American YAWP Chapter 12

Manifest Destiny

The 19th-century belief that the United States had a God-given mission to expand across the continent, spreading its institutions and improving the land, even though this often caused harm to Native Americans and other groups.

John Louis O’Sullivan

A journalist who coined the phrase “manifest destiny” in 1845, arguing that the United States was destined to expand its influence and territory.

The Young America movement

A nationalistic movement that promoted American expansion, democracy, economic growth, and unity; it encouraged aggressive territorial growth while downplaying sectional and ethnic divisions.

Abraham Lincoln

Critic of expansionist rhetoric; he mocked the idea that Americans had a right to take land simply because they desired it, opposing the aggressive logic of manifest destiny.

German and Scandinavian immigrants

Groups of immigrants who, in the 1830s–1840s, moved into the Upper Mississippi Valley and contributed to westward settlement, supporting the population growth that fueled American expansion.

Horace Greeley

A newspaper editor who encouraged westward migration, famously urging young men to “Go West,” symbolizing the push for settlement and opportunity in expanding territories.

American Indians

Native peoples who were displaced, removed, or attacked as U.S. expansion advanced; manifest destiny directly threatened their lands, autonomy, and survival.

Florida

A strategic region desired by the United States for security and expansion; conflicts involving Native peoples, escaped enslaved people, and Spanish weakness led the U.S. to pursue control of the territory.

Negro Fort

A fort in Spanish Florida occupied by free Black people and escaped enslaved people; destroyed by the U.S. Army in 1816, killing hundreds and helping spark U.S. invasion of Florida.

Andrew Jackson

Strongly supported Indian removal and expansion; he invaded Florida during the First Seminole War, pressuring Spain to give up the territory.

First Seminole War

The 1817–1818 conflict in which Andrew Jackson invaded Spanish Florida to attack Seminoles and occupants of the Negro Fort, leading to U.S. control of the region.

Creek and Seminole Indians

Native groups living in the southeastern U.S. and Florida whose lands were targeted by settlers and the federal government; they faced invasion, removal, and violent conflict during expansion.

Adams-Onís Treaty

The 1819 agreement in which Spain ceded Florida to the United States in exchange for $5 million and boundary adjustments, finalizing U.S. control after years of conflict and pressure.

Second Seminole War

A long conflict (1835–1842) in which the Seminole people resisted U.S. efforts to remove them from Florida; the war was extremely costly and highlighted the violence caused by removal policies.

Thomas Sidney Jesup

A U.S. Army officer who led much of the Second Seminole War, he concluded that the only way to defeat the Seminoles was to remove both the Native population and the Black people who lived among them.

Indian Removal Act in 1830

A law passed under Andrew Jackson authorizing the federal government to negotiate removal treaties and relocate eastern Native nations west of the Mississippi River, paving the way for forced removals.

Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Cherokee Nations

Major southeastern Native nations targeted by U.S. removal policies; they faced increasing pressure in the 1830s as the government seized their lands and forced them west.

Worcester v. Georgia (1832)

A Supreme Court decision ruling that states could not impose laws on Native nations; despite the decision favoring Cherokee sovereignty, the federal government ignored it and continued removal efforts.

John Ridge

A Cherokee leader who believed removal was inevitable and supported negotiating a removal treaty with the United States, later becoming part of the group that signed the Treaty of New Echota.

Treaty of New Echota

An 1835 agreement—signed by a minority faction of the Cherokee—that ceded all Cherokee lands east of the Mississippi; the U.S. used it to justify forcibly removing the Cherokee people.

John Ross

The principal chief of the Cherokee Nation who opposed removal and fought against the Treaty of New Echota, arguing it did not represent the will of the Cherokee people.

Martin van Buren

The U.S. president who enforced Cherokee removal, carrying out the terms of the Treaty of New Echota and overseeing the forced march known as the Trail of Tears.

Trail of Tears

The brutal forced removal of the Cherokee in 1838–1839; thousands of Cherokee people died from disease, starvation, and exposure as they were marched west to Indian Territory.

Odawa and Ojibwe communities

Native groups in the Great Lakes region who, like many others, faced removal pressures; their displacement to Kansas or other western lands was part of the broader federal removal campaign.

Black Hawk War

An 1832 conflict in which the U.S. defeated Sauk leader Black Hawk and his followers as they tried to return to their homelands; the war contributed to Native removal from the Old Northwest.

Indian Territory

A region west of the Mississippi River, mainly in present-day Oklahoma, where the U.S. government relocated removed Native nations; meant to be their permanent home, but later threatened again by white expansion.

Comanche

A powerful Native nation in the southern Plains whose military strength, horse culture, and control of trade made them a major force in the region during U.S. westward expansion.

Kiowa, Apache, and Navajo

Native nations in the Southwest and Plains whose lands and communities were transformed by expansion; they adapted through mobility, trade, and resistance as U.S. pressure increased

Paiute and Western Shoshone

Native peoples of the Great Basin who survived through flexible seasonal migrations; American expansion into their region disrupted their resources and intensified conflicts over land

Thomas L. McKenney

A federal official who directed the Office of Indian Affairs and supported policies aimed at “civilizing” Native Americans, including education programs meant to reshape Native culture.

Civilization Fund Act

An 1819 law that funded missionary and educational programs designed to “civilize” Native Americans by promoting Christianity, farming, and Euro-American cultural practices.

Treaty of Doak’s Stand

An 1820 treaty in which the Choctaw Nation agreed to exchange their Mississippi lands for territory west of the Mississippi River, one of the early removal agreements pushed by the U.S.

Women migrants

Women who traveled west with their families; they often faced more burdens than men, performing domestic labor, caregiving, and resource management during long overland journeys.

“separate spheres”

The widely held belief that men belonged in public life (politics, business) while women were confined to home and domestic duties; westward migration often intensified these gender expectations.

Panic of 1819

A major economic depression triggered by falling crop prices and land values; it severely hurt western settlers who had borrowed money, revealing the risks of speculative expansion.

Internal Improvements (roads, railroads, and canals)

Transportation projects that helped link distant regions, promote trade, and enable westward migration; they made national expansion faster and more economically connected.

Erie Canal

A major canal completed in 1825 that connected the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean, drastically lowering transportation costs and helping fuel western expansion and migration.

Baltimore and Ohio line

One of the first major American railroads, begun in 1828, which expanded transportation networks, supported westward migration, and strengthened the nation’s internal market.

Mexican Texas

A northern province of Mexico that invited U.S. settlers in the 1820s; tensions grew as American migrants brought enslaved labor and resisted Mexican laws meant to control settlement.

American immigrants to Texas

Mostly southern slaveholding settlers who flooded into Mexican Texas, defied Mexican restrictions on slavery, and eventually pushed for greater autonomy, fueling resistance to Mexican authority.

Texas Revolution

The 1835–1836 uprising in which American settlers and Tejanos rebelled against Mexico’s central government, ultimately declaring independence and forming the Republic of Texas.

Antonio López de Santa Anna

The Mexican president and military leader who attempted to enforce Mexican authority in Texas; his harsh actions, including at the Alamo and Goliad, intensified Texan resistance.

Constitution of 1824

Mexico’s federalist constitution, originally guaranteeing states’ rights; many Texan settlers supported it, and Santa Anna’s decision to overturn it helped spark rebellion.

Alamo and Goliad

Two key defeats for Texan forces in 1836: Santa Anna killed defenders at the Alamo and executed over 300 prisoners at Goliad, events that galvanized Texan resistance and outrage.

Runaway Scrape

The mass flight of Texan civilians and the retreat of Texan forces as Santa Anna’s army advanced across Texas in early 1836, just before the final decisive battle.

Sam Houston

Commander of the Texan army who led the retreat during the Runaway Scrape and ultimately defeated Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto, securing Texas independence.

Battle of San Jacinto

The April 1836 battle in which Houston’s forces surprised and defeated Santa Anna, capturing him and forcing Mexico to recognize Texan independence.

Treaty of Velasco

The 1836 agreement in which captured Mexican president Santa Anna recognized Texas independence; Mexico later rejected it, but Texans used it to justify their claim to nationhood.

Texas Annexation

The 1845 decision by the United States to admit Texas as a state, driven by expansionist enthusiasm and Southern support for adding another slaveholding state, though it heightened tensions with Mexico.

John Tyler

The U.S. president who pushed aggressively for the annexation of Texas in the final months of his administration, helping set the stage for conflict with Mexico.

James K. Polk

The expansionist president elected in 1844 who championed manifest destiny, oversaw the annexation of Texas, provoked the Mexican-American War, and aimed to acquire California and the Southwest.

Nueces strip

The disputed territory between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande; both the U.S. and Mexico claimed it, and clashes here triggered the outbreak of the Mexican-American War.

John Slidell

A U.S. diplomat sent by Polk to Mexico to purchase California and New Mexico; Mexico refused to meet with him, increasing tensions that helped lead to war.

Zachary Taylor

A U.S. general ordered by Polk into the disputed Nueces Strip; his troops’ skirmishes with Mexican forces were used by Polk to claim that Mexico had shed “American blood on American soil.”

Mexican American War

The 1846–1848 conflict caused by U.S. expansionist goals; the U.S. won decisively and gained vast territories in the West, reshaping the nation and intensifying debates over slavery.

Winfield Scott

A U.S. general who led a successful amphibious landing at Veracruz and captured Mexico City, bringing the war to an end through decisive military strategy.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

The 1848 treaty ending the Mexican-American War; Mexico ceded over 500,000 square miles—including California and much of the Southwest—in exchange for $15 million.

Gadsden Purchase of 1854

A land deal in which the U.S. bought a small strip of territory in present-day southern Arizona and New Mexico from Mexico to support building a southern transcontinental railroad.

Zachary Taylor

A U.S. general whose victories in the Mexican-American War made him a national hero and helped secure major U.S. territorial gains in the West.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

A prominent American writer who warned that the new territory gained from the Mexican-American War would act like a “poisoned chalice,” intensifying divisions over slavery.

California and Oregon

Western regions that drew thousands of American migrants seeking land and opportunity; both became major destinations for settlers following treaties and U.S. expansion.

Trails west

Wagon routes such as the Oregon, California, and Santa Fe Trails that carried settlers across the continent; these routes enabled large-scale migration and were central to Manifest Destiny.

Gold Rush

The mass migration beginning in 1848–49 after gold was discovered in California, bringing hundreds of thousands of people seeking fortune and rapidly transforming the region.

James W. Marshall

The man who discovered gold at John Sutter’s mill in 1848, sparking the California Gold Rush.

John Sutter

A Swiss immigrant and landowner in California whose property at Sutter’s Mill became the site of the gold discovery that launched the Gold Rush.

Chinese and Mexican immigrants

Groups that migrated to California during and after the Gold Rush; they contributed significantly to mining and labor but faced discrimination and violence from Anglo-American settlers.

Coeur D’Alene, Idaho and Tombstone, Arizona

Locations of later western mining booms where strikes of gold, silver, and other minerals replicated patterns first seen in California’s Gold Rush.

James Monroe and John Quincy Adams

Presidents whose foreign policy helped assert U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere and limit European influence, laying groundwork for expansionist ideology

Monroe Doctrine

The 1823 declaration warning European powers not to colonize or interfere in the Americas; it asserted U.S. protection over the hemisphere and strengthened the ideology behind Manifest Destiny.

Filibustering

Private, unauthorized military expeditions by Americans seeking to seize foreign lands—usually in Latin America—to expand slavery or U.S. influence, often violating U.S. neutrality laws.

Cuba

A major target of American expansionists and filibusters who sought to acquire it from Spain, largely to add another slaveholding territory to the United States.

Narciso López

A Venezuelan-born filibuster who led illegal expeditions to take Cuba from Spain; he gained strong support from Southern enslavers but ultimately failed.

William Walker

A notorious filibuster who briefly seized control of Nicaragua in the 1850s; he aimed to expand U.S. domination and the institution of slavery but was eventually overthrown and executed.