The "Far East" becomes America's "Far West" as a silent shift places America in a more privileged position geographically in relation to Asia.

Three pivotal developments traced in the Ancestors series argue the outlines of a largely unacknowledged economic/political shift to a Pacific perspective occurring in US history: 1) The Louisiana Purchase; 2) the building of the Transcontinental Railroad; 3) the official “closing” of the frontier West combined with US acquisition of Hawaii and the Philippines.

The shift in geographical perspective is founded upon the critical importance of Asia-US Trade to early US nation- building, and later, on specific US vested interests in territories acquired in Pacific Asia.

1). The Louisiana Purchase

1803 - 1811 Westward to the Pacific Ocean and to China
Beginning with the 1803 LOUISIANA PURCHASE, Thomas Jefferson resets the new general boundaries of the US: West of Mississippi River, East of Rocky Mountains.

The $15 million US purchase of the Louisiana Territory taken from Indians by France and sold to US doubles the size of US and extends US border almost to Idaho. The new western lands include the following present day states: Louisiana, Arkansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming and "Indian territories" (unclaimed lands towards the west; parts of “Oregon Territory”).

1804 -1806 Lewis and Clark Expedition
Jefferson’s confidential instructions to Lewis and Clark envision a country spanning from coast to coast, seeking the Pacific as a new route to the proven profitability of trade with Asia. John Jacob Astor, New York fur merchant follows close behind the Lewis and Clark Expedition, establishes his American fur trading post in Astoria, Oregon by 1811.

From 1811 on, with an American businessman having sailed westward to Asia and launched himself from west coast continental America, is it any longer strictly accurate to call Asia “the Far East?” Yet the term “Far East” continues to present times, as if Europe and the Atlantic were still the only reference points.

2) 1863-1869 Transcontinental Railroad

In the 1860s John Fremont, weighing in on the pros and cons of building the Transcontinental Rail Road argued:

...Right now Europe stands between America and Asia. Build this railroad and America will stand between Europe and Asia....

3) “Closing” of frontier west and US acquisition of Pacific territories.

In 1890 when America’s frontier west is officially declared “closed”(i.e., the land is considered “all settled”), a US official stands at the coast, looking across the Pacific facing the newly acquired Hawaii and the Philippines, and makes the geographical shift in perspective official, declaring: “...The Far East has now become our Far West...” (Sect. Of State, John Hay)