APMWH Chapter 18

Who was Fatt Hing Chin?

a village fish peddler who lived in a coastal town of southern China

He heard about a place across the ocean with gold. He boarded a Spanish ship to California to join the Gold Rush. He returned home after gaining a fortune, but soon returned to continue searching

What was Fatt Hing Chin’s experience travelling to California like?

• Lots of young Chinese men aboard

• Confined to cargo areas of the ship

• 95 days to get there

What did Fatt Hing Chin do once he arrived in California?

He hired himself out as a gold miner and went to the mines. He dug and sifted for two years, and amassed some gold.

How did Fatt Hing Chin contribute to the Gold Rush?

He wrote to his brothers and cousins, urging them to join him in searching for gold

Why did Fatt Hing Chin return to China? Where did he dock? What did he do with his fortune when he got home?

Because of his fortune

Guangzhou, China

He gambled away half of it before arriving home, but after, he married, built a house, and bought land

Who was Fatt Hing Chin inspired by? What did this lead him to do?

Tong Ling who got $1 for each meal he sold at his eatery

Chin and his cousins opened a restaurant in San Francisco.

What career paths were typical of Chinese migrants to the US during the Gold Rush?

Miner—> service industry

Mining—> railroad construction and agricultural labor

What did Chinese (and other migrants) do for the Americas?

• Contributed to the transformation of the Americas

• Increased ethnic diversity

• Stimulated political, social, and economic development

How did the US develop/grow after gaining independence?

They made a government and expanded rapidly westward. They forcibly absorbed most temperate lands of North America

Why did the US have an unstable society?

• Varied regions

• Diverse economic and social structures

• Different opinions on slavery

• Different opinions on the rights of individual states vs the federal government

What did conflicts about slavery and the state vs federal rights lead to in the US?

Civil War

What did the Civil War lead to?

the abolition of slavery and strengthening of the US

How was Canada’s gaining of independence different from the US’s?

They got their independence from Britain, but avoided a war and civil war, despite differences, diversity, and regional divisions

How was Canada ruled after independence?

they established a weak federal government that presided over provinces that had considerable power over local affairs

What did Canada fear?

US expansion north into their territory

What was the most diverse region of the Americas?

Latin America

What was Latin America like (politically)?

It was politically fragmented, with many individual states that had serious problems and divisions within their own societies

How did the US try to construct a political framework after independence?

Leaders from the rebellious colonies drafted the Constitution

What did the Constitution allow, in terms of US government and the country?

• Gave responsibility of general issues to the federal government, and local issues to the authority of individual states.

• Allowed the admission of new states and territories into confederation

What did the Declaration of Independence say? Why was this contradictory?

That all men were equal, but in most states, only men of property could vote

What did the Enlightenment idea of equality encourage in the US?

Political leaders to extend the idea of equality for all men.

Property qualifications disappeared and almost all adult white men were eligible to participate in political affairs

What lands did Britain cede to the US after the revolution?

All the lands between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River

Why did the French allow the US to buy the Louisiana Territory?

Because Napoleon needed money to protect revolutionary France

What was the Lousiana Purchase?

Land bought from the French that extended from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains

What expedition was undertaken to map the Louisiana territory and survey its resources?

The geographic expedition led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

Why did US settlers flock to the west?

For cheap land to cultivate

What was manifest destiny? Why was it invoked?

The idea that the US was destined to expand across North America from the Atlantic to the Pacific and beyond.

It was invoked to justify US expansion

How did indigenous people view US westward expansion? How was this different from how the US viewed it?

The indigenous people viewed it as forcible conquest while the US understood it as legal legitimacy, since they gained it from Britian and France

How did indigenous people try to stop westward expansion?

• They resisted efforts to push them from their ancestral lands and hunting grounds

• Forged alliances among themselves

• Sought backing of British colonial officials in Canada

How did US officials and military forces encourage westward expansion?

They supported European-American settlers, and ultimately forced North America open to white expansion

What was the purpose of the Indian Removal Act?

to move Native Americas west of the Mississippi River to “Indian Territory” (Oklahoma)

What Native American tribe evaded US attempts to push them westward? How?

The Seminoles

They resisted and retreated to Florida’s swampy lowlands

What an important tribe on the Trail of Tears? What happened to them?

the Cherokees

Many died from disease, starvation, and relocation difficulties

What was the Trail of Tears?

Forced relocation of the Cherokee from the eastern woodlands to Oklahoma (1837–1838)

Where did the site of conflict between European-American and indigenous people shift?

to the plains west of the Mississippi River

Who did settlers and ranchers encounter in the trans-Mississippi west? What was their importance?

Sioux, Comanche, Pawnee, and Apache tribes that were equipped with firearms and equestrian skills

They were effective in resistance to the encroachment by white settlers and celebrated victories over US forces

What was the Battle of the Little Big Horn?

When thousands of Lakota Sioux and their allies defeated an army under Colonel George Armstrong Custer in southern Montana

What helped the US forces break Native American resistance and open western plains to US conquest?

• weaponry, including cannons and guns

• large numbers of settlers

• lots of military reinforcements

Where did the last symbolic conflict between Native Americans and the US occur? What the conflict?

Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota

Whites wanted to suppress Sioux ceremonies and adoption of the Ghost Dance. The US cavalry chased the Sioux who were fleeing to the South Dakota badlands. At Wounded Knee Creek, a Sioux man shot a gun, and in response, the US cavalry slaughtered over 200 women, men, and children with machine guns

What was the Sioux idea of Ghost Dance?

An expression of religious beliefs that included the vision of an afterlife where all white people disappeared

What did Wounded Knee represent?

the place where “a people’s dream died”, according to a Native American leader

What tension did westward expansion cause (other than with the Native Americans)?

Tension between the US and Mexico

Why did Texas declare independence? Where did it declare independence from?

Largely because US migrant setted there and wanted to run their own affairs

Mexico

What led to the Mexican-American War?

The US accepting Texas as a state and moving to consolidate their hold on the territory. Other following conflicts contributed as well

What was the Mexican-American War also known as?

• La intervención norteamericano

• la guerra del 47 (1847)

How did US forces instigate the Mexican-American War?

They sent troops into the disputed zone along the Rio Grande

What happened at the disputed zone along the Rio Grande?

The Mexican cavalry attacked US soldiers. The US sent in reinforcements and defeated the Mexican army

What did the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo do?

It gave the US ½ of Mexico’s territory for 15 million dollars. This included Texas north of the Rio Grande, California, and New Mexico

What were results of the Mexican-American War?

• Many US and Mexican soldiers died in conflict

• US got lots of new territory

• Lots of Mexican families were left stranded in the new US states

What happened to Mexican families that were left stranded in the new US states?

Some moved to be in the borders of Mexico, but most stayed and got US citizenship

What did the Mexican-American War fuel?

Mexican nationalism and hostility toward the US

What was the most serious and divisive issue in the US that was aggravated by westward expansion? Why?

Slavery

Westward expansion aggravated tensions by raising questions of whether settlers could spread slavery to new territories 

Why was the US so torn about slavery?

Enlightenment ideals of equality suggested that abolishment was right, but leaders of the American revolution and strict followers of Constitution saw it as holding private property 

What did US industrialization lead to, concerning slavery?

Surge of the antislavery movement

What states in the US abolished slavery? What did abolition do for former slaves?

All states north of Delaware

They didn’t get full equality, but they were no longer forced to work

What did the abolition of slavery in the northern states lead to?

Hardening divisions between slave and free states

What did opponents of slavery hope would happen to the institution? Why didn’t this happen?

They hoped it would die naturally because of the decline of tobacco cultivation

Invigoration of slavery actually occurred because the increase of cotton as a cash crop and because of westward expansion

As numbers of slaves in the US grew, what did antislavery forces fight to do?

Limit the spread of slavery to new territories

What was the Missouri Compromise of 1820?

sought to maintain the balance between slave and free states as the republic admitted new states in the west

What was the result of the compromises to balance power between pro/anti slavery states?

The forces for both became more strident, and ultimately, the compromises failed

What did Abraham Lincoln predict about pro/anti slavery states?

That the divided government couldn’t stand, and that the country and to become all one way or all the other

What did the election of Abraham Lincoln ignite? Why?

War between states

Because he thought slavery was immoral and was committed to the idea of free soil (territory without slavery)

Why was Abraham Lincoln reluctant to adopt an abolitionist policy?

• He’d been elected on a platform of non-interference with slavery in the US

• Doubted the constitutionality of any federal action

• Concerned about the difficulties of assimilating lots of former enslaved people into the nation’s society and politics (if he were to abolish slavery)

• Feared an abolitionist program would lead Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri (slave states) leaving the Union to join southern states in the Confederacy 

What did Abraham Lincoln fear that an abolitionist program would do?

Feared it would lead Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri (slave states) to leave the Union to join southern states in the Confederacy 

What did the Civil War revolve around?

Issues central to US society, such as:

• the nature of Union

• States’ rights vs. federal government authority

• Essentials of the capitalist system against those of an export-oriented plantation economy 

What happened in the US in 1860 and 1861? How was this justified?

11 southern states withdrew from the Union

They affirmed the right to dissolve the Union and their support for states’ rights

What isolated the southern states from the economic developments of the rest of the US?

Slavery and the cultivation of cotton as a cash crop

Where did most of the cotton from the southern states go?

To the British isles to feed textile factories of the industrial revolution

Where did the southern states get their crops and goods from? What did this lead them to think?

Manufactured goods mostly came from Britain (who they traded cotton with) and almost all of their food came from the region’s farm

That they (the southern states) were self-sufficient and didn’t need the rest of the US

How did the northern states view secession?

As illegal insurrection and an act of betrayal

What were the northern states fighting for/against in the Civil War?

• fought for a way of life (their emerging industrial socety

• fought an expansive western agricultural system based on free labor

• against slavery

• against the concept of a state subject to blackmail by the substates

What changed the stalemate of the first two years of the Civil War?

Abraham Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation, which made the abolition of slavery a goal of the war

What did Lincoln increasingly believe as the war progressed? What did he do about it?

That the destruction of slavery was the only way to save the Union

He issued a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation

When did Lincoln issue a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation?

5 days after the Union victory at the battle of Anitetam

What did the final version of the Emancipation Proclamation do?

It freed the slaves in the states that rebelled

What was a problem with the Emancipation Proclamation? How did they fix this?

It allowed loyal states to still practice slavery, under the protection of the Constitution

They issued the 13th Amendment to the Constitution which abolished slavery in the US altogether

What battle turned the tide against southern forces in the Civil War?

the Battle of Gettysburg

What were consequences of northern victory for the US?

• Slavery was permanently ended in the US

• US was politically united

• Authority of the federal government was enhanced

What contributed to the victory of the northern states in the Civil War?

the considerable resources they used. They used around 90% of the country’s industrial capital and about 2/3 of the railroad lines in the war

How were European states different than US states?

European lands built powerful states on the foundations of revolutionary ideas, liberalism, and nationalism

the US forged a strong central government to oversee settler colonialism in the west and to deal with political and social issues that divided the nation

What did US strength come at the cost of?

Human casualties during war

How did Canada get its independence?

It came gradually, but the British and Canadian governments agreed on autonomy

What were the two major European ethnic groups in Canada? What did they ensure?

the British Canadians and the French Canadians.

Ensured process of building an independent society would not be smooth

What helped stifle ethnic differences in Canada?

Fears of US expansion and concerns about invasion from the south

Who originally colonized New France in Canada?

Trappers and settlers from Britain and France

When was the colony of New France incorporated into the British Empire?

After Britain’s victory in the Seven Year’s War

What group did imperial government officials in Canada make concessions to?Why?

The French Canadians

Because they were the majority and the government wanted to avoid conflict

What were examples of the concessions that the imperial Canadian government gave to French Canadians?

• Officials recognized the Roman Catholic Church

• Permitted the observance of French civil law in Quebec and other French Canadian settlements

• Governed through appointed councils staffed by local elites

How were the British Canadians different from French ones?

• Protestant

• Lived mostly in Ontario

• Followed British law

• Were governed through elected representatives

What enlarged the size of the english-speaking community in Canada?

The influx of British loyalists who sought refuge in Canada as the American Revolution was ending

What prevented the splintering of Canada? Why?

the War of 1812

Because it gave a sense of unity against the external threat

Why was the War of 1812 started?

the US declared war on Britain because of their encroachment of the US’ rights during the Napoleonic Wars

What was the importance of Canada in the War of 1812?

the British colony in Canada formed one of the front lines in the conflict

What happened between the US and the British Canadian lines during the War of 1812?

US military leaders thought they could easily invade and conquer Canada to pressure Britain. Canadian forces pushed back US ones, despite the US having more resources.

What did British Canadian victories in the War of 1812 promote?

A sense of Canadian pride

What was a unifying sentiment for British and French Canadians?

Anti-US sentiment

What changed in Canada after the War of 1812? What did this lead to?

It experienced rapid growth

Expanded business opportunities drew English-speaking migrants who increased the population.

How did British imperial governors in Canada defuse tensions? Why?

By expanding home rule in Canada and permitting provinces to govern their own internal affairs

Because they didn’t want to repeat the American revolution

What did the Durham report inspire?

The imperial move toward Canadian autonomy

What did the influx of English-speaking migrants into Canada for business opportunity threaten?

The identity of French Canadians in Quebec