Download manifest destiny and its legacy 1803

“[The American claim] is by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to
possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the
development of the great experiment of liberty…”
-John L. O’Sullivan
MANIFEST DESTINY
The popular belief that the United States had a divine
mission to extend its power and civilization across the
breadth of North America, reaching its height in the 1840s
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Nationalism
Population Increase
Rapid Economic Development
Technological Advances
Reform Ideals
Land (Agriculture / Industry)
Port Cities (Trade with China / Japan)
Immigration (“Safety Valve” / Work Force)
Democratization (Indians / Mexicans)
Christianization (Protestantism)
• NORTH
Suspected expansionism as southern ambition to spread slavery
into western lands
“GOOD INTENTIONS WITH
STRINGS ATTATCHED…”
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1783- Treaty of Paris (Appalachian Mountains – Mississippi River)
1803- Louisiana Purchase
1818- Red River Basin (Convention)
1819- Adams-Onís Treaty (Florida)
1830- Indian Removal Act (Lands East of the Mississippi River)
1845- Texas Annexation
1846- Oregon Territory
1848- Mexican Cession (California and New Mexico)
1853- Gadsden Purchase (American Southwest)
Fought For
CUBA
• 1841- Henry “Tippecanoe” Harrison dies after four weeks in
office
John Tyler assumes the presidency until 1844
• 1837- The American steamer, Caroline, carrying supplies to insurgents across
the Niagara River is attacked by a determined British force on the New York
shore
Lurid American illustrators widely distorted the event to depict a horrid
atrocity
This unlawful invasion of American soil—a counterviolation of
neutrality—had alarming aftermaths for expansionist Americans
Washington officials lodged vigorous but ineffective protests
• 1841- Tension again snapped when British officials in the Bahamas offered
asylum to 130 Virginia slaves who had rebelled and captured the American
ship Creole
Southerners feared their Caribbean possession would become havens for
escaped slaves, due to Britain’s abolition of the institution
• 1823- Newly independent Mexico sought to attract settlers to farm its sparsely
populated frontier province
Stephen Austin leads 300 families into Texas, thereby beginning a steady
migration of American settlers (coming to outnumber Mexicans 3:1)
• 1829- Mexico outlaws slavery and requires its inhabitants to convert to
Roman Catholicism
Many settlers refuse to obey laws
Mexico closes Texas to additional American immigrants
Land-hungry Southerners ignore Mexican prohibition and continue to
migrate
• 1834- General Antonia López de Santa Anna becomes dictator of Mexico and
abolishes its federal government
Santa Anna enforces Texan laws
• 1836- American settlers led by Sam Houston revolt and declare Texas
to be an independent republic (The Lone Star Republic)
• Revolt and Independence
Mexican army led by Santa Anna captures the town of Goliad and attacks
the Alamo in San Antonio, killing all of its American defenders
An army under Sam Houston captures General Santa Anna at the Battle
of the San Jacinto River
Santa Anna is forced to recognize Texas’ independence, granting it all
territory north of the Rio Grande
Mexican legislature rejects treaty and declares Texas to be in rebellion
• Houston, the first president of the Lone Star Republic, applies for annexation
by the United States
Presidents Jackson and Van Buren postpone Texas’ annexation due to
Northern political opposition and threat of war with Mexico
Southern Whig President John Tyler works to annex Texas (due to
growing British influence), but fails to pass the Senate
• 1818- The Treaty of 1818 improved United States relations with Britain and
granted fishing rights off Nova Scotia (allowed Maine to break away from
Massachusetts)
• The ill-defined boundary between Maine and Canadian New Brunswick
raised diplomatic issues between the United States and Britain
Many Americans still regarded Britain as their country’s primary enemy
• Conflict between rival groups of lumbermen on the Maine-Canadian border
erupted into open fighting (Aroostook War / “Battle of the Maps”)
• 1942- Webster-Ashburton Treaty resolves the conflict by splitting the
disputed territory between Maine and British Canada
Treaty also settled the boundary of the Minnesota territory, leaving the
iron-rich Mesabi range on the American side of the border
• Region once claimed by Spain Russia, Great Britain, and the United States
Spain renounces its claim in the Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819
• The United States based its claim on
The discovery of the Columbia River by Captain Robert Gray in 1792
The overland expedition to the Pacific Coast by Lewis and Clark in 1805
The fur trading post and fort in Astoria, Oregon, established by John
Jacob Astor in 1811
• Protestant missionaries and farmers from the United States settled the
Willamette Valley in the 1840s, leading 5,000 more Americans to travel the
Oregon Trail and ultimately settle in the area south of the Columbia River
• By 1844, Americans believed the United States should take undisputed
possession of Oregon
• DEMOCRATIC PARTY (“Fifty-four Forty or Fight!” [border latitude])
 Martin Van Buren of New York (opposed immediate annexation)
 James Buchanan of Pennsylvania (moderate)
 John C. Calhoun of South Carolina (supported slavery and annexation)
 James K. Polk of Tennessee (supported annexation, reoccupation of the
Oregon Territory, and the acquisition of California) - DARK HORSE -
• WHIG PARTY
 Henry Clay of Kentucky (indecisive regarding annexation)
“YOUNG
HICKORY”
“NAPOLEON OF
THE STUMP”
Alienated voters form
the antislavery
LIBERTY PARTY in
1840 (nominate
expansionist Lewis
Cass)
• President John Tyler, inspired by the election of James
K. Polk, persuades both houses of Congress to pass a
joint resolution for the annexation of Texas
• President Polk decides to compromise with Britain over Oregon and settles
for the Southern half of the territory
• British and American negotiators agreed to divide the Oregon Territory at
the 49th parallel
• Final settlement is delayed until the United States agreed to grant Vancouver
Island to Britain and guarantee its right to navigate the Columbia River
• The treaty is submitted to the Senate for ratification in June
Some northerners viewed the treaty as a sellout to southern interests
because it removed British Columbia as a source of potential free states
State opponents of the treaty reluctantly voted for the compromise
settlement due to conflicts with Mexico
• 1830- Joseph Smith found Mormonism (The Church of Jesus
Christ and Latter Day Saints)
• 1844- An Illinois mob attacks a group of Mormons and Joseph
Smith is killed
• 1846/1847- Under the leadership of Brigham Young, Mormons
migrate to Utah in the Great Mormon Trek, where some settled
• The United States annexation of Texas led to diplomatic trouble with Mexico
• 1845- President Polk dispatches John Slidell, the American envoy to the
government of Mexico City for purposes of
Persuading Mexico to sell the California and New Mexico territories to the
United States for $25 million
Settling a dispute concerning the Mexico-Texas border (Mexico insisting
Texas’ southern border lay at the Nueces River whereas Polk asserted it lay
along the Rio Grande)
• Slidell’s mission fails
• IMMEDIATE CAUSES
Polk orders General Zachary Taylor to move his army toward the Rio
Grande across territory claimed by Mexico
On April 24, 1846, a Mexican army crossed the Rio Grande and captured
an American army patrol, killing 11
• President Polk presents his war message to Congress, claiming American blood
had been shed on American soil
Northern “Conscience Whigs” oppose going to war over the attack (as Abraham
Lincoln requests to know the precise location with his Spot Resolutions)
A majority in both houses still approve the war resolution
• Most of the war is fought in Mexican territory by relatively small armies of
Americans
• MILITARY CAMPAIGNS
A force of 1,500 lead by General Stephen Kearney succeeds in taking Santa Fe,
the New Mexico territory, and southern California
1846- John C. Frémont overthrows Mexican rule in northern California and
proclaims California to be an independent republic (The Bear Flag Republic)
February 1847- Zachary Taylor’s force of 6,000 men drives the Mexican army
from Texas into northern Mexico, where they are victorious at Buena Vista
September 1847- An army of 14,000 under General Winfield Scott invades
central Mexico and succeeds in taking Vera Cruz and later Mexico City
• 1848- American diplomat Nicholas P. Trist negotiates the Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo in Mexico which provided that
Mexico would recognize the Rio Grande as the southern border of Texas
The United States would take possession of California and New Mexico—
the Mexican Cession—in return for $15 million and the assumption of
American claims against Mexico
• Opposition to the Treaty
Some Whigs viewed the war as an immoral effort to expand slavery
A few Southern Democrats wanted the United States to take all of Mexico
• The treaty was finally ratified in the Senate by the required two-thirds vote
• 1846- Pennsylvania Congressman David Wilmot proposes an appropriations
bill be amended to forbid slavery in any of the new territories acquired from
Mexico in his Wilmot Proviso (passed the House of Representatives but
defeated in the Senate)
(Free Soil vs.
• RENEWED SECTIONAL TENSIONS
Popular
Escalating political conflict leads to Civil War Sovereignty vs.
Abolition)
• 1840- The California Gold Rush attracts thousands of settlers to
the Western frontier
• Many Southerners were dissatisfied with territorial gains of the U.S.-Mexican
War and hoped to acquire new land in areas of Latin America where
plantations worked by slaves were thought to be economically feasible,
namely, Cuba
• President Polk offers to purchase Cuba from Spain for $100 million
Spain refuses to sell the last major remnant of its North American empire
• Several southerners lead small expeditions to Cuba in an effort to take the
island by force of arms (easily defeated)
• Elected in 1852, President Franklin Pierce dispatched three American
diplomats to Ostend, Belgium, where they secretly negotiated to but Cuba
from Spain
The American press uncovers this Ostend Manifesto
Reactions from angered antislavery members of Congress force President
Pierce to drop the matter
• Expansionists continue to seek new empires with or without the federal
government’s support
• 1853- Southern adventurer William Walker tries unsuccessfully to take Baja,
California from Mexico but later takes over Nicaragua in 1855 (Walker
Expedition)
Walker’s plot to develop a proslavery Central American empire collapses
when a coalition of Central American countries invades and defeats his
regime
• 1850- Great Britain and the United States agree to the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty
Provided that neither nation would attempt to take exclusive control of
any future canal route in Central America
• 1853- Mexico agrees to sell the southern semidesert sections of New Mexico
and Arizona to the United States for $10 million with the Gadsden Purchase