Okay, so, just from the top of my head, I think that it is because of the growing belief of "Manifest Destiny" in the nineteenth century. I'm not sure if this is the actual right answer for your question, but I do know that Manifest Destiny was in the nineteenth century and was the widely held belief in the USA that American settlers were destined to expand through out the continent. And I think both the USA and Europe wanted to expand, it was kind of a copetition/conflict they had. This was actually how Canada and Alaska came to be I believe. This was a simple explanation btw. cx