The American JourneyA History of the United States, 7th Edition

By: Goldfield • Abbott • Anderson • Argersinger • Argersinger • Barney • Weir

Chapter

•The Way West

13

The Way West

The Agricultural Frontier

The Frontier of the Plains Indians

The Mexican Borderlands

Politics, Expansion, and War

Conclusion

Learning Objectives

How did economic and demographic pressures in the East

spur Western migration?

What strategies did the Sioux use to maintain their power

on the Great Plains?

What forces contributed to the Americanization of Texas?

Why was James K. Polk so eager to provoke a war with

Mexico?

Introduction

Some 300,000 Americans traveled the Oregon Trail in the

1840s and 1850s in a trek that eventually made the

United States a nation that spanned the continent.

The concept of Manifest Destiny provided a justification for

aggressive expansion across the continent.

Introduction (cont'd)

Oregon Trail

Overland trail of more than 2,000 miles that carried American settlers

from the Midwest to new settlements in Oregon, California, and Utah.

Manifest Destiny

Doctrine, first expressed in 1845, that the expansion of white Americans

across the continent was inevitable and ordained by God.

The Agricultural Frontier

The Crowded East

By the early 1800s, land was scarce in the East, especially

New England. Land was more productive and expensive

in the Middle Atlantic states. In the South, planters

controlled the best lands.

Facing limited opportunities, the young and poor in the rural

East had strong incentives to move west where land was

cheap and fertile.

The Crowded East (cont'd)

Public land prices fell between 1800 and 1830.

MAP 13–1 The Westward Shift of the

United States Population, 1790–1850

The Old Northwest

The number of settlers in the Old Northwest rose tenfold

between 1810 and 1840.

The Old Northwest was a mosaic of different settlements

with diverging values and folkways. Migration belts

tended to move east to west, maintaining the same North-

South cultural differences as existed along the Atlantic

coast.

The Old Northwest (cont’d)

Wheat became the major cash crop in the North and

contributed to northern manufacturing.

Claims club

A group of local settlers on the nineteenth-century frontier who banded

together to prevent the price of their land claims from being bid up by

outsiders at public land auctions.

The Old Southwest

Skyrocketing cotton prices and the defeat of the Indian

confederacies stimulated a land boom in the Old

Southwest.

In less than 30 years, six new slave states entered the

Union: Mississippi, Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas, Florida,

and Texas.

The southwestern frontier attracted planters and

independent farmers.

The Old Southwest (cont’d)

The Southwest Ordinance of 1790 opened all territories

south of the Ohio River to slavery.

Westward Expansion and the Growth of

the Union, 1815–1850

The Frontier of the Plains Indians

Tribal Lands

In the 1830s, the United States set aside land west of the

Mississippi River for displaced Native Americans.

The Sioux were the dominant power on the northern and

central Great Plains.

Trade in buffalo hides increased in the early 1800s.

Tribal Lands (cont'd)

Epidemic diseases helped Sioux expansion since the

nomadic Sioux were less susceptible to the disease than

the sedentary, agricultural peoples.

The Fur Traders

The western fur trade originated in the rivalry between

British Hudson’s Bay Company and the American Rocky

Mountain Fur Company.

Mountain men acted as trappers for the fur companies.

They lived in brutal, harsh conditions and mortality rates

among trappers ran as high as 80 percent a year.

The Fur Traders (cont’d)

The rendezvous system brought trappers, Native

Americans, and traders together in an annual fair to trade

furs for various goods.

In the 1830s, the fur trade decimated the animal population

and disease ravaged Native American tribes.

The Oregon Trail

Between the 1840s and early 1850s, about 150,000

Americans made the overland trip from Missouri to

Oregon, Utah, and California.

Under an 1818 agreement, Oregon territory was

administered jointly by the United States and Great

Britain.

The Oregon Trail (cont'd)

The overland trip was long and arduous, requiring

cooperation among families traveling in the wagon trains.

The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 was the first attempt to

draw boundaries to contain the Plains Indians.

MAP 13–2 Western Overland Trails

FIGURE 13–1 Overland Emigration to the West,

1840–1860

The Mexican Borderlands

The Peoples of the Southwest

Diverse peoples lived in the Southwest. Full-blooded Native

Americans, who retained their traditional languages and

customs, were the largest group. Mestizos were of mixed

Native American-Spanish ancestry, while criollos were

American-born whites of Spanish ancestry. The smallest

group were Spaniards.

The Mexican Borderlands (cont'd)

The three centers of white settlement were Texas, New

Mexico, and Alta California.

Santa Fe Trial

Overland trial across the southern plains from St. Louis to New Mexico

that funneled American traders and goods to Spanish-speaking

settlements in the Southwest.

The Americanization of Texas

Administration of Texas was problematic for Mexico.

Settlement was sparse, the economy was struggling, and

communication difficult.

The Americanization of Texas (cont'd)

The Mexican government encouraged American settlement

by offering large land grants to empresarios. The

agreement required the Americans to accept Mexican

citizenship, convert to Catholicism, and obey the Mexican

government.

The Americanization of Texas (cont'd)

American settlers poured into the region, many bringing

slaves. Relations between the Americans and Mexican

government declined, leading to a successful rebellion

and the creation of the Texas Republic in 1836.

Tejano

A person of Spanish or Mexican descent born in Texas.

The Americanization of Texas (cont'd)

Empresario

An agent who received a land grant from the Spanish or Mexican

government in return for organizing settlements.

Alamo

Franciscan mission at San Antonio, Texas, that was the site in 1836 of a

siege and massacre of Texans by Mexican troops.

MAP 13–3 Texas and Mexico after the Texas

Revolt

The Push into California and the Southwest

Mexican administration of California was always weak. The

secularization of the mission system, opened lands for

settlement and by the 1830s, the rancho system had been

established.

American settlers to California included Yankees from New

England and New York in the coastal cities, and

midwestern farmers in central valleys.

The Push into California and the Southwest (cont’d)

American merchants opened up the Santa Fe trail.

Utah was settled by the Mormons.

Californios: Persons of Spanish descent living in California.

Politics, Expansion and War

Politics, Expansion, and War

The Democrats viewed their victory in the election of 1844

as a mandate for expansion. Through a combination of

war and negotiation, the U.S. became a nation that

spanned a continent.

Mexican Cession of 1848

The land ceded to the U.S. by Mexico in the Treaty of Guadalupe

Hidalgo.

Manifest Destiny

Manifest Destiny assumed the white Americans had a

special mission to spread civilization and democracy.

It fueled and justified expansion of the United States across

the continent and was closely associated with the

Democratic Party.

The Mexican War

President James K. Polk was an ardent expansionist. He

compromised with Britain, signing a treaty the resolved

issues over Oregon.

The annexation of Texas prompted Mexico to sever

diplomatic ties with the United States.

A border dispute led to the Mexican War, which ended in a

stunning military victory.

The Mexican War (cont'd)

In the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexico ceded its claim

to the current southwestern states of the United States.

Taos Revolt

Uprising of Pueblo Indians in New Mexico that broke out in January 1847

over the imposition of American rule during the Mexican War; the

revolt was crushed within a few weeks.

MAP 13–4 The Mexican War

Conclusion

Conclusion

Americans were an expansionist people.

Between 1815 and 1850, the nation expanded to the Pacific

coast.

Popular pressure and Manifest Destiny fueled expansion.