Notes on Westward Expansion

The End of the Fur Trade and Johmeek's Journey

Many fur trappers died in the Rocky Mountains.
There was a common understanding in the fur trade that if you didn't show up at Irondu, you were considered dead.
Johmeek survived for over a decade as a trapper, facing dangers like the Blackfeet and grizzly bears, but ended up with no money.
The demand for beaver pelts declined due to the shift to silk hats in the fashion industry.
By the mid-1830s, the beaver trade was ending, marking the end of the mountain men era.
Some mountain men became guides for American explorers and wagon trains.
Johmeek settled in Oregon with his Nez Perce wife and children.
He entered politics, advocating for the Pacific Northwest to become part of the United States.
Johmeek wanted to be able to say he was born and died in Washington County, United States.

Lakota History and the Black Hills

Native American tribes have ways of recording history, such as through landmarks and oral traditions.
The arrival of horses in the early 1700s allowed the Lakota to migrate eastward from the Rocky Mountains to the Great Plains.
Lone Dog, a Lakota man, created a painted record on buffalo hide, marking each winter with a significant event.
The record began in 1800, marking the year 30 Lakota were killed in a battle with the Crow.
The Lakota moved west following the herds and established the Black Hills as the center of their world.
The Lakota name for the Black Hills is Wamako Wanaka Ichante, meaning "the heart of everything that is."
The Black Hills are considered the center of the universe for the Lakota.
The Lakota were a warrior society.
The Cree people's stories said that when the Crow were coming to fight, we sent our little boys to fight. When the Mandan were coming, we die.

Texas and the Rise of Sam Houston

For 300 years much of the West was called their Mexico starting with Coronado.
Mexico had a plan to populate Texas with settlers to prevent the United States from claiming it.
Settlers were expected to convert to Catholicism and pledge allegiance to Mexico in exchange for land.
The plan backfired, as thousands of American squatters arrived without permission.
Texas attracted people seeking adventure, those running from the law or difficult situations, and those wanting something more.
People that came to Texas were poor debtors, land speculators, fugitives, and lawyers.
Sam Houston, a Tennessean with a mixed reputation, moved to Texas.
Houston had a distinguished career in the War of 1812 and served in Congress.
After his wife left him, Houston resigned as governor, struggled with alcohol, and lived with Cherokee friends.
Houston then went to Texas.
An eagle swooped down in my head and then sworn along with wildest screams was lost in the rays of the same sun. I knew that a great destiny waited for me in the West.

Texas Independence and the Alamo

By 1835, there were approximately 35,000 American immigrants and their slaves in Texas, vastly outnumbering the Spanish-speaking Tejanos.
Both groups resented being governed from Mexico City.
General Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana became president of Mexico and declared himself dictator.
When Texans rebelled, Santa Ana marched north with an army of 5,300 men, flying a black flag indicating no quarter would be given.
Sam Houston ordered men to come with a rifle and 100 rounds of ammo to country.
146 men gathered at the Alamo in San Antonio to resist Santa Ana's army.
Houston believed the Alamo was indefensible and wanted it destroyed, but the men inside, including Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett, decided to stay and fight.
On February 24, 1836, Santa Ana reached San Antonio and demanded the Alamo's occupants surrender or face annihilation.
Commander William Barrett Travis responded with a cannon shot.
Juan Zeguin, a Tejano captain, was sent through the Mexican lines to deliver a plea for reinforcements.
59 men, including three Tejanos, declared Texas an independent republic in Washington on the Brazos, creating a constitution modeled after the U.S. Constitution.
There were no reinforcements, so the Alamo was attacked on March 6, 1836, after a 13-day siege; all defenders were killed.
The Alamo's significance lies in the defenders' choice to defend an impossible position against a superior force.

Massacre at Goliad and Sam Houston's Strategy

Santa Ana took a second fort called Goliad, and ordered some 300 men, mostly Americans, to be shot and their corpses burned.
Houston's small, poorly trained army was the only obstacle between Santa Anna and the defenseless settlements in East Texas. Quacket is your guardian and the badger says, I will give you steadfastness. You will be strong. And the dog said, I'm going to give him love and friendship. I'm going to be with him all the time. And that was his guardian spirit.
Houston retreated, studying Caesar's commentaries on war and eating raw corn.

Missionary Efforts and the Whitman Mission

In 1831, four Indians, including three Nez Perce, traveled to Saint Louis seeking the bible, believing it would grant them power.
This led to Protestant missionaries traveling to the Pacific Northwest.
The Whitman settled at Waidapa, in Cayuse territory along the Walla Walla River.
Things went wrong for the Whitmans due to cultural misunderstanding with the Cayuse people.
Narcissa Whitman did not like the Cayuse and used words like savage, ignorant, lazy, heathenish.
Narcissa gave birth to a daughter, Alice, who drowned in the river at age two.
Narcissus would go up to two years without a letter from home.
Narcissus and other missionary wives in the area would pray for each other and their families.

The Sager Children and the Oregon Trail

In the early morning hours of 11/14/1833, one of the largest meteor showers in history lit up the night sky over North America. Longdog and his Lakota band watched it on the Northern Plains and remembered 1833 as the year of the stars fell.
The East forced into the West by the federal government.
The Sager family traveled west on the Oregon Trail. They had seven children. Early in the eighteen thirties, congress had created a huge new Indian territory, which was to stretch from Christian, they may be literate, they may have government like ours, but ultimately they're Indian. And in the end, being Indian is what kills them.
Naomi got injured in what's now Eastern Kansas, and further on they forded the South Platte, and Henry Sager lost control of his oxen. The wagon overturned, Naomi was injured, but they kept going.
Katherine caught her dress on an axe handle falling off a wagon, and for the remainder of the trip, Catherine either rode in the jolting wagon or hobbled along beside it on crutches.
Two women with blow brush, a wooden headboard, and marked they're spots.
The Sager parents died on the trail leaving their seven children as orphans.
The Whitmans offered to take in all seven Sager children.

Motivations for Westward Expansion

Americans moved west for various reasons: land, converting Indians, furs.
Regardless of the initial reason, they wanted to make the territory part of the United States.
They brought the nation with them; the nation didn't send them.

Tensions and Annexation

Californios also felt distant from Mexico City.
They discussed various options: annexation by France or the British Empire, or establishing a Republic of California.
Texas had anticipated becoming a state soon after its victory at San Jacinto, but Congress hesitated due to the slavery issue.
In 1844, James K. Polk, a Democrat, was elected president and aimed to expand the United States.
With Polk's support and a compromise on slavery, Texas became the 28th state.
Sam Houston became Texas' first senator.
Polk then focused on the Pacific Northwest, threatening war with Britain to gain Oregon, Washington, and Idaho.
Polk wanted New Mexico and California.
When Mexico refused to sell, Polk used a border skirmish to get Congress to declare war.
The Mexican-American War lasted over a year and a half.

The Whitman Massacre

I'm south across the border to seek across Cayus lands. I think that the Cayus hated Narcissa. And I think that when Narcissa turned her back on the Indians and when she dealt with them as sternly as she did with, I think from her perspective, with all the right motives I mean, I to tell people we're going to hell. They were going to hell. That they came to to really despise her.
Forties, with the Indians start telling the weapons to leave. We don't like to hear this bad talk. Leave.
Three years after the Sager children arrived, measles spread through the Cayuse villages, killing half the tribe.
Cayuse thought Whitman was spreading the disease. A few days later, after six months and 2,000 miles, Henry and Naomi Sager's children finally reached their
The Cayuse killed Marcus Whitman, and Joe Meek's daughter also died from measles.
Five Cayuse warriors surrendered to prevent further hunting of their people.
Piru Kaid then said Did not your missionaries teach us that Christ died to save his people be answered? So we die to save our people.

Legacy of Westward Expansion

Catherine Sager survived the massacre, married a Methodist minister, and had eight children.
The long years bring at last the realization that life, patiently and hopefully live, brings its own sense of having been part of the onward move to better things, not for self alone, but for others.
On 07/04/1848, President Polk laid the cornerstone of the Washington Monument.
George Washington's America stopped at the Mississippi.
At the time, the American flag flew over the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas.