Antebellum Empire and the Indian Removal

Antebellum Empire

• 1800s-1840s, United States expansion driven from the top and the bottom
• top-down: elite United States officials worked to add new territory
• bottom-up: ordinary people pressured the government officials and migrated on independently
  • they often crossed national borders
  • legally and illegally
  • Los Angeles, Montana, Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Oregon, and California, all had Anglo- American populations before becoming United States territory
• this accelerated during 1849s: 1845-52, the United States seized or purchased 1.2 million square miles
• by then, there were two different rival visions for expansion:
  • south: wanted to build an empire to protect, benefit, and expand southern slavery
  • north: wanted “free soil” expansion to provide an opportunity for white men
  • they viewed expanding slavery as a threat

Indian Dispossession and Removal in the Southeast

• 1830-50, an estimated 60,000 Native people were expelled to the West
  • Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Cherokees, and Seminoles were all tribes that were expelled into the West
• a key turning point was the 1830 Indian Removal Act
• Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks, and some Seminoles signed removal treaties
  • they ceded eastern homelands for new lands in the Indian territory
• most of the Cherokees and a significant number of the Seminoles refused