History | CH 10 All Sections

“Manifest Destiny” coined by newspaper editor John O’Sullivan in 1845. The West is a myth of romance and adventure amongst Americans. 

In the early 1800s, four nations claimed the Oregon Country. The big four (US, Britain, Spanish, Russia) wanted this for trade and stuff. 

US wanted to annex Oregon to gain access to the pacific, but this required getting the other three to give up their claims.

US wanted to annex Oregon to gain access to the pacific, but this required getting the other three to give up their claims.

Britain refuses to give up its claims. John Quincy Adams, president at the time, proposed dividing Oregon at the 49th parallel.

US and Britain extend the 1818 agreement for joint occupation of the area.

The first Americans to reach the Oregon country were trappers and traders looking for beaver furs. Fur trade blah blah blah. Because they spent much of their time hunting and trapping in the Rocky Mountains, they were often called mountain men. They get familiar with the geography of the West. They eventually become guides for new settlers. Rendezvous- when the mountain men all hanged out, highpoint of the year.

Some mountain men opened up new trails through the wilderness. After most of the beavers were gone due to extensive hunting, so mountain men found work as guides. 

Independence Missouri is a hotspot for trails.

Fur traders and trappers were some of the first Americans to explored the West. John Jacob  Astor created on of the largest fur businesses, the AMerican fur company. Astor founded Astoria, one of the first settlements in Oregon Country. 

Astor said: do your thing mountain men, give them to us, we get a cut of the profit, and mountain men get paid. 

American settlers began traveling to the Oregon Country in the 1830s, lured by reports of abundant fertile land. The first large-scale trip west took place in 1843, when more than 1,00 pioneers left Independence Missouri for Oregon. They don’t realize the issue. Many people say the risk is worth it. 

Dr. Marcus Whitman and his wife Narcissa try to establish a mission, like an actual moral and nice mission. They built a Christian mission among to Cayuse people. Some settlers unknowingly have measles, and accidentally killed many of their children by infecting them. 

Angered, the Cayuse attacked them in November 1847, killing the Whitmans and several others. This tragedy did not stop the flow of settlers to Oregon. 

Overland immigration from 1840 to 1860, over a quarter million made the trek. 

Pioneers headed for Oregon began their trip in Missouri and traveled for 2,000 miles along the Oregon Trail.

Most people traveled in prairie scooters or canvas colored wagons. 

Santa Fe Trail

• from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Independence Missouri

• originally a Native trade route

• traders used the route to trade american goods for mexican goods, traders made high profits, difficult journey

• mainly for moving product & businesspeople

• people would kill you, since they know wagons had valuable items

Mormons, were the first non-Native American settlers in the Utah area. Joseph Smith founded the church in 1830 in New York. He formed a religious community, which was unpopular with its neighbors.

In 1844, a mob in Illinois killed Smith. 

Someone named Brigham Young took over as head of the church, and moved the Mormon community to the area near Great Salt Lake in what was then the New Mexico territory of Mexico. 

12,000 mormons began the journey in 1846. In the mist of the harsh desert of Utah, they founded a community called Deseret, later changed to SLC. 

The Mormons built irrigation canals to water their farms and started local industries.

The US acquires the Salt Lakes area in 1848 with the Mexican cession. Two years later, Congress establishes the Utah Territory. While most western areas want to be a part of the US, the Mormons preferred their independence.  Utah did not become a state until 1896. 

Land Grants and Stuff

The First Texas land grant went to Moses Austin in 1821. He agree to bring a number of settlers to Team but he died. His son Stephen F. Austin recruited 300 settlers to live on land along the Brazos and Colorado Rivers in Texas. We’re actually allowed to be there. 

Mexico wanted to encourage settlers from many places, not just the United States, to settle in Texas. To attract new settlers, Mexico passes laws giving cheap land, and they said you have to learn Spanish. convert to Catholicism, and obey Mexican law. Slavery was illegal in Mexico

Texan Settlers

• Most Settlers continued to decline Mexican ways

• By 1830s, there were more Americans than Mexicans in Texas.

Alarmed by the numbers of Americans, and aware that the United States wanted to acquire Texas, Mexico forbade further immigration from the US to Texas, and discouraged trade. 

Texas were angered by the ban on American immigration and the taxes on trade. Stephen F. Austin went to Mexico City to ask Mexico’s president, Antonio Lopex de Santa Anna to remove the settlement ban and make Texas a separate state. Santa Anna agrees to the first demand, but not the second. Santa Anna declared himselfdictator and overthrew Mexico’s 1824 constitution. Theses actions encouraged an increasing number of American settlers in Texas to seek independence. 

The first fight of the Texas Revolution occurred in Oct 1835 at the town of Gonzales. After this skirmish, Texans asked for volunteers to help to fight Mexico. 

In December, the Texans scored their first important victory as they liberated San Antonio from a larger Mexican force. San Antonio was the first major victory.

Santa Anna is furious at the loss of San Antonio, marched north to retake the settlement and found only a small force barricaded inside a nearby mission called the Alamo.

The defenders at the Alamo, including Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, and Colonel Travis held off with rifle fire the larger and better-armed Mexican force for 13 days. 

March 6, 1836, after Mexican cannon fire smashed the Alamo’s walls, Mexicans soldiers attacked, killing almost everyone inside. Rallying cry became “Remember the Alamo”!!!

The siege of the Alamo bought the Texas rebels time. While Santa Anna was preoccupied with the band of rebels at the Alamo, American settlers and Tejans declared the independent Republic of Texas/Lone Star Republic and named Sam Houston chief of the Texas forces.

“The Texans fought more like devils than like men” -- Santa Anna

Due to motivation vs salary, like American Revolution. Willing to go farther, risk more. 

At the Battle of San Jacinto, the fores of Houston and Santa Anna clashed. The battle started on April 21, 1836, when the Texans launched a surprise attack on the Mexican camp. They killed about 600 of the 1,300 man force, and captured 700 soldiers including Santa Anna. After less than one year of fighting, the war was over.

Santa Anna signed the Treaty of Velasco, recognizing the independence of Texas on May 14, 1836. 

DISCUSSION: Future steps for the U.S. may be to consider whether to annex Texas or buy Texas if they do not want to be a state. Resources may be discovered to entice the U.S. Slave trade & balance of free and slave states.

In September of 1836, Texans elected Houston as the first president. Houston sent a delegation to Washington to ask Andrew Jackson to annex Texas but Jackson refused. Texas needs money. Texas would be a slave state, upsetting the balance. Jackson did not want to open up that can of worms, even though Jackson would like to do that.

Texas is forced to remain independent during a very difficult time. The republic was deeply in debt. Also, the government of Mexico refused to accept SantaAnna’s recognition of Texas’s independence. As a result, sporadic fighting between Mexican and Texan forced continued.

Texas remained independent throughout administrations of Martin Van Buren and John Tyler. When James K. Polk a strong believer in Manifest Destiny, became president in 1844, the situation changed.

Polk wants Texas, and with Polk’s support, Congress passed a resolution to Annex Texas.

On December 29, 1845, Texas became a state. 

Ch 10. Sec 3

Election of 1844.

Democrats: James Knox Polk.

Whigs: Henry Clay

Liberty Party: James dude

“54 40’ or fight!” 

Polk becomes the second president of Tennessee.

Goals of Polk’s Administration

1. Lower the tariff

2. Resolve the Oregon Boundary dispute

3. Restore the independent treasury 

4. Acquire California

Polk avoided war with Britain over Oregon and negotiated treaty for land south of forty-ninth parallel. Oregon organized as territory in 1848. 

War with Mexico

The annexation of Texas by the United States in 1845 worsened relations between Mexico and the United States which had already been bad for years. They could not agree on the order between Texas and Mexico. The United States placed the border at Rio Grande while Mexico claimed it was at the Nueces River, 150 miles farther north. 

The United States sent John Slidell to offer Mexico $30 million for California and New Mexico if Mexico would accept the Rio Grande as  boundary of Texas. Mexico is like NO, and also guess what, WE’RE RETAKING TEXAS! 

In response, the United States sent troops under General Zachary Taylor across the disputed territory between Nueces and the Rio Grande. Mexican soldiers attacked some of Taylor’s troops in the disputed area on April 24, 1846. Congress declared war on May 1846.

Abraham Lincoln, a member of Congress, thought Taylor’s troops had been attacked in Mexican territory, meaning there were no grounds for retaliation or war. Frederick Douglass feared that expansion would carry slavery with it. 

Congress David Wilmot: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of said territory.” Wilmot Proviso.

Polk had a three-part plan to win the war with Mexico. 

1. Drive Mexican troops out of the disputed territory and secure the border

2. Seize new Mexico and California

3. Capture Mexico City

General Zachary Taylor accomplished the first goal by 1847. American forces under General Stephen Watts Kearny captured Santa Fe, the capital of New Mexico, without a fight on August 18, 1846. Kearny led his troops toward california. In June 1846, a small group of Americans seized the town of SOnoma, north of San Francisco, and proclaimed the independent Republic of California. Also called Bear Flag Republic.

In July 1846 an American naval squadron captured the ports of Monterey and San Francisco. Commodore John Sloat declared California a part of the US.

Sloat then went on to capture San Diego and Los Angeles, By 1847 California was fully under the control of the US.

Zachary Taylor is called Old Rough and Ready. 

Winfield Scott, appointed By Polk bcs Taylor is taking attention away from Polk.

• Veracruz

• Mexico City

  • Sept 1847, forces under Scott capture Mexico City.

• “Old Fuss and Feathers”

Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, basically forced on Mexico. They win, Mexico gave up claims to Texas above the Rio Grande River. Mexico gave the U.S. California and New Mexico. U.S. Gives $15 mil and agrees to claims of American citizens against Mexico.

Mexican Cession-- land given to the U.S during Mexican American war

In 1853, the US paid Mexico an additional $10 million for a strip of land along the southern edge of Arizona and New Mexico, called the Gadsden Purchase. The goal of this purchase to secure the spot for the Transcontinental railroad. The adjoined 48 states of the mainland reached it's present size.

Ch 10. Sec 4. Gold Rush

The discovery of gold along California’s America River in early 1848 set off a gold rush that brought thousands of people into California. Sutter’s mill is where gold was first discovered. It was basically a telephone: “don’t tell anybody” and eventually everyone knows. 

Boomtowns sprang up almost overnight in n. Cali as a result of the gold rush. The gold rush is directly responsible for the growth of San Francisco, which served as a port of entry for gold-seekers arriving in California by ship.

Very few of the miners achieved lasting wealth, and most people found little or no gold. The people who achieve lasting wealth are those who sell the supplies to find gold.

A lot of rich people lost their money through lavish, foolish spending, merchants did make a great deal of money by charging miners inflated prices for the things they needed. 

Insane population boost, along with other effects:

• Expanded trade

• Shipping

• Agriculture

• The population also soared

Rapid growth in California brought the need for more effect government. Californians wrote a state constitution in 1849, and applied for statehood in 1850.

 B/cs Cali’s constitution banned slavery, slave state reps did not want California to join. California had to wait six months for statehood, and a compromise was worked out. Compromise of 1850 allowed them to accomplish statehood.