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The American JourneyA History of the United States, 7th Edition
By: Goldfield • Abbott • Anderson • Argersinger • Argersinger • Barney • Weir
Chapter
•The Way West
13
The Way West
The Agricultural Frontier
The Frontier of the Plains Indians
The Mexican Borderlands
Politics, Expansion, and War
Conclusion
Learning Objectives
How did economic and demographic pressures in the East
spur Western migration?
What strategies did the Sioux use to maintain their power
on the Great Plains?
What forces contributed to the Americanization of Texas?
Why was James K. Polk so eager to provoke a war with
Mexico?
Introduction
Some 300,000 Americans traveled the Oregon Trail in the
1840s and 1850s in a trek that eventually made the
United States a nation that spanned the continent.
The concept of Manifest Destiny provided a justification for
aggressive expansion across the continent.
Introduction (cont'd)
Oregon Trail
Overland trail of more than 2,000 miles that carried American settlers
from the Midwest to new settlements in Oregon, California, and Utah.
Manifest Destiny
Doctrine, first expressed in 1845, that the expansion of white Americans
across the continent was inevitable and ordained by God.
The Agricultural Frontier
The Crowded East
By the early 1800s, land was scarce in the East, especially
New England. Land was more productive and expensive
in the Middle Atlantic states. In the South, planters
controlled the best lands.
Facing limited opportunities, the young and poor in the rural
East had strong incentives to move west where land was
cheap and fertile.
The Crowded East (cont'd)
Public land prices fell between 1800 and 1830.
MAP 13–1 The Westward Shift of the
United States Population, 1790–1850
The Old Northwest
The number of settlers in the Old Northwest rose tenfold
between 1810 and 1840.
The Old Northwest was a mosaic of different settlements
with diverging values and folkways. Migration belts
tended to move east to west, maintaining the same North-
South cultural differences as existed along the Atlantic
coast.
The Old Northwest (cont’d)
Wheat became the major cash crop in the North and
contributed to northern manufacturing.
Claims club
A group of local settlers on the nineteenth-century frontier who banded
together to prevent the price of their land claims from being bid up by
outsiders at public land auctions.
The Old Southwest
Skyrocketing cotton prices and the defeat of the Indian
confederacies stimulated a land boom in the Old
Southwest.
In less than 30 years, six new slave states entered the
Union: Mississippi, Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas, Florida,
and Texas.
The southwestern frontier attracted planters and
independent farmers.
The Old Southwest (cont’d)
The Southwest Ordinance of 1790 opened all territories
south of the Ohio River to slavery.
Westward Expansion and the Growth of
the Union, 1815–1850
The Frontier of the Plains Indians
Tribal Lands
In the 1830s, the United States set aside land west of the
Mississippi River for displaced Native Americans.
The Sioux were the dominant power on the northern and
central Great Plains.
Trade in buffalo hides increased in the early 1800s.
Tribal Lands (cont'd)
Epidemic diseases helped Sioux expansion since the
nomadic Sioux were less susceptible to the disease than
the sedentary, agricultural peoples.
The Fur Traders
The western fur trade originated in the rivalry between
British Hudson’s Bay Company and the American Rocky
Mountain Fur Company.
Mountain men acted as trappers for the fur companies.
They lived in brutal, harsh conditions and mortality rates
among trappers ran as high as 80 percent a year.
The Fur Traders (cont’d)
The rendezvous system brought trappers, Native
Americans, and traders together in an annual fair to trade
furs for various goods.
In the 1830s, the fur trade decimated the animal population
and disease ravaged Native American tribes.
The Oregon Trail
Between the 1840s and early 1850s, about 150,000
Americans made the overland trip from Missouri to
Oregon, Utah, and California.
Under an 1818 agreement, Oregon territory was
administered jointly by the United States and Great
Britain.
The Oregon Trail (cont'd)
The overland trip was long and arduous, requiring
cooperation among families traveling in the wagon trains.
The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 was the first attempt to
draw boundaries to contain the Plains Indians.
MAP 13–2 Western Overland Trails
FIGURE 13–1 Overland Emigration to the West,
1840–1860
The Mexican Borderlands
The Peoples of the Southwest
Diverse peoples lived in the Southwest. Full-blooded Native
Americans, who retained their traditional languages and
customs, were the largest group. Mestizos were of mixed
Native American-Spanish ancestry, while criollos were
American-born whites of Spanish ancestry. The smallest
group were Spaniards.
The Mexican Borderlands (cont'd)
The three centers of white settlement were Texas, New
Mexico, and Alta California.
Santa Fe Trial
Overland trial across the southern plains from St. Louis to New Mexico
that funneled American traders and goods to Spanish-speaking
settlements in the Southwest.
The Americanization of Texas
Administration of Texas was problematic for Mexico.
Settlement was sparse, the economy was struggling, and
communication difficult.
The Americanization of Texas (cont'd)
The Mexican government encouraged American settlement
by offering large land grants to empresarios. The
agreement required the Americans to accept Mexican
citizenship, convert to Catholicism, and obey the Mexican
government.
The Americanization of Texas (cont'd)
American settlers poured into the region, many bringing
slaves. Relations between the Americans and Mexican
government declined, leading to a successful rebellion
and the creation of the Texas Republic in 1836.
Tejano
A person of Spanish or Mexican descent born in Texas.
The Americanization of Texas (cont'd)
Empresario
An agent who received a land grant from the Spanish or Mexican
government in return for organizing settlements.
Alamo
Franciscan mission at San Antonio, Texas, that was the site in 1836 of a
siege and massacre of Texans by Mexican troops.
MAP 13–3 Texas and Mexico after the Texas
Revolt
The Push into California and the Southwest
Mexican administration of California was always weak. The
secularization of the mission system, opened lands for
settlement and by the 1830s, the rancho system had been
established.
American settlers to California included Yankees from New
England and New York in the coastal cities, and
midwestern farmers in central valleys.
The Push into California and the Southwest (cont’d)
American merchants opened up the Santa Fe trail.
Utah was settled by the Mormons.
Californios: Persons of Spanish descent living in California.
Politics, Expansion and War
Politics, Expansion, and War
The Democrats viewed their victory in the election of 1844
as a mandate for expansion. Through a combination of
war and negotiation, the U.S. became a nation that
spanned a continent.
Mexican Cession of 1848
The land ceded to the U.S. by Mexico in the Treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo.
Manifest Destiny
Manifest Destiny assumed the white Americans had a
special mission to spread civilization and democracy.
It fueled and justified expansion of the United States across
the continent and was closely associated with the
Democratic Party.
The Mexican War
President James K. Polk was an ardent expansionist. He
compromised with Britain, signing a treaty the resolved
issues over Oregon.
The annexation of Texas prompted Mexico to sever
diplomatic ties with the United States.
A border dispute led to the Mexican War, which ended in a
stunning military victory.
The Mexican War (cont'd)
In the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexico ceded its claim
to the current southwestern states of the United States.
Taos Revolt
Uprising of Pueblo Indians in New Mexico that broke out in January 1847
over the imposition of American rule during the Mexican War; the
revolt was crushed within a few weeks.
MAP 13–4 The Mexican War
Conclusion
Conclusion
Americans were an expansionist people.
Between 1815 and 1850, the nation expanded to the Pacific
coast.
Popular pressure and Manifest Destiny fueled expansion.