation of Yellowstone National Park

• Wounded Knee 1890

A narrative overview of each event, an annotated bibliography following each event, and a timeline of key events make this volume an indispensable resource.

MITCHEL ROTH is associate professor of criminal justice at Sam Houston State University. He is a historian of criminal justice and of the American West. He has written seven books including Historical Dictionary of Law Enforcement (Greenwood, 2000), Historical Dictionary of War Journalism (Greenwood, 1997), Fulfilling a Mandate (1997), Reading the American West (1999), and Crime and Punishment: A History of Criminal Justice (forthcoming 2002).