Displaying the thirty-one states and several territories of the United States following the Compromise of 1850, this map illustrates the impact of that landmark legislation on the American West. Beginning in 1848, the California Gold Rush incited a wave of westward immigration. Congress negotiated the Compromise in response to this mass movement and the sudden political need to manage the expansion of slavery into land taken in the Mexican Cession. In doing so, it created Texas’ familiar boundaries, conferred statehood upon California, and established the Utah and New Mexico territories. Th...