Exploring the West
- By 1840 Americans had occupied all of the land East of the Mississippi River
- All were states except for Wisconsin and Florida
- < 60 yrs after independence, most of the population lived west of the Appalachians
The Fur Trade
- The Fur Trade spurred exploration on the continent
- Depended on goodwill of the FNP
- Traded in the jointly occupied Oregon Country with the Americans
- 1820’s - American companies first able to challenge British dominance of the trans-Mississippi fur trade
The rendezvous system:
- Instituted by William Henry Ashley of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company
- Trappers brought their catch of furs to trade fairs and traded them for goods transported by the fur companies from St. Louis, (guns, beads, etc) for which they traded with the FNP
- Traders lived deep in the mountains in some sort of relationship with the local FNP
- Many took FNP wives
Government-Sponsored Exploration
- Federal government played a major role in the exploration and development of the West
- Jefferson influenced American westward expansion with Louisiana Purchase (1803)
- Jefferson instructed Lewis and Clark to draw Western FNP away from British
- Lewis and Clark expedition set a precedent for many government-financed expeditions
- Many expeditions were quasi military aimed a scaring off British traders
- Government published the results of these expeditions - later publications had photos
- Fed public appetite for exploration
- Land Ordinance of 1785 - dictated how the Fed. Govt sold lands
- extended all the way to the pacific = lots of government surveyors
- The Fed. Govt sold lands cheaply and gave away land to veterans of 1812
- Also paid for Indian removal and established forts which protected white settlers
Expansion and Indian Policy
- FNP were moved to Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska)
- Regarded as unfarmable
- Jefferson’s said this would allow the FNP to live quietly and learn “civilized” ways
- He failed to predict the speed of settlement = encroachment of Indian Territory - Began with the establishment of the Santa Fe trail (1821)
- 1854 - Govt abolished the northern section on the Indian territory which became the Kansas and Nebraska Territories
- Northern FNP were given smaller reservations or allotments of land - pressured to sell
- FNP had no land
- Southern FNP fared better
- Established self-governing nations with schools and churches
- Brought slavery with them = plantations
- Settlers ignored the “Indian Problem” which dealt with Western tribes as the Western tribes had nowhere to go = Indian war = small reservations for Indians
The Politics of Expansion
- America’s rapid expansion had many consequences, but perhaps the most significant was that it reinforced Americans’ sense of themselves as pioneering people
- Instilled a pioneering, adventurous and optimistic attitude into the people
~ Frederick Jackson Turner”
Manifest Destiny, an Expansionist Ideology
- Newspaperman Sullivan argued it was America’s destiny to spread democracy
- After the panic of 1837 many politicians believed that the nation’s prosperity depended on expanded trade with Asia
- Manifest destiny was evangelical religion on a larger scale
- Democrats (Sullivan included) supported expansion
- Whigs opposed it as they feared it would lead to the extension of slavery
- Whigs supported Govt guidance in settling within the country’s existing limits
- Democrats despised the factory system and large cities - many moved west
The Overland Trails
- Land trip was cheaper than sea
- Settlers were drawn by success stories, and to escape the malaria prone mid-west
- “It was pioneer’s search for an ideal home”
- Wagon trains - groups of settlers forming a community for the trip
- Complete with informal elected leaders
- FNP attack was slim
- Most deaths were from whites attacking FNP
- Death toll was higher on the FNP side
- Chlorea killed thousands
- Wagon train members lent support to each other
- The transcontinental railroad ended the wagon train tradition
Oregon
- First contact with FNP was commercial (fur traders)
- Relationships were generally good, often sexual
- Convention of 1818 - British and Americans agreed to jointly occupy the region
- HBC clearly dominated the region
- First settlement was the HBC fort, Fort Vancouver
- Fort Vancouver exemplified a “frontier of inclusion”
- First permanent settlers were retired fur trappers with their FNP wives
- Missionaries followed (but they generally failed)
- Second wave consisted of patriotic Americans which eventually numbered 5000
- Oregoners had their own constitution, banned blacks
- Blacks settled north of the Columbia as a result
- Polk campaigned on 54.40, but eventually compromised over 49th lat.
- British wound up their ailing fur trade and moved to Victoria
- Donation Land Claim Act - 320 acres of land to white males age 18+, 640 for couples
- The 2nd community was that of exclusion
The Santa Fe Trade
- Under Spanish control, Americans were not welcome - their explorers were captured
- After Mexican independence (1821) Americans were welcomed
- Trail from Santa Fe to Independence was dangerous
- Unlike Oregon trail FNP attack was frequent
- Early American traders of Santa Fe married local women = society of inclusion
- Communities were a hodgepodge or races
Mexican Texas
- Class structure = Spanish decent versus poor
- Comanches used the horse effectively to hunt buffalo and raid Mexico
Americans in Texas
- Mexican government created a buffer zone against the FNP by granting Texas to Austin
- In Santa Fe, whites settled on FNP land and in Oregon they settled on British land
- The settlement of Texas was actually legal
- Austin agreed that all settlers of Mexico would become Catholic and Mexican citizens
- Went against the American values of citizenship and Protestantism
- Instead of the usual free-for-all of Austin handpicked his settlers
- Soon Americans with black slaves outnumbered the Tejanos
- Economy was based on highly organized communities growing cotton
- Most Americans ignored converting to Catholicism or becoming Mexican citizens
- Since they were on Mexican land they couldn’t set up American style governments like the settlers had done in Oregon
The Texas Revolt
- Centrists gained control of the govt in Mexico City
- Dramatic change of policy - decided to take firm control over the N. province
- New govt restricted U.S. immigration, banned slavery, & levied customs duties & taxes
- Americans angry because: They couldn’t get land grants
- Were prone to restrictions on trade because of Mexican customs regulations
- Difficulties in understanding Hispanic law, as well as race
- War breaks out
- Santa Anna crushes Americans at the Alamo
- He is in turn defeated Houston
= Treaty - stakes the border at the Rio Grande
- Mexican Congress refuses to acknowledge treaty
- Turns down Andrew Jackson’s offer of purchase
The Republic of Texas
- Americans proclaimed the “Republic of Texas”
- Land between the Rio Grande and the Nueces River remained disputed territory
- Mexicans saw American attempts to annex this territory as the first step in the conquest of New Mexico
- Northerners refused to accept the Republic of Texas as the 14th State
- Jackson supported Texas but didn’t have the power to quell the controversy
- He could only extend diplomatic recognition to the Republic of Texas
- Rich Tejanos and Americans co-existed uneasily
- Comanche and Apache tribes raided with impunity
Texas Annexation and the Election of 1844
- Martin Van Buren succeeded Andrew Jackson as president
- Too cautious to raise the Texas issue
- Texans sought Britain’s support and continued to press for annexation to the States
- Tyler (Whig) raised the issue of annexation in hopes to ensure his reelection
- Strategy backfired when Sec. of State John Calhoun woke up sectional fears by stating that the South needed to extend slavery into Texas for survival
- Northerners refuse to support Tyler
- Tyler ousted from Whig party
- Henry Clay becomes the presidential candidate
- Clay favored annexation but only if Mexico approved
- This would be ridiculous - Clay was seen as not alienating anyone
- In the Democrat party, Van Buren was replaced by James Polk for the candidate
- Polk won by a slim margin due to opposition vote splitting btwn Whig & Liberty parties
- One of Tyler’s last acts as president was to push through Congress a joint resolution (didn’t need Senate’s approval necessary for treaties) for the annexation of Texas
- 3 months later the Texas congress approved annexation
- Texas becomes the 15th slave state (Florida had just joined the USA)
The Mexican-American War
- 1846 - Polk successfully added Oregon (South of the 49th) to the USA
- After the Mex-Amn War he gained Mexico’s provinces of California and New Mexico
Origins of the War
- After controversy in Oregon began dying down, things in Texas were heating up again
- USA supported the Texan claim that Texas extended all the way to the Rio Grande
- Border dispute
- Polk sends Taylor with troops to “defend” Texas
- Also instructs Pacific Squadron to seize Californian ports if war breaks out
- John C Fremont - federally commissioned explorer - arrived with a band of armed men
- Kicked out - went to Oregon
- Came back to Oregon in time for the Bear Flag Revolt
- Fremont and American settlers in California declare independence from Mexico
- Polk also sends secret envoy to Mexico offering to buy disputed land in Texas, California and New Mexico for 30 million
- Envoyed is dismissed, Taylor is ordered South of the Rio Grande
- Skirmish
- Polk tells Congress that Taylor was attacked = war
Mr. Polk’s War
- America was divisive
- Whigs (including Abraham Lincoln) questioned Polk’s account of the border incident
- Saw the border incident as a Southern plot to extend slavery
- Asked why Polk would settle for part of Oregon, but fight for a slave state
- Massachusetts legislature passed a resolution condemning the war as unconstitutional
- Polk took on the overall military strategy - later taken on by Lincoln
- Sent Taylor south into N.E. Mexico
- Colonel Kearny went to New Mexico and California
- Kearny had Santa Fe surrender
- At California he took California with the help of Fremont and the Navy
- Polk thought that his success up north would force Mexico to negotiate - WRONG
- Santa Anna is repulsed by Scott at Buena Vista
- Scott takes Veracruz easily, but then takes another 6 months to get to Mexico City
- Treaty of Guadalupe - Hidalgo ceded California and New Mexico,
- Border of Texas = Rio Grande
- Mexico paid 15 million in retribution along with 2 million in personal claims
- Polk was furious with the terms, after Scott’s victory he wanted all of Mexico
- Whigs were already against the war
- Southerners opposed letting a large Mexican population join
- Gasden Purchase (1853) - added 30,000 more sq miles
The Press and Popular War Enthusiasm
- First war in which regular, on-the-scene reporting by representatives of the press caught the mass of ordinary citizens, thanks to the telegraph
- Reporters shaped the peoples attitudes, not politicians - beginnings of media influence
California and the Gold Rush
- Up until 1840 California was mostly made up of FNP and Spanish decedent settlers
- A few American traders and settlers even after the war
- Gold rush changed this
Russian-Californian Trade
- Russians were the first outsiders in Mexico
- Spanish officials insisted on isolation
- Evaded as trade flourished with New England traders, and the Russian American Fur Company
- Fort Ross was established by the Russians to better access this trade
- After Mexican Independence (1821) California was open to trade to everyone
Early American Settlement
- Johann Sutter - settled in California in 1839 - became Mexican citizen
- Held a land grant which centered at Sutter’s Fort
- Early pioneers who choose California over Oregon (the usual destination) settled near Sutter’s Fort, aware that they were interlopers in Mexican territory
- These Americans banded together at Sonoma in the Bear Flag Revolt with Fremont declaring independence in 1848
- California was seen as a backwoods, but Polk saw the potential of the great harbors to facilitate trade with Asia
Gold!
- First spotted by Sutter’s mill employees - GOLD RUSH!!!
- Word spread quickly - 1849 - Gold rush started in earnest
- 80% were Americans, the rest were Mexicans (13%), Europeans and Asians
- Chinese competition aroused hostility = taxes on Chinese
- San Francisco grew from 1,000 people in 1848 to 35,000 people in 1950
- Tons of money to be had in feeding, clothing and houses in the miners
- California was admitted as a state in 1850
Mining Camps
- Most mining camps were deserted when the gold was gone, not San Francisco
- Conditions were dreary
- Most men never made it rich
- Became wage earners for large mining companies (could afford to go deeper)
- Women became prostitutes or domestic servants
The Politics of Manifest Destiny
- Between 1845 - 1848 the USA grew 70% territorially
- Manifest Destiny soon became the dominant issue in national politics
The “Young America” Movement
- Americans thought that their democracy would sweep the world
- 1848 - Italy, Germany, Hungary, France, Austria all had democratic revolutions
- President Franklin Pierce dispatched Commodore Matthew Perry to Japan to trade
- “Young American Movt” (Democrats) - wanted to expand south into Mexico
- Polk wanted to intervene in the 1848 Mexican Civil War - Rebuffed by Congress
- Rumoured to have offered Spain $100 million for Cuba
The Wilmot Proviso
- North wanted no more expansion as this would upset the norm of the slavery question - Although this was before the Mexican war, this attitude stayed the same after
- Wilmot, a Northern Democrat, proposed all new territories from Mexico would be free - Led to S. Democrats & Whigs voting against N. Democrats & Whigs in debate - Beakdown of the party system
- No party could stand up, as they were both fractured by sectional interests
The Free-Soil Movement
- Why did Wilmot propose his measure?
- Was a northern Democrat, not propelled by ideology but by the pressure of practical politics
- Liberty Party - 1846 - denied Henry Clay the from the White House by vote splitting
- Many northerners were anti-slavery
- Liberty Party was not radical for most Northerners = Wilmot was trying to compromise
- The Liberty party proposed that only non-slave holders could hold office and that slaves would not be used in federal construction projects
- Liberty party was anti-black, not anti-slavery
- This sentiment was turned into the Free Soil Party
The Election of 1848
- California, New Mexico and Texas were all now part to the USA
- Would slavery be allowed in these new territories?
- Lewis Cass of Michigan became the Democratic nominee (Polk was sick)
- Cass proposed that the citizens of the new territories would decide
- Echoed Jeffersonian faith that the common man could vote in his self interests
- This would be no different as the territorial legislatures were just as divisive
- Whigs turned to Zachary Taylor the war hero to be their candidate
- Taylor was from Louisiana and a slaveholder
- Refused to support the Wilmot Proviso
- Privately he opposed the expansion of slavery, publicly evaded the issue
- Vagueness of the two candidates led some Northerners to support the Free Soil Party
- Led by former president Martin Van Buren
- Van Buren was angry at the Democratic party for passing him over in 1844
- Also displeased of the growing Southern dominance of the Democrat Party
- Ran as a spoiler, eventually causing Cass to lose
- Zachary Taylor won, but died shortly after
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