Chapter 14 The Territorial Expansion of the United States 1830s - 1850s Chapter 14 The Territorial Expansion of the United States 1830s - 1850s OUT OF

Chapter 14The Territorial Expansion of the United States

1830s - 1850s

Chapter 14The Territorial Expansion of the United States

1830s - 1850s

OUT OF MANY

A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

© 2009 Pearson Education, Inc.

Part One:

Introduction

2© 2009 Pearson Education, Inc.

Chapter Focus Questions

What was manifest destiny?

What were the major differences between the Oregon, Texas, and California frontiers?

What were the most important consequences of the Mexican-American War?

What was the link between expansion and slavery?

What were the issues in the election of 1848?


Part Two:

American Communities: Texans and Tejanos

“Remember the Alamo!”


American Communities: Texans and Tejanos “Remember the Alamo!”

The Texas uprising was an alliance between American and native-Spanish speakers, Tejanos.The Tejano elite welcomed American entrepreneurs and shared power with them. The Mexican state was unstable and the conservative centralists decided Americans had too much power and tried to crack down on local autonomy. Tejanos played key roles in the Texas Revolution, though once independence was secured they were excluded from positions of power. The frontier pattern of dealing with native people was by:

first, blending with themsecond, occupying the landthird, excluding or removing native settlers.


Part Three:

Exploring the West


The Fur Trade

The fur trade was the greatest spur to exploration in North America. Not until the 1820s could American companies challenge the British. Trappers known as mountain men:

accommodated themselves to local Indians,rarely came in contact with whites and,might be viewed as the advance guard of the market revolution.

By the 1840s, however, the beaver was virtually trapped out.


The artist Alfred Jacob Miller, a careful observer of the western fur trade, shows a mountain man and his Indian wife in his 1837 Bourgeois Walker and His Wife. Walker and his wife worked together to trap and prepare beaver pelts for market, as did other European men and their Indian wives.


Government-Sponsored Exploration

Map: Exploration of the Continent, 1804–30

The federal government promoted western expansion by sending out exploratory and scientific expeditions that mapped the West and brought back artists’ re-creations.


MAP 14.1 Exploration of the Continent, 1804–30 Members of British fur trading companies like Alexander Mackenzie and David Thompson led the way. Lewis and Clark’s “voyage of discovery” of 1804–06 was the first of many government-sponsored western military expeditions. Lieutenant Zebulon Pike crossed the Great Plains in 1806, followed by Major Stephen Long in 1819–20.Meanwhile, American fur trappers, among them the much-traveled Jedediah Smith, became well acquainted with the Far West as they hunted beaver for their pelts.


Expansion and Indian Policy

Map: Indian Territory Before the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854Government policy looked upon the West as a refuge for eastern Indians who were removed. Encroachment on the new Indian Territory was not long in coming. The government pushed for further land concessions from the western tribes, though the tribes in Oklahoma held on to their lands until after the Civil War. The major battles between whites and Indians in the Great West occurred after the Civil War.


MAP 14.2 Indian Territory Before the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 Indian Territory lay west of Arkansas, Missouri, and lowa and east of Mexican Territory. Most of the Indian peoples who lived there in the 1830s and the 1840s had been “removed” from east of the Mississippi River. The southern part (now Oklahoma) was inhabited by peoples from the Old Southwest: the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles. North of that (in what is now Kansas and Nebraska) lived peoples who had been removed from the Old Northwest. All these Indian peoples had trouble adjusting not only to a new climate and a new way of life, but to the close proximity of some Indian tribes who were their traditional enemies.


Part Four:

The Politics of Expansion


Manifest Destiny, an Expansionist Ideology

In 1845, journalist John O’Sullivan coined the phrase “manifest destiny” to imply Americans had a basic right to spread across the continent and conquer whomever stood in their way. Westward expansion would increase trade and enable whites to “civilize” the Indians. Democrats saw expansion as the cure for national ills by providing new opportunities in the West, leading to increased trade with Asia. Whigs feared expansion would bring up the slavery issue.


The Overland Trails

Map: The Overland Trails, 1840The great trails started at the Missouri River.The Oregon, California, and Mormon Trails followed the Platte River into Wyoming.The 2,000-mile Overland Trail was a long, expensive, and hazardous journey. Pioneers traveled in groups and often hired a pilot who knew the terrain. Men were responsible for care of the animals. Women prepared food and took care of the children. Problems arose when the parties reached the Rocky Mountains. Though Indian attacks were few, throughout the journey disease plagued the pioneers.


MAP 14.3 The Overland Trails, 1840 All the great trails west started at the Missouri River. The Oregon, California, and Mormon Trails followed the Platte River into Wyoming, crossed South Pass, and divided in western Wyoming. The much harsher Santa Fé Trail stretched 900 miles southwest across the Great Plains. All of the trails crossed Indian Territory and, to greater or lesser extent, Mexican possessions as well.


© 2009 Pearson Education, Inc. 17

This painting by William Henry Jackson shows the wagon of westward migrants waiting at Council Bluffs, Iowa, to cross the Missouri River on the ferry established by the Mormons. At the height of the migration this was a major bottleneck: some people waited as long as ten days for their turn to cross.

Oregon

After 1818, the United States and Britain jointly controlled Oregon territory, though the British dominated the region.

Along with fur trappers, missionaries were among the earliest white settlers.

Conflicts with Indians resulted in periodic bloodbaths.

Disease greatly reduced the Indian population.

By the mid-1840s “Oregon Fever” broke out, spurred by the promise of free land. Joint occupation ended in 1846, when the Canadian border was drawn in its current location.

Chart: Overland Emigration to Oregon, California, and Utah, 1840-60


FIGURE 14.1 Overland Emigration to Oregon, California, and Utah, 1840–60 Before 1849, the westward migration consisted primarily of family groups going to Oregon or Utah. The discovery of gold in California dramatically changed the migration: through 1854, most migrants were single men “rushing” to California, which remained the favored destination up until 1860. Over the twenty-year period from 1840 to 1860, the Overland Trails were transformed from difficult and dangerous routes to well-marked and well-served thoroughfares. SOURCE: John Unruh Jr., The Plains Across (Champaign-Urbana: University of Illinois Press,1979), pp.119 –20.


Oregon

White Oregonians built closely-knit communities. African Americans were formally excluded. Relations with the Indians were peaceful until 1847, when a series of wars broke out. In 1859, Oregon was admitted to the United States as a state.


This view of Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River shows established agriculture and thriving commerce, indicated by the large sailing ship on the river, which is probably the Hudson’s Bay Company yearly supply ship from England. It was a scene like this that led Narcissa Whitman to call Fort Vancouver “the New York of the Pacific”.


The Santa Fe Trade

After independence, New Mexico welcomed American trade along the Santa Fe Trail.

American trappers and traders assimilated into the local population.

The trail was hard, arduous, and dangerous; profits were high.


Mexican Texas

Maps: Texas: From Mexican Province to U.S. StateIn Texas, multiethnic settlements revolved around the presidio, mission, and rancho. Mexican authorities sought American settlement as a way of providing a buffer between its heartland and the Comanches.


MAP 14.4a Texas: From Mexican Province to U.S. State In the space of twenty years, Texas changed shape three times. Initially part of the Mexican province of Coahuila y Tejas, it became the Republic of Texas in 1836, following the Texas Revolt, and was annexed to the United States in that form in 1845. Finally, in the Compromise of 1850 following the Mexican-American War, it took its present shape.


MAP 14.4b Texas: From Mexican Province to U.S. State


MAP 14.4c Texas: From Mexican Province to U.S. State


Americans in Texas

Stephen F. Austin promoted American emigration.

Generally, slaveholders came to grow cotton in their self-contained enclaves.

Americans viewed Texas as an extension of Mississippi and Louisiana.


Americans in Texas

For a brief period Texas was big enough to hold Comanche, Mexican, and American communities:

Mexicans maintained ranches and missions in the South.Americans farmed the eastern and south central sections.The Comanches held their hunting grounds on the frontier.

In 1828, a new Mexican centrist government broke the balance when it sought to control Texas by restricting immigration, outlawing slavery, and raising taxes. Americans came to see their own culture as superior to that of the “mongrel Spanish-Indian.”


Painted by George Catlin about 1834, this scene, Commanche Village Life, shows how the everyday life of the Comanche's was tied to buffalo. The women in the foreground are scraping buffalo hide, and buffalo meat can be seen drying on racks. The men and boys may be planning their next buffalo hunt.


Americans in Texas

War broke out in 1835.

The Mexican army overwhelmed Americans at the Alamo.

At the San Jacinto River, Sam Houston’s forces victory led to a treaty granting independence to the Republic of Texas and fixing the southern boundary at the Rio Grande.


The Republic of TexasThe Texas Republic developed after the United States rejected admission for fear of rekindling slave state/free state conflicts. Within the republic, conflicts between Anglos and Tejanos grew as Americans assumed themselves to be racially and culturally superior. President Tyler raised the issue of annexation in 1844 with hopes of re-election—the debate over the ramifications of annexation ensued.Polk won the 1844 election after calling for “the re-occupation of Oregon and the re-annexation of Texas at the earliest practicable period.”The 1844 election was widely interpreted as a mandate for expansion. Texas became a state in 1845, becoming the twenty-eighth state of the Union and the fifteenth slave state.


Part Five:

The Mexican-American War


Origins of the War

James K. Polk was committed to expanding U.S. territory.

He peacefully settled the Oregon controversy.

Increasing tensions with Mexico led that nation to break diplomatic relations with the United States.

Polk wanted to extend U.S. territory to the Pacific and encouraged a takeover of California.

A border dispute led Polk to order troops to defend Mexico.


Mr. Polk’s War

The dispute with Mexico erupted into war after that nation refused to receive Polk’s envoy and a brief skirmish occurred on the Texas-Mexico border. Polk asked for war with Mexico. The call was politically divisive, particularly among opponents of slavery and northerners. Mass and individual protests occurred.


Mr. Polk’s War

Map: The Mexican-American War, 1846–48Polk planned the war strategy, sending troops into the northern provinces of Mexico, conquering New Mexico and California. Victories in Mexico came hard. The fierce Mexican resistance was met by American brutality against Mexican citizens. When General Scott captured Mexico City, the war ended. Polk had ambitions of taking over Mexico, but strong opposition made him accept the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.Map: Territory Added, 1845–53


MAP 14.5 The Mexican-American War, 1846–48 The Mexican-American War began with an advance by U.S. forces into the disputed area between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande in Texas. The war’s major battles were fought by General Zachary Taylor in northern Mexico and General Winfield Scott in Veracruz and Mexico City. Meanwhile Colonel Stephen Kearny secured New Mexico and, with the help of the U.S. Navy and John C. Frémont’s troops, California.



General Winfield Scott’s amphibious attack on the Mexican coastal city of Veracruz in March 1847 was greeted with wide popular acclaim in the United States. It was the first successful amphibious attack in U.S. military history. Popular interest in the battles of the Mexican-American War was fed by illustrations such as this in newspapers and magazines.

MAP 14.6 Territory Added, 1845–53 James K. Polk was elected president in 1844 on an expansionist platform. He lived up to most of his campaign rhetoric by gaining the Oregon Country (to the 49th parallel) peacefully from the British, Texas by the presidential action of his predecessor John Tyler, and present-day California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, and part of Colorado by war with Mexico. In the short space of three years, the size of the United States grew by 70 percent. In 1853, the Gadsden Purchase added another 30,000 square miles.


The Press and Popular War Enthusiasm

The Mexican-American War was the first conflict featuring regular, on-the-scene reporting.

The war reports united Americans into a temporary, emotional community.

Popular war heroes like Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott later became presidential candidates.



Seeing History War News from Mexico.

SOURCE: Richard Caton Woodville, “War News From Mexico,” Oil on canvas. Manovgian Foundation on loan to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. © Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

Part Six:

California and the Gold Rush


California Before the Gold Rush

The Russians had enjoyed a brisk trade in California. When Mexico became independent, California trade was open to all nations.


Early American Settlement

A Swiss immigrant who became a Mexican citizen, John Sutter, helped Americans emigrate to California.

An American community grew up around Sutter’s land grant, which participated in the independence movement from Mexico.


Gold!

Map: California in the Gold RushThe discovery of gold in January 1848 triggered a massive gold rush of white Americans, Mexicans, and Chinese. Because it was the entry port and supply point, San Francisco grew from a village of 1,000 in 1848 to a city of 35,000 in 1850. California’s white population grew by nearly tenfold. California gained enough residents to become a state in 1850. Chart: Where the Forty-Niners Came From


MAP 14.7 California in the Gold Rush This map shows the major gold camps along the mother lode in the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Gold seekers reached the camps by crossing the Sierra Nevada near Placerville on the Overland Trail or by sea via San Francisco. The main area of Spanish-Mexican settlement, the coastal region between Monterey and Los Angeles, was remote from the goldfields.

SOURCE: Warren A.Beck and Ynez D.Haase, Historical Atlas of California (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,1974), map 50.


FIGURE 14.2 Where the Forty-Niners Came From Americans drawn to the California Gold Rush of 1849 encountered a more diverse population than most had previously known. Nearly as novel to them as the 20 percent from foreign countries was the regional variety from within the United States itself.


This drawing of the bar of a gambling saloon in San Francisco in 1855 shows the effects of the Gold Rush on California. Men from all parts of the world are gathered at this elegant bar in the large cosmopolitan city of San Francisco, which had been only a small trading post before gold was discovered in 1849.

SOURCE: Frank Marryat, “The Bar of a Gambling Saloon ,” published 1855. Lithograph. Collection of the New York Historical Society, New York City.


Gold!

The Chinese first came to California in 1849.

They were often forced off their claims.

The Chinese worked as servants and in other menial occupations.


Chinese first came to California in 1849 attracted by the Gold Rush. Frequently, however, they were forced off their claims by intolerant whites. Rather than enjoy an equal chance in the goldfields, they were often forced to work as servants or in other menial occupations.


Mining Camps

The mining camps were generally miserable, squalid, temporary communities where racism was widespread.

Most of the miners were young, unmarried, and unsuccessful.

A much more reliable way to earn wealth was to supply the miners.


Part Seven:

The Politics of Manifest Destiny


The Wilmot Proviso

Northern Whigs opposed expansion on antislavery grounds.

The Wilmot Proviso caused a controversy over the status of slavery in the new territories.

A bitter debate on the Proviso raised serious sectional issues and caused the first breakdown of the national party system.


The Free-Soil Movement

The growth of the Liberty Party indicated northern public opinion was shifting toward an antislavery position.

The Free-Soil Party offered a compromise for northern voters by focusing on stopping the spread of slavery.

The Free-Soilers appealed to northern values of freedom and individualism, as well as racism, for they would ban all African Americans from the new territories.



The Election of 1848

In the election of 1848, candidates had to discuss their views on the slavery expansion. Lewis Cass, the Democrat, favored popular sovereignty but was vague on details. The Whig war hero, Zachary Taylor, refused to take a position on the Wilmot Proviso. The Free-Soil Party ran Martin Van Buren as a spoiler. By taking Democratic votes from Cass, Van Buren helped Taylor win the election. Unfortunately, Taylor died in office.


In 1848, the Whigs nominated a hero of the Mexican-American War, General Zachary Taylor, who ran on his military exploits. In this campaign poster, every letter of Taylor’s name is decorated with scenes from the recent war, which had seized the popular imagination in a way no previous conflict had done.


Part Eight:

Conclusion



Documents

Chapter 14 The Territorial Expansion of the United States 1830s - 1850s Chapter 14 The Territorial Expansion of the United States 1830s - 1850s OUT OF