US Presidents who expanded the Territory of the 13 colonies…
Posted on: January 18, 2014
US Presidents who expanded the 13 colonies territory…
Not before the 20th century, few people in Europe knew who was the President of the US, and much less the US citizens. Not before the advent of TV in the 1950’s did the world knew about the role of the US President and his newly acquired power…
1. George Washington (1789-97), first elected executive chief, expanded the territory in the North-West by opening up Ohio for colonization in 1794. He dispatched 3 incursions deep 240 km inland to tame Indian resistance, without declaring war or asking approval of Congress. Waging war was a prime prerogative of Congress.
2. Thomas Jefferson (1801-09), third President, purchased the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon Bonaparte in 1803. This territory included all the States where the Mississippi River passes through. The mischievous story is that England extended the loan to the US for the purchase in order to get the French out of the American continent. Napoleon was preparing to invade England and needed funding…
That loan came with a heavy price: Alexander Hamilton convinced Jefferson to sign on the monopoly of the Rothschild family of England to print US paper money and eventually have control the expansion of the internal US market.
The second calamity attached to this monopoly is that England invaded the US in 1814 in order to pressure Congress to extend this license for 24 years…
The third catastrophe was that England (through the Bank Of US) cut-off credits to the settlers in Ohio and the North-West Territory and plunged the US in a deep financial crisis in 1819.
Jefferson was the first president to engage militarily outside the American continent: He ordered his “navy” to bombard Alger (current capital of Algeria) in order to punish its Pasha from attacking US commercial ships, taking the few women as concubine and selling the prettier ones to the Ottoman Sultan..
3. Andrew Jackson during President James Madison (1809-17) is elected militia chief of Tennessee and became a national hero during the 1812 war against England. The British troops entered the Capital of Washington DC and burned it.
He defeated the Indian Creeks before saving New Orleans from the British siege in January 1815.
Jackson confronted the Indian Seminole and colonized Spanish Florida. This non-declared offensive war, not approved by Congress, expanded the US territories to the east of Mississippi.
Jackson becomes governor of Florida in 1821. By 1823, he is a federal senator.
4. James Polk (1845-49) ran his election campaign under the need to annex Texas and Oregon. He ordered General Zachary Taylor to deploy the troops to the Rio Grande, 200 km south inside the Mexican borders. The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848 gives the USA an additional 1.4 million square meters in the south-west, from Texas to the Pacific Ocean
5. Andrew Johnson (1865-69) purchased Alaska for US$ 7.2 million ($116 million in 2012 dollars)
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The Alaska Purchase was the acquisition of Russian America by the United States from the Russian Empire in the year 1867 by a treaty ratified by the U.S. Senate.
Russia, fearing a war with Britain that would allow the British to seize Alaska, wanted to sell. Russia’s major role had been getting Native Alaskans to hunt for furs, and missionary work to convert them to Christianity.
The United States added 586,412 square miles (1,518,800 km2) of new territory.
Reactions to the purchase in the United States were mixed, with opponents calling it “Seward’s Folly”, feeling that U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward, the primary American negotiator, got the worst of the bargain. George Pomutz was also involved in the Alaska purchase.
Originally organized as the Department of Alaska, the area was successively the District of Alaska and the Alaska Territory before becoming the modern state of Alaska upon being admitted to the Union as a state in 1959.
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
6. Benjamin Harrison (1889-93) overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii (a coup d’état) on January 17, 1893), Anti-monarchical insurgents within the Kingdom of Hawaii, composed largely of United States citizens, engineered the overthrow of its native monarch, Queen Lili’uokalani.
Hawaii was initially reconstituted as an independent republic, but the ultimate goal of the revolutionaries was the annexation of the islands to the United States, which was finally accomplished in 1898. (Read note 1)
7. William McKinley (1897-1901). On April 25, 1898 President McKinley declare war against Spain for lame excuses and conquer Cuba, the Philippines, Porto Rico, Guam…
8. Theodore Roosevelt (1901-09) participated in the war in Cuba against colonialist Spain in 1898, leading his “Rough Riders” cavalry regiment. When he became president, his conquered Panama, which was part of Columbia in Latin America, in order to open up the Panama Canal. Theodore Roosevelt was the first president who crossed the borders during his tenure and inaugurated the Panama Canal https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2012/02/10/the-panama-canal-challenges-glory-and-infamies/
He was also the first president to mediate between powerful nations such as when Japan totally destroyed the Russian Pacific fleet in 1905.
Note 1: Timeline of US military operations https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2013/09/19/timeline-of-united-states-military-operations-since-1775/
Note 2: On July 6, 1846, U.S. Secretary of State John C. Calhoun, on behalf of President Tyler, afforded formal recognition of Hawaiian independence. The Hawaiian Kingdom entered into treaties with the major nations of the world and established over 90 legations and consulates in multiple seaports and cities.[4] On the signing of the Bayonet Constitution in 1887 the threat began to be realized.
Note 3: Manifest Destiny of the USA? https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2008/09/21/the-manifest-destiny-of-america-and-its-long-term-consequences/
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