Download Westward Expansion Though the early history of North America

Westward Expansion
Though the early history of North America includes Spanish
settlement moving north into the American Southwest and French
movement south down the Mississippi River, we most often tell
American history from the perspective of Euro-Americans arriving
on the Atlantic shore and moving west. Look at the Maps folder to
see the extent of Euro-American settlement in the British colonies
at the start of the American Revolution in 1775 and then at that
settlement in the early years of the new nation of the United
States in 1790 and trace the nation's expansion from 1810 to
1850.
Those who have studied colonial American history know that the
continued movement of Euro-Americans over the Appalachian
Mountains caused turmoil that led the British to issue the
Proclamation of 1763 to try to stop that migration and keep peace
with Indians in the Ohio Valley. Then in the early years of
independence, the United States faced continued troubles in the
Ohio Valley with Indians because whites kept moving west. In the
War of 1812, westward expansion was a factor and the west was
the scene of crucial battles.
Look at the maps from 1810 to 1850. As you can see, EuroAmericans trekked westward relentlessly. By 1830, more than a
third of the population lived west of the original thirteen colonies.
The transportation revolution of this era resulted in improved
roads, canals, and steamboats, and the opening by railroads of
the interior east of the Mississippi River that encouraged people
to move. The federally financed National Road began in Baltimore
in the 1810s, crossed the Appalachian Mountains, and reached
Vandalia, Illinois, by 1850. States financed improvements such as
New York's famous Erie Canal, which connected New York City
with the Great Lakes in 1825. After steamboat design improved
early in the nineteenth century, these vessels moved up and
down the Ohio, Mississippi, and Missouri rivers and their
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tributaries opening up new regions. But the most remarkable of
these transportation changes was the railroad. New in 1830, the
railroads grew to 31,000 miles of track by 1860. In 1869, the
Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads met in Promontory
Point of Utah Territory where, with the driving of the golden spike,
the first transcontinental line was completed. The growth of a
transportation network together with industrialization hastened the
transition of the United States from a rural/agricultural nation to an
urban/industrial one.
The United States physically expanded in the first half of the
century from sixteen states in 1800 to thirty-one in 1850. In
addition, huge areas west of the Mississippi came under
American jurisdiction and would eventually gain statehood. A
spirit, some would say plague, of boosterism called “Manifest
Destiny” convinced many Americans that the nation's God-given
mission was to stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific. "Manifest
Destiny" originated with a New York newspaper editor John
O'Sullivan as you read in the textbook. Painter John Gast
depicted it in his work "American Progress" (sometimes called
"Westward Ho" or "Westward the course of destiny").
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Credit: Crofutt, George. "American Progress," chromolithograph, ©1873 George
Crofutt, after the 1872 John Gast painting of the same name. The copyright for
the Crofutt work has expired. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
Division Washington, D.C., LC-DIG-ppmsca-09855.
or view the painting here:
http://www.cprr.org/Museum/Ephemera/American_Progress.html
What does this painting tell you about "Manifest Destiny"
and its image of the West?
The Goddess of Liberty floats through the sky, carrying a book of
laws and linking the continent with a telegraph wire. As she leads
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the march of "civilized" progress, she ties the nation together with
a telegraph. Invented by Samuel F.B. Morse in 1837, the
telegraph crisscrossed the country with over 23,000 miles of wire
by the mid-1850s. Note how the Indians, buffalo, and wild bears
casting backward glances retreat before the pioneers. With the
"sacred plow," covered wagon, stagecoach, and ultimately the
railroad, the sturdy pioneer moves forward.
Expansionists inspired the United States to negotiate the Oregon
Treaty with Great Britain in 1846, which added today's Oregon,
Washington, Idaho, and part of Montana and Wyoming. When the
United States acquired Puget Sound in this treaty, it became the
only good Pacific port under American control because the mouth
of the Columbia was so dangerous and because Mexico still
controlled the harbors of San Francisco and San Diego. At the
conclusion of the Mexican-American War in 1848, the country
grew to include present-day Texas, California, Nevada, Utah,
Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of other western states.
American actions in Texas to provoke the war with Mexico
exposed the imperialistic and racist aspects of manifest destiny
practiced by a nation that less than seventy-five years before had
struggled as thirteen colonies against Britain's imperialism. The
"American Communities" section that precedes Chapter 14
makes those imperialistic and racist aspects clear.
Look at the 1850 map to see the land the United States acquired
as a result of the Mexican-American War and the Oregon Treaty.
From 1845 to 1848 the United States added 1.5 million square
miles of territory and increased in size by more than 30
percent.
©Susan Vetter 2008, rev. 2011
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