Fall 2000, American History I, Notes from 11/2/00

American History I
Notes from 11/2

In this class, we finished talking about the various reform movements and other changes that came out of the Second Great Awakening, and then we discussed the American territorial expansion of the 1840's. After the Louisiana Purchase (1803), the United States continued to look for additional lands to settle. Most of Florida, and southwestern Louisiana, were acquired from Spain in 1819, but it was the west that held the greatest attraction for American settlers.

After the PBS video a couple of weeks ago on the West, I briefly discussed the circumstances of American migration to Texas, and the subsequent conflict between white settlers in Texas and the Republic of Mexico. I will recount that discussion here: During the 1820's, Americans began to move to Texas, which was then a part of a newly independent Mexico. Mexico wanted people to settle in Texas, and the Mexican government offered large tracts of fertile and inexpensive land to whites who were willing to move there. However, disagreements began to develop between the Mexican government and white settlers in Texas. For one thing, Mexico had outlawed slavery. Even though settlers in Texas were allowed to keep their slaves as lifelong indentured servants, most settlers who owned slaves were reluctant to give up their full rights of ownership. Additionally, Mexico was a Catholic country, and required settlers to convert to Catholicism. Most American settlers were Protestant, and converted in name only. Finally, Mexico insisted that settlers in Texas pay duties (a type of tax) on goods imported from the U.S. and elsewhere; most settlers resisted this and continued to smuggle in American-made goods.

By 1835, tensions between white settlers in Texas and the Mexican government had reached a boiling point. In 1836, settlers voted to declare independence from Mexico, and after less than two months of fighting forced the Mexican dictator Santa Anna to sign a treaty recognizing Texas as an independent republic.

The Texans really did not want to remain independent however. Instead, they hoped that the U.S. would annex Texas. The new government sent representatives to meet with President Andrew Jackson, but Jackson and others were reluctant to make Texas a part of the U.S. because they feared full-scale war with Mexico. Anti-slavery forces in the north were also resistant to the idea of annexing Texas, since admission of Texas to the Union would tip the delicate balance of power between slave and non-slave states. Texas would remain an independent republic for nearly a decade.

In addition to Texans' demands for annexation, other factors compelled American territorial expansion. During the early 1840's, several thousand Americans had migrated to the northwest coast along the Oregon and California Trails.

They knew they were in British or Mexican territory, but like the Texans they hoped that the U.S. would annex these lands as well.

The only migrant group that did not actively seek U.S. annexation were the Mormons. They had settled in Salt Lake City (Utah) in 1846, after facing persecution in Illinois and Missouri because of their religious beliefs and unorthodox practices (particularly polygamy). Although at the time Utah was part of Mexico, the Mormons were able to establish their own community (they called it the state of Deseret) more or less free from Mexican interference.

During the 1840's, calls for the annexation of Texas and the acquisition of additional territories from Mexico (including California and Utah) became more strident. Expansionists also sought to firmly establish American control over the Oregon country from the British. In the election of 1844, James Polk ran for president as a strong supporter of expansion. He and others subscribed to the idea of Manifest Destiny, the doctrine that it was America's God-given right to extend its boundaries to the Pacific Ocean (and even beyond). Three arguments underpinned Manifest Destiny. The first was that God was on the side of American expansionism. The second was that American expansionism meant the spread of democratic institutions. Finally, adherents to Manifest Destiny argued that population growth in the U.S. made expansion necessary, in order to give people economic opportunities.

Polk's first order of business as president was settling the dispute with Great Britain over the Oregon Country. A treaty signed in 1846 established the present-day boundary between the U.S. and Canada, and paved the way for full annexation. This helped calm the fears of northerners, who felt that the annexation of Oregon (which did not have slavery) would balance the likely acquisition of Texas (which did have slavery).

With the dispute with Great Britain settled, Polk turned his attention to Mexico. After the Congress formally voted to annex Texas in 1845, the country prepared for full-scale war with Mexico. The Mexican-American War began in earnest in early 1846, and lasted for a little over two years. Mexican surrender finally came in February 1848, after U.S. troops invaded Mexico City. Under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), Mexico ceded to the United States most of its southwest and Pacific territories, including what is now California, Nevada and Utah, and most of New Mexico and Arizona. Of course, the discovery of gold in northern California in 1848 (at Sutter's Mill) fueled a rapid migration west, beginning a cycle of boom and bust that would characterize western settlement for some time to come.

The War with Mexico nearly completed U.S. expansion on the North American continent. (The Gadsden Purchase in 1853 completed the acquisition of the southern tip of New Mexico and Arizona; Alaska was purchased from Russia in 1867). But with territorial expansion so nearly complete, the controversy over the spread of slavery and the balance of power between slave and non-slave states would get much worse.

I also discussed increased migration to the United States, particularly from Ireland, during the 1840's. Between 1845 and 1854, some 1.5 million Irish came to the United States, compelled to leave Ireland in the wake of a great famine (caused by a blight on the potato crop). Large numbers of Germans also came to the United States during this time, as well as smaller populations from Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands. The large influx of Irish, most of whom were poor and Catholic, fueled anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States, and gave rise to the so-called nativist movements. (Nativism is simply a prejudice against people not born in one's country). Groups coming to the United States faced tremendous pressures to assimilate, but often found themselves segregated in poor urban ethnic neighborhoods. Ultimately nativist movements would come to wield political power in the United States, which we will discuss next week.