INTRO: TEXANS AND TEJANOS “REMEMBER THE ALAMO!”
· Thirteen days within February and March 1836:
o 187 Texans held the fortress, the Alamo, against the siege of 5,000 Mexican troops.
§ The President of Mexico: General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna
§ The reason he came was to subdue the “rebellious Texas”
o March 6th: The final assault
§ Claimed 1,500 Mexican lives
§ All of the Alamo’s defenders were killed. Including:
· Commander William Travis
· Well known frontiersmen Jim Bowie and Davy Crokett
o Although the defense of the fort failed, the battle rallied and spurred remaining forces to route the Mexican army and force Santa Anna to grant Texas independence.
· Tejanos: Spanish-Speaking people born in Texas
o 1820s: The Mexican government established and authorized several American colonies (concentrated in the central and eastern portions of Texas).
§ These colonies were managed by empresarios (land agents)
o These settler communities consisted of farmers from the Mississippi Valley.
§ They introduced slavery and cotton growing to coastal and upland Texas.
o Few remembered that a lot of Tejanos joined American settlers to fight for independence.
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New France:
· In the 17th century, France was determined to monopolize northern fur trade
· In 1605, Samuel de Champlain, acted as an agent of a royal monopoly.
o First set up outpost on the Bay of Fundy (province of Acadia)
§ Proved impossible to control coastal trade
o In 1608, Champlain founded Quebec on the St. Laurence River
§ This geographic area controlled the trafficking of fur trade
· Champlain forged an alliance with the Huron Indians, who controlled the rich fur grounds of the Great Lakes.
o In 1610, he joined the Hurons to make war against their traditional enemies, the Five Nation Iroquois Confederacy.
· St. Laurence River was a great roadway leading directly to the American center and provided a great geographical and political advantage.
· By 1840, America has expanded to all of the land east of the Mississippi River and organized all of it (aside from Florida and Wisconsin) into states.
· Nine of the ten states that were admitted between 1800s and 1840s were west of the Appalachian Mountains.
· The market revolution, expansion of transportation, and commerce caused the rapid expansion.
o Because of the speed and success of the expansion spurred national pride and greed of further expansion.
The Fur Trade
· The fur trade was an important part of exploration in North America.
· British/French Canada:
o In the 1670s, the rivaling British Hudson’s Bay Company and French Canadian’s Montreal North West Company began exploring the Great Lakes (in the Canadian West).
o Both companies depended on the natives’ cooperation and goodwill for the help of searching for beaver pelts.
§ Natives such as the Blackfeet, Ventres, and the Crees moved freely across the present US-Canadian border.
§ Metis: A mix-raced group that descended from European men with native women.
o The British-dominated fur trade was an important aspect in international trade.
§ Americans wanted to part of this fur trade
§ In 1803, Jefferson set out Lewis and Clark west to challenge the British dominance.
· Challenging the British fur trade dominance:
o In 1824, William Henry Ashley instituted the “rendezvous system”
§ “Rendezvous System”: A yearly trade fair held in the Rocky Mountains, where trappers can bring their furs.
§ This system was based off of Indian trade gatherings
§ The system was a multi-day affair and was held for many nationalities: from Mexicans from Santa Fe to Americans.
· Activities would include gambling, drinking, and trading.
o American Mountain Men (trap and prepare for the trade): The only contact made to American Society was during the rendezvous.
o British and French Trappers: Sought friendship with the Natives. Nearly half married native women for the help of the trapping and preparing the pelts and diplomatic links between white and Indian societies.
§ One trapper adapted so well to the point where he became the Crow Chief: African American Jim Beckwourth.
o The American fur trade was short lived by the 1840s.
§ The beaver population was severely depleted.
o Jerdiah Smith: first American to enter California over the Sierra Nevada. He gave a clear picture to the mountain men of western geography.
Government Sponsored Exploration
· The federal government played a major part in exploration of the west.
o The Lewis and Clark expedition (1804-1806) set many government financed quasi-military expeditions.
o In 1806-1807, Lieutenant Zebulon Pike led an expedition to the Rocky Mountains in Colorado.
o In 1819-1820, Major Stephen Long explored and mapped the Great Plains.
§ His exploration was meant to scare British traders out of the West.
o In 1843-1844, John C. Fremont mapped the overland trails to Oregon and California.
o Western exploration still continued after the Civil War.
§ 1869 Grand Canyon exploration (Major Wesley Powell)
· Results of the surveys were published by the government:
o Included: Maps and illustrations (after the Civil War, photographs)
o The scenery of the West fed the appetite to see the breathtaking scenery and information of the natives.
§ Artists traveled with government expeditions and went home to paint stunning paintings of landscapes such as Yosemite Valley and Yellowstone River.
§ The paintings created an emergence of American self-image
o In the wake of the pathfinders came hundreds of government geologists and botanists, mapping the land sold in the Land Ordinance of 1785 and given away to veterans of the War of 1812, with the federal government taking charge of removing the Indians in those areas.
· Expansion and Indian Policy
o Eastern Indian tribes were being moved to Indian Territory (Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska), popularly called the Great American Desert and thought of as unfarmable. Though made so whites could live without the natives, the government misunderestimated westward expansion.
o Settlers crossed Indian Territory on the Santa Fe trail; the Overland Trails to California, Oregon, and Mormon Utah. Northern Indian Territory was abolished and the tribes there were pressured to move onto smaller reservations or take private land (which they would then be pressured to sell), losing their autonomy.
o The southern tribes—Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, Seminole—divided the land and established their own nations, very similar to American communities, also bringing along slavery. They were able to resist pressure until after the Civil War.
o Removing Eastern tribes did not solve the “Indian problem”. Nomadic Great Plains tribes, the tribes of the Rockies, and farming tribes in the Southwest remained. Western settlers ignored these.
The Politics of Expansion
· Manifest Destiny: An Expansionist Ideology
o Manifest destiny, first termed by journalist John O’Sullivan in the Democratic Review (Democratic Party paper), argued that Americans had a god-given right to expand democracy, by force if needed.
o Manifest destiny was accompanied by the idea that American prosperity needed increased trade with Asia, which could occur far more easily if America owned the west coast.
o Democrats supported expansion, Whigs opposed, fearing slavery would extend to the new territories.
o Democrats opposed the industrialization Whigs supported, supporting Thomas Jefferson’s idea of expanding agriculture as a counterbalance to industry, including Southern cotton expansion
· The Overland Trials
o 2000 mile trip from the Missouri River to Oregon to California; took 7 months or more of slow, dangerous travel; pioneers often arrived with little food and belongings, forced to discard them to lighten their load; 5,000 settlers in Oregon by 1845 and 3,000 in California in 1848.
o Pioneers motivated by promises of health, wealth, and adventure.
o Pioneers traveled with family and in trains ward off Indian attack to protect against Indian attacks and to cooperate to ford rivers and cross mountains.
o Wagon trains moved as the pastures turned green (livestock feed). Men took care of moving equipment and animals, women cooked and kept track of children. The wagon moved at about 15 mi a day, facing many natural obstacles (wagons such as the Donner party often succumbed).
Wagon trains were more threatened by illness and accident than by Indian attacks.
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