Chapter 13 – �Westward Expansion

Pages 440 - 467

Section 1 and 2 – The Trails to the West

• How did westward expansion change the geography of the nation and demonstrate the determination of its people?
• What did Americans mean by Manifest Destiny?
• Why did people go west and what challenges did they face?
• Why did the mountain men travel to Oregon?
• Why did women enjoy greater equality in the West than in the East?

Expanding the Frontier

• A frontier is the land that forms the farthest extent of a nation’s settled regions.
• For America in the 1820s, the frontier was the land beyond the Mississippi River.
• Expansion is the act of extending the nation beyond its existing borders.
• By the 1840s, many Americans strongly favored westward expansion.

​

Manifest Destiny!

• The phrase Manifest Destiny quickly became popular in the United States.
• Manifest Destiny described the belief that the United States was destined, or meant, to extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. “From sea to shining sea.”

Santa Fe Trail

• The Santa Fe Trail was used as an international trading route mainly between the United States and Mexico.

Fur Trade!

• The major industry of Oregon became fur trading.
• John Jacob Astor established the American Fur Company in 1808 at Fort Astor.
• The fur trade made Astor the richest man in the country.
• The fur trappers who supplied Astor with furs were eager to become rich.
• These mountain men, or fur trappers of the Northwest, lived isolated lives in a dangerous environment.

​

Oregon Fever!

• Settlers from all over the country were in the grip of “Oregon Fever.”
• Farmers sought the free and fertile land, the mild climate, and plentiful rainfall of the river valleys.

​

Oregon Trail

• Most settlers followed the Oregon Trail, a route that stretched more than 2,000 miles from Missouri to Oregon.
• The trip was very hazardous.
• Travelers caught by winter in the Rockies risked a slow death.
• Disease and accidents killed about one traveler out of every ten on the Oregon Trail.

Women in the West

• Women in the West worked alongside men to make a success of their family farms.
• Their labor was necessary for a family’s survival, and their contributions helped raise the status of western women.
• In 1869, the Wyoming Territory became the first area of the United States to grant women the vote.

Section 3 – Conflict with Mexico

• What were the causes and effects of the Texas War for Independence and the Mexican-American War?
• Why did Texans want independence from Mexico?
• How did the annexation of Texas increase tensions with Mexico?
• How did Polk’s action lead to war with Mexico?
• What was the Mexican Cession?

Texas Colony

• In 1820, the Spanish governor of Texas gave Moses Austin a land grant to establish a small colony in Texas.
• After Moses died, his son, Stephen Austin, led a group of some 300 Americans into Texas.

Issues in Texas

• However, thousands of Americans started flooding into Texas.
• The new settlers were Protestants and slaveholders from the American South.
• Mexico tried to enforce its laws banning slavery and requiring settlers to worship in the Catholic Church.
• As conflicts continued to emerge, American settlers wanted more representation in the Mexican legislature.

General Santa Anna

• In 1833, General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna became president of Mexico.
• Santa Anna wanted a strong central government, so he overturned the Mexican democratic constitution and started a dictatorship.

Remember the Alamo!

• A siege is an attack in which one force surrounds a city or fort.
• Santa Anna surrounded and laid siege to the Alamo, which was an American/Texan mission.
• The defenders of the Alamo held out for 12 days under heavy cannon fire.
• At last, Mexican forces overran the Alamo.
• Inspired by the bravery of the Alamo defenders, many American volunteers joined the Texan army.

Republic of Texas

• Public opinion in the United States was divided. Southerners supported annexation of Texas as a slave state.
• Northerners opposed adding another slave state to the Union.
• President Tyler asked Congress to annex Texas 3 days before he left office.
• President Polk negotiated a treaty with Britain to divide Oregon.
• The Oregon territory eventually became the states of Washington, Oregon and part of Idaho.

Provoking War

• President Polk offered to purchase California and the rest of New Mexico from Mexico, but Mexico refused the offer.
• The Mexican government did not want to cede, or give up, more land to the United States.
• To provoke a Mexican attack on United States troops, President Polk sent General Zachary Taylor south to the disputed land south of the Nueces.
• The Mexicans saw this as an act of war.

Debate of Mexican-American War

• Overall, the war with Mexico was very popular among Americans.
• Support for the war was strongest among southerners and westerners, who were willing to take up arms to gain more land.
• Many northerners argued that President Polk had provoked the war with Mexico.
• They referred to it as “Mr. Polk’s war” and claimed that he was trying to extend slavery.

Republic of California

• Settlers in San Francisco started a revolt against Mexico.
• Taking up arms, they raised a grizzly bear flag and declared California an independent republic.
• John C. Fremont was the commander of the Bear Flag Rebellion.
• He moved to join forces with United States troops.

Mexican-American War

• Mexico had very little military presence in California.
• By 1847, all of southern California was under American control.
• American forces eventually captured the Mexican capital and won the Mexican-American War.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

• The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed in 1848.
• Under the treaty, Mexico recognized the annexation of Texas and ceded a vast territory to the United States.
• In return, the United States paid $18 million to Mexico.

Mexican Cession

• The Mexican Cession was the territory ceded under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
• The Mexican Cession included present-day California, Nevada, Utah as well as parts of Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico.

Section 4 – A Rush to the West

• How did Mormon settlement and the gold rush lead to changes in the West?
• Why were water rights an important issue?
• What effects did the gold rush have on Californios?

Book of Mormon

• Joseph Smith was a New York farmer who said that heavenly visions had revealed to him the text of a holy book called the Book of Mormon.
• In 1830, He founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Brigham Young

• Brigham Young became the new Mormon leader, after Joseph Smith was murdered by an angry mob.
• In order to find safety, Brigham Young led a party of Mormons on a long, hazardous journey to the valley of the Great Salt Lake in present-day Utah.

Mormons vs. Federal Government

• Three issues divided the Mormons and the federal government.
• First, the Mormon Church controlled the election process in the Utah Territory. Non-Mormons had no say.
• Second, the church supported businesses that were owned by Mormons. “Outsiders” had difficulty doing business.
• The third issue was polygamy, the practice of having more than one wife at a time, was illegal in the rest of the country.

“Forty-Niners”

• In January 1848, James Marshall was building a sawmill on John Sutter’s land near Sacramento.
• One morning, he found a small gold nugget in a ditch.
• Sutter tried to keep the discovery a secret, but by 1849 the California gold rush had begun.
• The nickname “forty-niners” was given to these people who came to California in search of gold.

Water Rights

• Water rights are the legal rights to use the water in a river, stream, or other body of water.
• Settlers needed water for irrigation and mining. Landowners had the right to use the water that flowed through their land.
• At the same time, it was illegal to cut off water to one’s neighbors. These laws were ignored during the gold rush, and disputes resulted in violence.

Mining Towns

• Mining towns attracted both miners and people hoping to make money from miners.
• A typical mining town was made up of a row of businesses with a saloon at its center.
• California was not yet a state, so federal law did not apply within mining towns.
• To impose some order, miners banded together and created their own rules.

Women in California

• By 1850, the ratio of men to women in California was twelve to one.
• Unlike other areas of the country, California offered women profitable work.
• Some women mined, but majority worked in or ran boardinghouses, hotels, restaurants, laundries, and stores.

Californians vs Californios

• By 1850, only 15 percent of Californians were Mexican.
• The old ruling families did not have a strong say in the new territorial government.
• Californio politicians could not stop the passage of laws that discriminated against their people.
• Many Californios had to sell their land to pay legal bills.