Oregon Country

Oregon Country

Oregon CountryWednesday 31st traveled about 12 miles West and Encamped on high sand flat in the same valley in which we camped yesterday - the water made by the melting of the snow runs but a short distance and makes numerous ponds all over this country such is its situation that it is impossible to ascertain its decent. mountains on the north in detached heaps being E & W about 20 miles and from all appearances a regular chain being N & south about 20 miles now visible on the south or S W. this country is almost destitute of grass the only food for horses wild sage & salt weed which they will not Eat untill they are almost in a State of Starvation from the want of food one of mine were left to day and many so feeble that it is with difficulty they can be got along

–The Diary of Willam H. Ashley

Oregon Country

Graves along the trail

Oregon Country

A covered wagon had a white canvas cloth on top with 4 wheels on the bottom. The wagons were made out of wood 4 feet wide by 12 feet long. The supplies they carried in the wagons were mainly tools, food and family treasures. The pioneers would grease the canvas so it would be waterproof. The canvas was stretched over the bows the curved wood used to make a "roof" on the wagon; there were drawstrings to close and open the ends for protection from the weather and dust.Inside the wagon there were wooden hoops with hooks on them to hang guns, milk cans, spoons, bonnets, jackets, dolls and anything else there was room for.The wagon was packed with supplies for a 3-5 month journey. The cost of the journey was expensive but they managed to either borrow or save for the trip.Most of the treasures were luxury items and usually didn't make it all the way to Oregon City and pioneers discarded items along the trail.

Gadsden Purchase

Why would many Americans feel as though Gadsden Purchase completed their goals of Manifest Destiny?

Gadsden PurchaseThe Gadsden Purchase is a 29,670-square-mile region of present-day southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico that was purchased by the United States in a treaty signed by James Gadsden, the American ambassador to Mexico at the time, on December 30, 1853. It was then ratified, with changes, by the U.S. Senate on April 25, 1854 and signed by President Franklin Pierce, with final approval action taken by Mexico on June 8, 1854. The purchase was the last major territorial acquisition in the contiguous United States, adding a large area to the United States.The purchase included lands south of the Gila River and west of the Rio Grande. The Gadsden Purchase was for the purpose of the US's construction of a transcontinental railroad along a deep southern route. It was also related to reconciliation of outstanding border issues following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican–American War of 1846–48.As the railroad age progressed, business-oriented Southerners saw that a railroad linking the South with the Pacific Coast would expand trade opportunities. They thought the topography of the southern portion of the Mexican Cession was too mountainous to allow a direct route. Projected southern routes tended to run to the north at their eastern ends, which would favor connections with northern railroads and ultimately favor northern seaports. Southerners saw that to avoid the mountains, a route with a southeastern terminus might need to swing south into what was then Mexican territory.The administration of President Franklin Pierce, strongly influenced by Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, saw an opportunity to acquire land for the railroad, as well as to acquire significant other territory from northern Mexico.[In the end, territory for the railroad was purchased for $10 million ($244 million today), but Mexico balked at any large-scale sale of territory. In the United States, the debate over the treaty became involved in the sectional dispute over slavery, ending progress before the American Civil War in the planning or construction of a transcontinental railroad

Lieutenant James Gadsden of S. Carolina

Gadsden PurchaseIN THE NAME OF ALMIGHTY GOD:The Republic of Mexico and the United States of America desiring to remove every cause of disagreement which might interfere in any manner with the better friendship and intercourse between the two countries, and especially in respect to the true limits which should be established, when, notwithstanding what was covenanted in the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in the year 1848, opposite interpretations have been urged, which might give occasion to questions of serious moment: to avoid these, and to strengthen and more firmly maintain the peace which happily prevails between the two republics, the President of the United States has, for this purpose, appointed James Gadsden, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the same, near the Mexican government, and the President of Mexico has appointed as Plenipotentiary "ad hoc" his excellency Don Manuel Diez de Bonilla, cavalier grand cross of the national and distinguished order of Guadalupe, and Secretary of State, and of the office of Foreign Relations, and Don Jose Salazar Ylarregui and General Mariano Monterde as scientific commissioners, invested with full powers for this negotiation, who, having communicated their respective full powers, and finding them in due and proper form, have agreed upon the articles following:

Texas Annexation

Explain two problems the Republic of Texas tried to solve after winning their independence from Mexico?

Texas Annexation

Texas Annexation

Texas AnnexationInaugural Address of James Knox Polk, TUESDAY, MARCH 4, 1845The Republic of Texas has made known her desire to come into our Union, to form a part of our Confederacy and enjoy with us the blessings of liberty secured and guaranteed by our Constitution. Texas was once a part of our country--was unwisely ceded away to a foreign power--is now independent, and possesses an undoubted right to dispose of a part or the whole of her territory and to merge her sovereignty as a separate and independent state in ours. I congratulate my country that by an act of the late Congress of the United States the assent of this Government has been given to the reunion, and it only remains for the two countries to agree upon the terms to consummate an object so important to both. I regard the question of annexation as belonging exclusively to the United States and Texas. They are independent powers competent to contract, and foreign nations have no right to interfere with them or to take exceptions to their reunion. Foreign powers do not seem to appreciate the true character of our Government. Our Union is a confederation of independent States, whose policy is peace with each other and all the world. To enlarge its limits is to extend the dominions of peace over additional territories and increasing millions. The world has nothing to fear from military ambition in our Government. While the Chief Magistrate and the popular branch of Congress are elected for short terms by the suffrages of those millions who must in their own persons bear all the burdens and miseries of war, our Government can not be otherwise than pacific. Foreign powers should therefore look on the annexation of Texas to the United States not as the conquest of a nation seeking to extend her dominions by arms and violence, but as the peaceful acquisition of a territory once her own, by adding another member to our confederation, with the consent of that member, thereby diminishing the chances of war and opening to them new and ever-increasing markets for their products.

Texas Annexation

Hypothesize two problems that the Texans (white settlers) were encountering with the Tejano or indigenous Mexicans in Texas.

Photo: Original Texas Rangers

Mexican Cession: California

Mexican Cession: CaliforniaGold panning is a very simple process. Once a suitable placer deposit is located, some gravel from it is scooped into a pan, where it is then gently agitated in water and the gold sinks to the bottom of the pan. Materials with a low specific gravity are allowed to spill out of the pan, whereas materials with a high specific gravity sink to the bottom of the sediment during agitation and remain within the pan for examination and collection by the gold panner. These dense materials usually consist primarily of a black, magnetite sand with whatever gemstones or metal dust that may be found in the deposit that is used for source material.

Gold panning usually turns up only gold dust that is usually collected as a souvenir. Nuggets and considerable amounts of dust are occasionally found, but panning mining is not generally lucrative; panning for gold can be used to locate the larger parent veins of gold that most placer deposits originate from

Mexican Cession: California

How might the development of the Transcontinental Railroad have contributed to both the positive aspects of Westward Expansion and the negative? What are some negative aspects that arose with the expansion of this railroad?

Mexican Cession: California

Mexican Cession: California

Mexican Cession: Utah Territory

Mexican Cession: Utah Territory

Mormons trace their origins to the visions that Joseph Smith reported having in the early 1820s while living in upstate New York. In 1823 Smith said an angel directed him to a buried book written on golden plates containing the religious history of an ancient people. Smith published what he said was a translation of these plates in March 1830 as the Book of Mormon, named after Mormon, the ancient prophet-historian who compiled the book, and on April 6, 1830, Smith founded the Church of Christ .

Mexican Cession: Utah TerritoryGreat Salt Lake Valley, Utah

Brigham Young - He was the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after Joseph Smith he founded Salt Lake City. He served as the first governor of the Utah Territory.Young had a variety of nicknames, among the most popular being "American Moses,“ because, like the biblical figure, Young led his followers, the Mormon pioneers, in an exodus through a desert, to what they saw as a promised land.

Mormon Temple

Mexican Cession: Utah Territory

Mexican Cession: Utah Territory

Mexican Cession: New Mexico Territory

Mexican Cession: New Mexico Territory

Mexican Cession: New Mexico TerritoryINTHE NAME OF ALMIGHTY GOD

The United States of America and the United Mexican States animated by a sincere desire to put an end to the calamities of the war which unhappily exists between the two Republics and to establish Upon a solid basis relations of peace and friendship, which shall confer reciprocal benefits upon the citizens of both, and assure the concord, harmony, and mutual confidence wherein the two people should live, as good neighbors have for that purpose appointed their respective plenipotentiaries, that is to say: The President of the United States has appointed Nicholas P Trist, a citizen of the United States, and the President of the Mexican Republic has appointed Don Luis Gonzaga Cuevas, Don Bernardo Couto, and Don Miguel Atristain, citizens of the said Republic; Who, after a reciprocal communication of their respective full powers, have, under the protection of Almighty God, the author of peace, arranged, agreed upon, and signed the following: Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Limits, and Settlement between the United States of America and the Mexican Republic.

- Excerpt from Treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo, 1848

Mexican Cession: New Mexico Territory

Red River Basin The Treaty of 1818 was signed between the US and Great Britain in 1818. It resolved standing boundary issues between the two nations, and allowed for joint occupation and settlement of the Oregon Country. The treaty marked Great Britain’s last permanent major loss of territory in what is now the Continental United States. Britain gained the northernmost tip of the territory of Louisiana above the 49th parallel north. Britain ceded all of their land south of the 49th parallel and west to the Rocky Mountains, including all of the Red River Colony south of that latitude.

Florida Cession

Seminole Indians based in East Florida began raiding Georgia settlements, and offering havens for runaway slaves. The United States Army led increasingly frequent incursions into Spanish territory, including the 1817–1818 campaign against the Seminole Indians by Andrew Jackson that became known as the First Seminole War. Florida had become a burden to Spain, which could not afford to send settlers or garrisons. Spain therefore decided to cede the territory to the United States through the Adams-Onís Treaty, which took effect in 1821

Andrew Jackson

Florida CessionRecorded history began with the arrival of Europeans to Florida, beginning with the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León, who explored the area in 1513. Since that time Florida has had a long history of immigration, including French and Spanish settlement during the 16th century, as well as entry of new Native American groups migrating from elsewhere in the South.

Manifest DestinyMost Americans believed that their democratic government and culture were superior.

They believed that they had the right and duty to spread their ideas across the continent all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

More land would provide new economic opportunities

Manifest: clear or obvious

Destiny: something that is sure to happen