APUSH Chapter 13-(Chapter Notes) – Flashcards

The idea of American expansion was popular, yet the creation of a continental republic was far from inevitable; it required a transportation revolution-canals and railways-that would connect far-flung regions, a growing land-hungry population, and a dynamic economy. By the 1840s, all of those factors were in place. Other obstacles remained. Strong, well-armed Indian peoples controlled the Great Plains, Mexico held sovereignty over Texas and the lands west of the Rocky Mountains, and Great Britain laid claim to the Oregon Country. President James Polk- was willing to wage war to see American expansion happened.(Mexican war) -Territorial acquisitions: New Mexico, California, the Oregon Country proved costly because they reignited a bitter debate over the extension of slavery. Southerners threatened to secede from the Union in 1850, Northerners responded with anger, and rhetoric spiraled downward into violence.

For the next two decades, the professional politicians who managed the Second Party System avoided policies, such as the annexation of the slave holding Republic of Texas, that would prompt regional strife. -This shows how the passion on the abolitionist side, struck fear into the opposing side, enough to avoid confrontation. During the 1840s, many citizens embraced an ideology of conquest that proclaimed their God-given duty to extend American republicanism and capitalism to the Pacific Ocean. - Although, there were conflicts over slavery, there was unity in the decision to extend America forwards. Unfortunately, how America would move forward, had to be settled between the Abolitionists and pro-slavery parties...which didn't look like it was to be settled anytime soon.

The term Manifest destiny, which allied with the ideal of expansionists was a sense of Anglo-American cultural and racial superiority: The "inferior" peoples who lived in the Far West—Native Americans and Mexicans—were to be brought under American dominion, taught republicanism, and converted to Protestantism. - By expanding and obtaining new borders, America would spread and impose their ideals on "inferiors", solidifying their "superiority".

Oregon had fertile valleys that attracted farmers. Region stretched along Pacific between the Mexican province of California and Russian settlements in Alaska. Claimed by both Britain and the United States, and since 1818, a British-American agreement had allowed people from both nations to live there. The British-run Hudson's Bay Company developed a lucrative fur trade north of the Columbia River, while Methodist missionaries and a few hundred Americans settled to the south, in the Willamette Valley. "Oregon Fever"- In 1842, due to reports of fine harbors 100 farmers journeyed along the Oregon trail, Missouri, across the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains. Yeomen farm families from the southern border states (Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee), set out over the next two years before reaching the Willamette Valley. Women found the trail especially difficult; in addition to their usual chores and the new work of driving wagons and animals, they lacked the support of female kin and the security of their domestic space. They quickly created a race-and gender-defined polity by restricting voting to a "free male descendant of a white man."

Others settled down in California, along the Sacramento river(which was Mexican territory). California had been settled in the 1770s, when Spanish authorities built a chain of presidios—religious missions and forts—along the Pacific coast. After Mexican independence in 1821, the government took over the Franciscan-run missions and freed the 20,000 Indians who had been coerced into working on them. -Some mission Indians rejoined their tribes, but many intermarried with mestizos (Mexicans of mixed Spanish and Indian ancestry) and worked on large ranches. To promote California's development, Mexican authorities bestowed large land grants on entrepreneurs, who raised Spanish cattle, prized for their hides and tallow. The ranches soon linked California to the American economy. -New England merchants dispatched dozens of agents to buy leather for Massachusetts' boot and shoe industry and tallow to make soap and candles. -Many agents married the daughters of the elite Mexican landowners and ranchers—the Californios—and adopted their manners, attitudes, and Catholic religion. Thomas Oliver Larkin, a successful merchant in the coastal town of Monterey, worked closely with Mexican ranchers, but he remained an American in outlook and eventually fostered California's annexation to the United States. The American migrants in the Sacramento River Valley did not want to assimilate into Mexican society. Some hoped to surpass Americans in Texas by colonizing the country and seeking annexation to the United States.

The Great Plains By the 1850s, the Mormon, Oregon, and Santa Fe trails ran through "Indian Country," the semi-arid, buffalo-filled area of the Great Plains west of the 95th meridian, through the Rocky Mountains. Tens of thousands of Americans set out on these trails to found new communities in Utah, Oregon, New Mexico, and California. -This mass migration increasingly exposed Indian peoples to American diseases, guns, and manufactures. But their lives were even more significantly affected by U.S. soldiers, and the traders who provided a ready market for Indian horses and mules, dried meat, and buffalo skins.

The Great Plains- stretched north from Texas to Saskatchewan in Canada, and west from the Missouri River to the Rocky Mountains. To the west—in the semiarid region beyond the 100th meridian—the migrants found short grasses that sustained a rich wildlife dominated by buffaloes and grazing antelopes. Nomadic buffalo-hunting Indian peoples roamed the western plains, while the tall grasslands and river valleys to the east were home to semi-sedentary tribes since the 1830s. -They were the Indians whom Andrew Jackson had "removed" to the west. -A line of military forts—stretching from Fort Jesup in Louisiana to Fort Snelling in Minnesota—policed the boundary between white America and what Congress in 1834 designated as Permanent Indian Territory. The Indians who lived on the eastern edge of the plains, such as the Pawnees and the Mandan on the Upper Missouri River, subsisted primarily on food crops—corn and beans—supplemented by buffalo meat. But it was the Comanches, who migrated down the Arkansas River from the Rocky Mountains around 1750, who first developed a specialized horse culture. -Fierce warriors and skilled buffalo hunters, the Comanches evolved into pastoralists. -They sold both horses and mules to northern Indian peoples and Euro-American farmers in Missouri and Arkansas. They also exchanged goods with traders and travelers along the Sante Fe Trail, which cut through Comanche and Kiowa territory as it connected Missouri and New Mexico. By the 1830s, the Kiowas, Cheyennes, and Arapahos had also adopted this horse culture and, allied with the Comanches, dominated the plains between the Arkansas and Red rivers. -With the new culture came sharper social divisions. -Some Kiowa men owned hundreds of horses and had several "chore wives" and captive children who worked for them. Poor men, who owned only a few horses, could not find marriage partners and often had to work for their wealthy kinsmen. -European diseases and guns thinned their ranks. European weapons also altered the geography of native peoples. -Around 1750, the Crees and Assiniboines, who lived on the far northern plains, acquired guns. Once armed, they drove the Blackfeet peoples westward into the Rocky Mountains and took control of the Saskatchewan and Upper Missouri River basins. -When the Blackfeet obtained guns and horses around 1800, they emerged from the mountains and pushed the Shoshones and Crows to the south. Because horses could not easily find winter forage in the cold, snow-filled plains north of the Platte River, the Blackfeet could not maintain large herds; most families kept five to ten horses and remained hunters, not pastoralists. The powerful Sioux, who acquired guns and ammunition from French, Spanish, and American traders along the Missouri River, also remained buffalo hunters. -As nomadic people who traveled in small groups, the Sioux largely avoided major epidemics and increased their numbers. - They kept some sedentary peoples, such as the Arikaras, in subjection and raided others for their crops and horses. -By the 1830s, the Sioux were the dominant tribe on the central as well as the northern plains. -The Sioux's prosperity came at the expense not only of other Indian peoples but also of the buffalo, which provided them with a diet rich in protein and with hides and robes to sell. --The women dried the meat to feed their people and to sell to white traders and soldiers. -They traded surplus hides and robes, about 40,000 annually, for pots, knives, guns, and other manufactures. As among the Kiowas, trade with Euro-Americans increased social divisions. Although the Blackfeet, Kiowas, and Sioux contributed to the market economy, its workings remained largely unknown to them. Not understanding the value of their buffalo hides in world markets—as winter clothes, leather accessories, and industrial drive belts—they could not demand the best price. Nor was the future bright, because the Indians' subsistence needs and the overkill for the export trade was cutting the size of the buffalo herds.

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