This episode examines American continental expansion—from Jefferson’s peaceful Louisiana Purchase to Polk’s manufactured Mexican-American War to Cleveland’s principled refusal to annex Hawaii. We explore the diversity of Native American nations and the varying (but consistently dispossessive) American policies toward them. We trace how the Mexican-American War established a template for imperial conflict—executive manipulation, manufactured casus belli, congressional acquiescence, critics marginalized—that would recur throughout American history. The episode concludes with the gathering forces that would push America toward overseas empire in 1898.
