This website describes the biography and life of American frontier explorer Daniel Boone. Learn how he explored Kentucky and the Cumberland Gap.

This website looks at military explorers from Lewis and Clark (1804) to George Custer (1874).

Discover more about the Rocky Mountains. Why is Colorado called the "Centennial State?" Look at this website for captivating facts.

A series of lessons utilizing primary texts, including narratives, photographs, and maps, through which students explore the following question: "What motivated thousands of people to journey west during the 1800s?"

This bilingual site explores the history of Brazil, interactions between Brazil and the United States from the eighteenth century to the present, and compares and contrasts Brazilian and American culture and history.

Explore the mechanics of railroad trains. Investigate boom towns and explore the life and challenges of sheriffs in these frontier settlements.

Contains a description of the Exodusters and their impact on the American West through their immigration.

This site from the National Park Service provides the history of Nidodemus, Kansas, first western town planned by and for African-Americans. Settled by exodusters, the town served as a symbol as a land of opportunity for blacks escaping...

A short page on the discovery of gold at Sutter's Fort as well as the impact of mining in the west on relations with Native Americans.

[Free Registration/Login Required] This flipchart covers the rise in population in American cities in the late 1800's and westward expansion.

Arguably the most famous essay every written about the impact of land on American history, Frederick Jackson Turner's "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" explains how Americans' relationship with the environment shaped...

The National Archives and Records Administration highlights the Sioux Treaty of 1868. The instructional activity provided here relates to the power granted to the president and the Senate in Article II, Section 2, Clause 2, of the U.S....

This archaeological site was occupied by the Apalachicola and Yuchi tribes. During the 17th century, the Apalachicola tribe allied with the Spanish in Florida against the English in Carolina and were ultimately destroyed as a culture....

This resource by the National Humanities Center features a short story, "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky", by Stephen Crane about the closing of the American frontier.

Scene of the American frontier, during colonial times.

Read about the life and work of Spanish cartographer Diego Gutierrez, who mapped the Americas in 1562. Also view his map, which was the largest and most detailed map of the region for a century.

From Joy Hakim's marvelous set of books, A History of US, this webisode offers narrative, pictures, and teaching guides for the settling of the West after the Civil War.

Read about the reasons for the extensive black migration to Kansas, especially in the 1870s. These emigrants were called Exodusters. From the National Park Service.

This companion article from the PBS series, "New Perspectives on the West," offers a lesson plan which approaches the Dawes Act from the perspective of the Nez Perce.

Exhibit about family life in Illinois from 1700 to the present lets visitors experience the kinds of changes that an environment can undergo over several hundred years. Uses historical narratives, images of objects, timelines, maps, and...

Engaging games about Texas History. Adobe Flash is required for some of the games and will not launch.

Here's great information on building sod houses. You can even watch a video of a famous two-story sod house that stood until 1967.

Primary source material on the message from Thomas Jefferson secretly delivered to Congress on his strategy to acquire Native American land and expand the western frontier. Paragraph numbers have been added.

A thumbnail look at the many things occurring in the United States in the last half half of the 19th century. The topics covered are Gilded Age Politics, the "New Imperialism," Industrial America, Growth of Labor, Urbanization,...