Nation of Nations 3/e Davidson, Gienapp, Heyrman, Lytle, and Stoff
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THE CHAPTER IN PERSPECTIVE

Americans traditionally linked western migration with the preservation of opportunity. The revolutions in markets and transportation greatly accelerated the process of white settlement beyond the Appalachian mountains. Similarly, the spread of cotton production and the quest for economic success had carried Southerners, white and black, free and slave, westward. Thus white southerners linked western expansion not only with the preservation of white opportunity but also the preservation of slavery. As the lines of settlement spread across the Mississippi River into the Louisiana Purchase, Americans increasingly cast their eyes on neighboring lands to the west that seemed ripe for acquisition. They were also inspired by a longstanding sense of mission, with its vision of the United States as a beacon for the world, and the widespread belief in the impending millennium that fostered so many reform movements in this period. Economic, political, and intellectual forces combined to produce a new expansionist surge in the 1840s that pushed the Republic's boundaries to the Pacific, a process that brought Americans into contact with other cultures and peoples.

OVERVIEW

This chapter examines the Republic's expansion to the Pacific ocean, its transformation into a continental nation, and how that development injected the slavery issue into national politics. It begins with the expansion of the Sioux onto the Plains, as a reminder that westward expansion in American history involved more than Anglo-Saxon whites. Moreover, the case of the Sioux illustrates the importance of different kinds of frontiers in the process of expansion. The Sioux's conquest of the Plains ultimately depended on the acquisition of guns and horses, and the outbreak of disease epidemics that weakened enemy tribes and shifted the balance of power to the Sioux. Furthermore, Hispanic cultures of the Southwest, as well as the Chinese immigrants of the 1850s, were all a part of the frontier mix.

Manifest (and not so Manifest) Destinies

In the 1840s Americans proclaimed that it was the United States' "Manifest Destiny" to expand across the North American continent. This doctrine combined idealistic motives with attitudes of racial superiority and a hunger for good farmland. This destiny brought Americans into contact--and conflict--with the Mexican frontiers of Texas, New Mexico, and California, which since the Mexican Revolution of 1821 had been lightly populated and loosely under Mexican control.

Mexico initially welcomed American settlers in Texas. Attracted by the promise of free land, Americans poured in, largely from the southern states, and they soon became a clear majority of the population. Tensions with the Mexican authorities steadily mounted and eventually led to a revolution. In 1836 Texas forces defeated the Mexican army sent to quell the rebellion, and Texas became an independent republic. Americans in Texas hoped to be annexed by the United States, but the Jackson and Van Buren administrations held back, fearful of stoking the fires of sectionalism.

The Trek West

Lured by the promise of good land and a fresh start, other Americans headed for Oregon and California on the Overland Trail. Most migrants traveled in wagons as part of a family group. The journey, which took six months or more, put heavy pressures on families. Women especially complained about the breakdown of traditional gender roles on the trail, as they were forced to perform tasks normally reserved for men and often saw any semblance of a home, their traditional domain, disappear.

Migration on the overland trail also took a heavy toll on the Plains Indians' way of life. Wagon trains scared off game and used up the grass and wood, which prompted the Sioux to demand payment for crossing their lands. Nevertheless, few trains were attacked by Indians.

The Political Origins of Expansion

The desire of the people of Texas to be annexed to the United States initially was blocked by politicians' fears of raising the slavery issue, since Texas had legalized slavery. The death of the Whigs' first president, William Henry Harrison brought John Tyler to the presidency. Tyler soon broke with the Whigs over economic policy and took up the Texas issue in the hope of winning another term as president in 1844. This caused the Democratic party to counter by dropping Martin Van Buren, who opposed the annexation of Texas, in favor of James K. Polk, who supported it, as the party's presidential candidate. Polk was narrowly elected over Henry Clay.

Polk entered the White House determined to expand American boundaries across the continent and to acquire the best harbors on the Pacific. He agreed to divide the Oregon territory with Britain, gaining the lower half for the U.S., including Puget Sound. Upholding Tyler's annexation of Texas, he tried to buy New Mexico and California from Mexico, but when his diplomatic efforts failed he provoked a war with Mexico. Polk's willingness to use military means to achieve his goals provoked considerable opposition in American politics. The United States quickly conquered New Mexico and California, and when Mexico stubbornly refused to make peace, American forces occupied Mexico City and forced Mexico to surrender. By the treaty of peace, the U.S. acquired California and New Mexico, but northern Democrats, angry over the Polk's prosouthern policies, injected the slavery issue into the controversy by introducing the Wilmot Proviso. The proviso sought to ban slavery from any territory gained from Mexico.

New Societies in the West

Overlanders sought to recreate in the West the society they had left behind. Eventually, these societies became more stable and their economies more diversified. At the same time, wealth became more concentrated and opportunity more constricted. The discovery of gold in California set off a frantic rush to the diggings. The gold rush created a unique society in the mining camps--one that was overwhelmingly male, strongly nativist, and without any sense of permanence. By 1852 the claims had been worked out and mining was increasingly dominated by heavily capitalized corporations.

Cities also developed in the West. The product of economic self-interest, San Francisco experienced rapid, chaotic growth. It was also an amazingly diverse community ethnically, with large numbers of Europeans, South Americans, Chinese, and other groups. Salt Lake City offered a striking contrast. In order to escape persecution for their unusual beliefs, including polygamy, the Mormons led by Brigham Young moved to the Salt Lake basin and established their own society, free to worship as they chose. A planned community, Salt Lake City had an orderly appearance since its development was carefully regulated by church officials.

By the peace treaty with Mexico, a large number of Hispanics were incorporated into the United States. Increasingly they came into conflict with the Anglo population, especially in Texas and California. Treated as inferior, harassed, and often reduced to poverty, some expressed their frustration through social banditry.

Escape from Crisis

Solution of the territorial question became urgent when gold was discovered in California in 1848. As miners flocked to the region, California quickly gained sufficient population to be admitted as a state. In addition, Mormons in the Salt Lake basin asked for admission as a state. When both major parties tried to avoid the issue of slavery's expansion in 1848, northern antislavery forces founded a new party, the Free Soil party, which urged adoption of the Wilmot Proviso. In a three way race, Zachary Taylor, the Whig candidate and a hero of the Mexican War, was elected president.

When Congress assembled in December, 1849, the two sections were at loggerheads, with many northerners calling for the prohibition of slavery in the Mexican cession and southerners demanding that the area be opened to slavery. Congress momentarily settled this question in the Compromise of 1850, devised by Henry Clay and pushed through Congress by Stephen A. Douglas. The compromise settled the boundary dispute between Texas and New Mexico, included a new fugitive slave law, and adopted the principle of popular sovereignty (the people of the territory should decide) to deal with slavery in the Utah and New Mexico territories. But the Compromise was more an armistice than a compromise, since only a fifth of the members had supported the entire Compromise.

Public opinion in both sections, however, rallied to the compromise measures, and both the Whigs and the Democrats endorsed the Compromise in their 1852 platforms. Sectional harmony returned, and it seemed the Union had weathered the sectional storm.

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