Transcript Territorial Expansion - McEachern High School

Territorial Expansion
1836-1848
The “Lone Star Republic”
• The Texas Revolution
1. Texas belonged first to Spain
2. after 1821, to Mexico.
3. Mexican government opened Texas to settlers from the U.S.
4. Americans received generous land grants at low prices. In
exchange they agreed to become Roman Catholics and citizens of
Mexico.
5. By 1830, there were about 30,000 people in Texas, ninety
percent of whom were Anglo-Americans.
6. Friction developed between the Mexican government and the
American settlers.
7. Few converted to Catholicism or applied to become Mexican
citizens.
8. The rapid growth of the American population of Texas alarmed
Mexican officials.
9. In 1830, the Mexican government announced that slaves could
no longer be brought into any part of Mexico and that Americans
could no longer settle in Texas.
10. the Texans rebelled and declared their independence on March
2, 1836.
The “Lone Star Republic”
11. The Texas
Revolution lasted
less than two
months. After
suffering defeats
at the Alamo and
Goliad, Texan
forces led by Sam
Houston
destroyed the
Mexican army at
the Battle of San
Jacinto on April
21, 1836.
The “Lone Star Republic”
• The annexation issue
1. Sam Houston, the hero of San Jacinto, was
elected President of the newly founded Republic of
Texas in 1836. Houston and most Texans wanted
to join the United States.
2. Many Americans opposed admitting Texas into
the Union b/c the Texas constitution allowed
slavery.
3. Northern antislavery Whigs opposed admitting
another slave state into the Union.
4. Other opponents of annexation warned that this
might provoke a war with Mexico.
5. President Jackson resisted admitting Texas into
the Union. He feared that a prolonged debate over
the admission of a slave state would ignite a
divisive campaign issue that could cost the
Democrats the presidential election.
6. Jackson postponed annexation and Texas
remained an independent “Lone Star Republic.””
Polk and Manifest Destiny
• The expansionist spirit
1. During the 1820s many Americans thought the United States
would not go beyond the Rocky Mountains. The quest for land,
opportunity, and adventure excited a new generation By 1860,
over 4 million people lived west of the Mississippi River.
2. John L. O’Sullivan, the editor of the Democratic Review,
gave the nation’s expansionist spirit a name when he coined the
term Manifest Destiny. O’Sullivan declared that America’s
right to expansion lay in “our
manifest destiny to occupy and to possess the
whole of the Continent which Providence has
given us.”
3. proponents of manifest destiny believed
that expansion was necessary to extend
democratic institutions and American
agriculture and commerce to sparsely
populated regions. America had a
God-given destiny to extend its
civilization across the continent
and create a country that would
serve as a shining example
to the rest of the world.
Polk and Manifest Destiny
• Polk’s election
1. The annexation of Texas and territorial expansion were the key issues in the 1844
presidential campaign. The Whig Party nominee Henry Clay refused to support the
annexation of Texas. The Democrat candidate James K. Polk ran on a platform demanding
the annexation of Texas and asserting America’s right to all of Oregon.
2. Polk won a narrow electoral victory. As an expansionist he used manifest destiny as an
argument to justify annexing Texas, claiming Oregon, purchasing California, and
displacing Native American tribes.
Polk and Manifest Destiny
• Texas and Oregon
1. Following the election, Congress approved a resolution annexing
Texas as the nation’s 18th state. President Tyler signed the
resolution three days before Polk took office.
2. Acquiring Oregon proved to be more difficult. Both the United
States and Great Britain claimed the territory. The Democrat’s
campaign slogan “Fifty-four forty or
fight” meant that the U.S.
would go to war with Britain in order
to obtain the entire Oregon territory.
3.Despite his campaign slogan,
Polk proposed a compromise that would
divide Oregon
at the 49th parallel.
4. The British
accepted Polk’s proposal thus
averting a war with the United
States.
The Mexican War
• The outbreak of war
1. the Texas question remained to be
settled with Mexico. Outraged by the annexation
of Texas, Mexico broke off diplomatic relations
with the United States.
2. Polk exacerbated (worsened) tensions by
supporting Texas’ claim to the Rio Grande River as its
southwestern boundary. The Mexican government insisted
that Texas went no farther than the Nueces River.
3. On April 25, 1846 a large Mexican force crossed the Rio
Grande and attacked a small American reconnaissance party.
In the fight eleven Americans were killed and the rest
wounded or captured.
4. Polk demanded that Congress declare war on Mexico,
declaring the “Mexico has…shed American blood upon
America soil.” Congress agreed and approved a declaration of
war on May 13, 1846.
The Mexican War
• Opposition to the Mexican War
1.
New England abolitionists denounced the
Mexican War as an unjust conflict designed to
extend slavery into new territories.
2. Henry David Thoreau refused to pay his state
poll tax as a gesture of opposition. He then
wrote a classic essay “Civil Disobedience”
urging passive resistance to laws that require
a citizen “to be an agent of injustice.”
Thoreau’s essay later influenced Dr. King’s
philosophy of non-violent protest.
3. Whig leaders also opposed the war with Mexico.
Abraham Lincoln, then an obscured Whig
congressman from Illinois, challenged Polk to
identify the exact spot on American soil where
American blood had been shed.
4. Like other Whigs, Lincoln believed that Polk
used the skirmish as a pretext (excuse) for
declaring war so that he could claim new
territories.
The Mexican War
• The conquest of Mexico
1. Led by General Zachery Taylor,
American forces won a series of
victories in northeastern Mexico.
Taylor became a national hero when he
defeated a much larger
Mexican army at the
Battle of Buena Vista.
The Mexican War
2. Led by Colonel Stephen W.
Kearny, American forces captured
Santa Fe, New Mexico and then
helped secure California.
3. Led by General Winfield Scott,
American forces landed at Vera
Cruz and then battled their way to
Mexico City. Scott entered and
took control of the Mexican
capital on September 14, 1847.
The Mexican War
• The Treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo
1.
Under the terms of this
treaty Mexico lost about
one-third of its territory. It
ceded New Mexico and
California to the United
States and accepted the
Rio Grande as the Texas
border.
2.
It is important to
remember that New
Mexico actually included
present-day Arizona,
Nevada, and Utah, as well
as parts of Colorado and
Wyoming.
3. The United States acquired
more than 500,000 miles of new
territory. In return the U.S.
agreed to pay Mexico $15 million
and pay all the claims American
citizens had against the Mexican
government.
The Mexican War
• The war’s consequences
1. The Mexican War gave combat
experience to a group of junior officers
that included Robert E. Lee and Ulysses
S. Grant.
2. The Mexican War transformed
America into a continental nation that
spanned from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
3. The Mexican War added vast new
territories thus igniting an increasingly
bitter dispute about the extension of
slavery. The Mexican War marked a key
step in the road to disunion.