Robert E. May, ‘Slavery, Race, and Conquest in the Tropics’

What role did Stephen A. Douglas play in U.S. expansionism?

He helped enact legislation annexing the independent Republic of Texas to the Union and was “a strident expansionist”

How did Robert E. May describe Stephen A. Douglas during the Mexican-American War?

He “emerged as the war progressed as one of the country’s most fervent apostles of Manifest Destiny”

When did Douglas become a prominent voice in the “all-Mexico” movement?

December 1847

What was the “all-Mexico” movement?

political movement to expand the United States to incorporate all of Mexico

What political ideology did Stephen A. Douglas align with?

He was a member of the Democratic Party,

Which ideals did the Democratic Party embody?

embodied ideals of its founding father- Andrew Jackson and Thomas Jefferson

What did Thomas Jefferson desire?

An American Empire or an ‘empire of liberty’ as Jefferson himself proclaimed

How did Abraham Lincoln view the spread of slavery?

He opposed slavery’s spread, saying that the North should never allow its expansion if doing so would prevent slavery from coming to a natural end

What did Lincoln support regarding territory gained from the Mexican-American War?

He supported banning slavery from territory that was gained by the United States as a result of the fighting in Mexico

What major territorial acquisition did Jefferson make in 1803?

The Louisiana Purchase, spending over $15 million to double the size of the nation

What did Jefferson claim from Spain’s North American holdings?

A sizable swatch... along the Gulf Coast from the Pensacola area in Florida’s Panhandle to the Rio Grande River in the West

How did Jackson contribute to U.S. expansion before becoming president?

He was aptly characterized as the ‘tribune of democratic imperialism’” and led campaigns that dispossessed Native tribes

When was the Treaty of Fort Jackson?

9th August 1814

What did the Treaty of Fort Jackson gain?

some 23 million acres, about ⅓ of today’s Georgia and approximately ⅔ of modern Alabama

How much land did Jackson’s 70 treaties acquire from Native Americans?

Approximately 100 million acres of tribal lands in the East for some 32 million acres in the West

Why did proslavery ideology harden after 1810?

The cotton gin made slavery economically vital again; it shifted from being a “necessary evil” to a “positive good”

When was the American Anti-Slavery Society founded?

1833

What major event happened in 1831 regarding abolition?

William Lloyd Garrison launched The Liberator in Boston, calling for immediate emancipation and invoking the Declaration of Independence’s equality for all men

Who wrote the newspaper, Liberator’?

William Lloyd Garrison

How did the South respond to Garrison's abolitionist efforts?

Georgia legislators offered a $5,000 reward for anyone kidnapping Garrison to Georgia for trial

What violent event happened to abolitionist Elijah P. Lovejoy?

In 1837, an anti-abolition mob in Alton, Illinois burned down the building housing his antislavery paper, the Observer

Whose building housing the antislavery paper, ‘the Observor’ was burnt down?

Elijah P. Lovejoy

What broader geographic focus did May highlight in debates over slavery’s expansion?

argues that the debate over the expansion of slavery was not confined to the western territories of the United States but also encompassed potential conquests in the tropics

When was Robert J. Walker’s influential letter dated and published?

Dated 8th January 1844, published in the Washington Globe in February 1844

How many pages was Robert J. Walker’s letter?

26

Who wrote a 26 page letter?

Robert J. Walker

How did Walker argue the annexation of Texas would benefit all white Americans?

• First, slavery would die in the South, where the soil was already worn out and from which masters would leave if able to relocate in Texas’s virgin lands

• Then slavery would recede from Texas, as the same process inevitably repeated itself

• Walker enthused that because “colored races” made up 90% of the population in the Tropics, darker-skinned people there were not given the same “degraded caste” as they received in the United States

• Expansion into the tropics became seen as crucial for slavery’s survival, he weaponized demographic facts to defend U.S. expansionism and downplay the brutality of slavery

Without annexation, the same no-longer-needed southern slaves would instead migrate northward, driving down workingmen’s wages and causing an upsurge in crime

What did Walker warn would happen if Texas wasn’t annexed?

Without annexation, the same no-longer-needed southern slaves would instead migrate northward, driving down workingmen’s wages and causing an upsurge in crime