Territorial History of the USA: Every Month for 400 Years

I'd like you to start by watching this brief video below. It shows the development of governing institutions in the United States - including Texas. The principle story is effectively over by the 1850s when the United States government completes its acquisition of the territory that becomes the lower 48 states. The story the video tells is how these land claims are turned into governing entities, primarily counties. 
  




For more detail and info I've compiled a list of links that provide more information about the gradual process of acquiring the land that eventually becomes the 50 states.

These are roughly in order. 

- Native American Tribes and Nations: A History.

- Spanish Empire.

- French Colonization of the Americas.

- British America.

- The London (or Virginia) Company.

- The First Virginia Charter 1606.

- Jamestown Settlement.

- American Indian Wars.

- Thirteen Colonies.

- French and Indian War.

- American Revolutionary War.

- Northwest Territory.

- Southwest Territory.

- Mississippi Territory.

- Alabama Territory.

- Louisiana Purchase.

- Oregon Territory.

- Adams–Onís Treaty.

- Texas Revolution.

- Mexican–American War.

- Treaties of Velasco.

- Mexican Cession.

- Gadsden Purchase.

- Alaska Purchase.

- Territory of Hawaii.




___________

- 3 Overseas Expansion.

- 1898: Birth of an Overseas Empire.

- The Post World War II Boom: How America Got Into Gear.

- The Jefferson Grid.

- Westward Expansion (1801-1861).

- Global Vigilance, Global Reach, Global Power for America.

- Fifteen takeaways from our new report measuring US and Chinese global influence.