3. Making the first American West
‘Making the first American West’ outlines the “First West”, a vast territory beyond the Appalachian Mountains that remained the focus of intense rivalries between French, Spanish, and British empire-builders in the decades before and after the Revolution. Their expansionist schemes were entangled with the counter-colonial aspirations and determined occupations of diverse Indian inhabitants. In the wake of the Louisiana Purchase, which gave the United States a farther West, and the War of 1812, which brought a further withdrawal of imperial rivals, Indians' options narrowed. By the 1820s, the inclusive relations that had characterized the lands between the Appalachians and the Mississippi had largely given way to exclusive American occupations.