APUSH for Paper 3

Manifest Destiny

• Coined by John O’Sullivan

• America’s God given right to take over the land between Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

• This belief was rooted in the idea that it was the duty of the United States to spread democracy and civilization across the North American continent.

Mexico

• Northern Mexico at the time was what included Texas, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico and California

• 30000 Meixcans lived in New Mexico, 3500 in California, but they were outnumbered by Native Americans.

• When Mexico started, it encourage economic decelopment by granting a tract of land to Moses Austin. He sold smaller parcels of that land until there were 7000 Americans there.

• Mexican government responds by anulling the land contracts and further banning emigration into Texas.

• Up to now, many Americans took slaves and demanded greater autonomy and the right to use slave labor.

• Mexican General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anaa decided to assert control over the restive territory with an army, turning the demans for autonomy into a revolt for independence.

• On March 13, 1836, Santa Ana defeated American Defenders of the Alamo, killing 187 Americans, including Davy Crockett.

• Texas Rebels would remember this, and come back to defeat Santa Ana at the battle of Jacinto, and so Mexico was forced to recognized Texas’ independence.

Texas

• Texas was now independent, and wanted to join the United States. However, considering it was a slave state, it would disrupt the balance in the Senate, so Jackson and Van Buren ignored Texas’ request.

• After Martin Vamn Buren wrote a letter denouncing any plan to annex Texas, southerners began supporting James Polk, a slave owner and presidential candidate.

• Days before Polk took office, Texas was annexed on March of 1845.

• Congress then forged an agreement to divide Oregon at the 49th parallel, which restored the slave state/free state balance in the Senate.

Polk’s Wars for Expansion

• James Polk wanted to acquire California from Mexico, and after being rejected from purchasing it, sent troops under Zachary Taylor into the disputed border region.

• War began, and Polk clamed that Mexicans had shed blood upon American soil. This was the first war fought on foreign soil, leading to significant territorial gains for the United States, including California and New Mexico, through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848.

• Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: Confirmed the annexation of Texas and further ceded California and other places. In return, the US paid Mexico 15 million dollars and no take backs.

Know-Nothings

• After the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, between 75,000 and 100,000 Spanish-speaking Mexicans and 150,000 Native Americans were under the jurisdiction of the United States. Despite the fact that the treaty granted Spanish descended Mexican “male citizens” legal and property rights, the Mexicans were still seen as inferior to Anglo-Saxons whose manifest destiny it was, of course, to overspread the continent.

• And the fact that these Mexicans were Catholic didn’t help either, especially because in the eastern part of the United States, there was a rising tide of anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant sentiment known as nativism. A new party, known as the Know-Nothings heavily supported this sentiment.

California

• Tehre weren’t enough white people to apply for statehood, until gold was discovered in 1848.

• 1852, the non Indian population rose to 200,000 and nearly 25,000 Chinese immigrants migrated to work for mining and railroad companies.

• There were also women who ran restaurants, worked as cooks and laundresses and prostitutes.

• The Cali Constitution of 1850 limited civil participation to whites.

• Indians were kicked off their land if it ahd mineral value, and thousands of orphaned children were sold as slaves.

• Population dropped from 150,000→ 30000 by 1860.

• It was unclear whether California would be a slave state because of The Missouri Compromise

• Free Soil party formed in 1848 calling for the limitation of slavery’s expansion in the west.

• 1850, California admitted to the US as a free state.

• Henry Clay’s Compromise of 1850:

  1. California admitted as a free state

  2. Slave trade, but not slavery, would be outlawed in Washington D.C.

  3. Fugitive Slave Law

  4. Popular Sovereignty

Civil War

• Fugitive Slave Law: Any citizen was required to turn in anyone they knew to be a slave to authorities. Many people of color responding by moving to Canada

Railroads

• Made shipping cheaper and more efficient and facilitated transportation

• Congressman Stephen Douglas wanted a transcontinental rialroad because he felt it would bind the union together, and it could be good for Illinois, his home state.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

• Formalized the idea of popular sovereignty, but it essentially repealed the Missouri Compromise.

• As a result, there was a lot off violence in Kansas, and this act also led to the creation of The Republicans.

  • The Republicans: Former free-soilers, northern anti-slavery whigs, and Know-Northings

• If Kansas and Nebraska became slave states, it would be a threat to northerner’s economic self-interests.

• Hundreds of people flocked to Kansas from Missouri to cast ballots in Kansas elections, leading people coming in from free states to set up their own rival governments. Fighting broke out and 200 people were killed.

• Kansas created two consitituions and was made a fee state in 1861.

Dred Scott