Chapter Overview

This chapter examines the Republic's expansion to the Pacific Ocean, its transformation into a continental nation, and how that development injected the slavery issue into national politics. It begins with the expansion of the Sioux onto the Plains, as a reminder that westward expansion in American history involved more than Anglo-Saxon whites. Moreover, the case of the Sioux illustrates the importance of different kinds of frontiers in the process of expansion. The Sioux conquest of the Plains ultimately depended on the acquisition of guns and horses, and the outbreak of disease epidemics that weakened enemy tribes and shifted the balance of power to the Sioux. Furthermore, Hispanic cultures of the Southwest, as well as the Chinese immigrants of the 1850s, were all a part of the frontier mix.

Destinies: Manifest and Otherwise

In the 1840s, Americans proclaimed that it was the United States' "Manifest Destiny" to expand across the continent. This doctrine combined idealistic impulses, both religious and political, with attitudes of racial superiority and a hunger for good farmland and Pacific trade. Expansion brought Americans into contact, and conflict, with Mexicans in Texas, New Mexico, and California.

Only a few American traders established contact with rancheros in California and New Mexico. By contrast, American settlers, initially welcomed by Mexico, poured into Texas, attracted by the promise of free land. They soon became a majority of the population. Tensions with the Mexican authorities led to a revolution. In 1836 Texas forces defeated the Mexican army sent to quell the rebellion, and Texas became an independent republic. Americans in Texas hoped to be annexed to the United States, but the Jackson and Van Buren administrations held back, fearful of stoking the fires of sectionalism.

The Trek West

Lured by the promise of good land and a fresh start, other Americans headed for Oregon and California on the Overland Trail. Most migrants traveled in wagons as part of a family group. The journey, which took six months or more, put heavy pressures on families. Women especially suffered from loss of companionship and their heavy responsibilities on the trail. Forced to perform tasks normally reserved for men, they often saw any semblance of a home, their traditional domain, disappear.

Migration on the overland trail also took a heavy toll on the Plains Indians' way of life. Wagon trains scared off game and used up grass and wood, which prompted the Sioux to demand payment for crossing their lands. Nevertheless, few trains were attacked by Indians.

The Political Origins of Expansion

An odd circumstance made expansion a political issue. The death of the Whigs' first president, William Henry Harrison, brought John Tyler to the presidency. No orthodox Whig, Tyler, a proponent of states' rights, soon broke with the party over economic policy. To garner political support for another term, he took up the Texas issue. The Democratic party countered by dropping Martin Van Buren (who opposed the annexation of Texas) in favor of James K. Polk (who supported it) as the party's presidential candidate. Polk narrowly defeated Henry Clay; Congress responded by annexing Texas.

Polk entered the White House not only supporting Texas annexation but determined to expand American boundaries to acquire the best harbors on the Pacific. He agreed to divide the Oregon territory with Britain, gaining control of Puget Sound. Unable to buy New Mexico and California from Mexico, he provoked war. His belligerence elicited considerable opposition. But the United States quickly conquered New Mexico and California, and when Mexico still stubbornly refused to make peace, American forces occupied Mexico City and forced Mexico to surrender. By the treaty of peace, the U.S. acquired California and New Mexico. But northern Democrats injected the slavery issue into the controversy by introducing the Wilmot Proviso, which sought to ban slavery from any territory gained from Mexico. It never passed, but many northerners by now agreed that slavery, and the political clout of Southerners, must be confined to the South.

New Societies in the West

Overlanders sought to recreate in the West the society they had left behind. With time, these societies became more stable and their economies more diversified. At the same time, as in the East, wealth became more concentrated and opportunity more constricted.

The discovery of gold in California set off a frantic rush to the diggings. The gold rush created a unique society in the mining camps, one that was overwhelmingly male, strongly nativist, transient, and unstable. By 1852 the claims had been worked out and mining was increasingly dominated by heavily capitalized corporations.

Cities also developed in the West. The product of economic self-interest, San Francisco experienced rapid, chaotic growth. It was also an amazingly diverse community ethnically, with large numbers of Europeans, South Americans, Chinese, and other groups. Salt Lake City offered a striking contrast. In order to escape persecution for their unusual beliefs, including polygamy, the Mormons led by Brigham Young moved to the Salt Lake basin. Irrigation enabled them to turn the desert into farmland at the same time it reinforced their sense of hierarchy and unity. A planned community, Salt Lake City had an orderly appearance since its development was carefully regulated by church officials, and the Mormon family was its basic social unit.

By the peace treaty with Mexico, a large number of Hispanics were incorporated into the United States. They came into conflict with the Anglo population, especially in Texas and California. Treated as inferior, harassed, and often reduced to poverty, some expressed their frustration through banditry.

Escape from Crisis

Both major parties tried to avoid the issue of slavery's expansion in 1848. Northern antislavery forces founded a new party, the Free Soil party, which urged adoption of the Wilmot Proviso. In a three-way race, Zachary Taylor, the Whig candidate and a hero of the Mexican War, was elected president. But solution of the territorial question became urgent when California, having quickly gained sufficient population, asked to be admitted as a state.

Congress momentarily settled this question in the Compromise of 1850, devised by Henry Clay and pushed through Congress by Stephen A. Douglas. The compromise admitted California as a free state, included a new fugitive slave law, and adopted the principle of popular sovereignty (the people of the territory should decide) to deal with slavery in the Utah and New Mexico territories.

The Compromise was more an armistice than a compromise, since only one-fifth of the members had supported the entire Compromise. Public opinion in both sections, however, rallied to the compromise measures, and both Whigs and Democrats endorsed the Compromise in their 1852 platforms. An uncontroversial Democrat won the presidency, sectional harmony returned, and it seemed the Union had weathered the sectional storm.