Introduction

In addition to the boom and bust economy explored in Chapter 10, a second process transformed American life -- the ideology of Manifest Destiny. The religious millennial impulse that had encouraged reform now extended over the North American continent. The dogma of racial superiority was now used to defend westward expansion, which began in Texas. In the early 1830s thousands of Americans moved to that area, then revolted against Mexican authority and established an independent republic in 1836. Other settlers headed for Oregon and California on the Overland Trail. The westward migrations shifted settlement lines at the expense of the Plains Indians and the Hispanic population of the Mexican borderlands. The Mexican War and the discovery of gold, which prompted California statehood, completed the expansion of the United States to the Pacific.

The reality of the new economic order, combined with the acquisition of new lands, hastened a third transforming process in American political life: the debate over slavery and the Union. Though passage of the Compromise of 1850 momentarily stilled the sectional crisis, the identity of the American Republic and the nature of the Union at mid-century remained in question. Explore these subjects in the Chapter 14 web activities and research links.

Web Activities

1.  The annexation of Texas was a key issue in the 1840s expansionist debate. Southerners saw Texas as an opportunity to expand the cotton kingdom, while northerners, particularly abolitionists, opposed statehood because it meant the expansion of slavery. Follow the course of events in Texas as a case study for identifying issues central to American life. 

• The newly-independent Mexican republic wanted American settlers, but not the slaves they brought with them. As their numbers increased, Texans resented Mexican authority and revolted, promising land to all who would come and fight for Texas independence. Skim The Texas Declaration of Independence. Scroll through the list of violations. Although the national document serves as a model, how does the Texas one differ? Read the names of the delegates who signed, then go to Hispanic Tejano Patriots in the Struggle for Independence. Review "Latin Contributions--Eugene Barker." What factors contributed to Tejano participation?
• The Alamo became a symbol of the classic American struggle between freedom and autocracy and one of the enduring myths in American History. Go to The Alamo; follow the link to "The Alamo's Historic Past." Go to "Mythologizing The Alamo." How does this information contest the conventional view? Compare the two.
• View the print "Genl. Houston, Santa Anna & Cos." How do you think the image influenced American public opinion concerning events in Texas? 
• Read "Article 3rd" of the Treaty of Velasco:14 May 1836. What boundary does Texas claim? 
• Go to Crossroads of Empire: Early Printed Maps of Texas and the Southwest at the Texas Humanities Resource Center.  Scroll down the left frame to "Two Famous Maps of Texas," enlarge, and read the companion text. What changed the historical landscape between 1830 and 1841? How did American perceptions of the Texas border contribute to tension with Mexico?

2.  After 1843, thousands of emigrants followed the Oregon Trail west. What does the phrase "Seeing the Elephant" mean? Visit the following sites in order to describe the attitudes of the people who ventured along the trail and the people they encountered. Use the diaries and memoirs of the overlanders as evidence of the way Americans understood themselves in the early nineteenth century. 

• Follow the Timeline to track the peak trail years.
• Trail guides were popular with overlanders. The Emigrants' Guide to Oregon and California by Lansford W. Hastings at the University of Virginia provides the full text with illustrations. Read the "Introduction" by John V. Adams; then, go to Chapter 1 and read page 8, Chapter 2, 12-15. What was Hasting's intent and how does he portray events and people the emigrants encountered? 

3.  Artists documented the American West and its people in a variety of ways. Those accompanying expeditions portrayed people, events, and scenes encountered on their journeys, while others fashioned large allegorical paintings intended to promote American values and legitimize the rights of white easterners to control the land. Both contributed to a "frontier mythology." Begin the activity by viewing the work of nineteenth century artists. Compile a viewing log. First, note any biographical details. Consider the questions: Who is the intended audience? What is the central message or point of view? What fears or fantasies does the artist express? In portraying one point of view, what others are erased? Who is omitted?

• Charles Bird King painted Native American portraits for the War Department Indian Gallery. See Portrait of Shaumonekusse (Uletan), an Oto Half-Chief, 1821, and Young Omahaw, War Eagle, Little Missouri, and Pawnees, 1821. His original portraits of Tenskwatawa (The Prophet) and Sequoyah were destroyed by fire in 1865. 
• At Catlin and His Indian Guide Approaching Buffalo under White Wolf Skins. George Catlin (profile) was one of the first to paint Indians in their native land. 
• Karl Bodmer (profile) joined Prince Maximilian zu Wied as his expedition artist in 1832-34. Bodmer's journey took him across nearly three-quarters of the North American continent. View  Mató-Toacutepe (Four Bears), Mandan Chief, and Mih-Tutta-Hang-Kusch, Mandan Village. 
• On an expedition in 1837, Alfred Jacob Miller was the first artist of his generation to explore the Rocky Mountains.  View The Trapper's Bride. 
• Emanuel Gottleib Leutze's Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way (magnify), 1861, was created as a mural for the United States Capitol. How does it allegorize the pioneer spirit? 
• Review John Gast's lithograph Manifest Destiny and on page 425 in your text. Study the image, then read excerpts from the explanatory text that George A. Croffut provided to market the lithograph. What issues does Gast not raise? How does his portrayal of the spirit of progress raise questions that are left unanswered? How does it compare with the Leutze mural?
• Finally, Harper's Weekly: The American West features some of the stories and illustrations that informed and entertained readers about the West. Go to "Pictures of Indian Life," May 1, 1858, and "Frontier Life in Washington Territory," August 22, 1857. View the images (magnify) and read the companion text. What attitudes do you think such texts and images reinforce?

The West 

• For more on the Maximilian-Bodmer Expedition, take the virtual excursion, Travels in the Interior of North America, 1832-1834:The Maximilian-Bodmer Expedition. Clicking on item # 3, "Understanding the Expedition," will help you put Bodmer's work in its historical context. 
• New Perspectives on The West is the companion site for the Ken Burns and Stephen Ives PBS documentary "The West." The series focus is "on the experiences of individual men and women, many of whom tell their own stories in their own words, through diaries and letters and autobiographical accounts." The site includes an interactive timeline, maps, biographical dictionary, and archives of documentary information, including many of the journals, memoirs, autobiographies, reports and letters featured in the film.
• The End of the Oregon Trail offers a brief history of the Oregon Trail created by The End of the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center. The site includes Emigrant Biographies and Pioneer Diaries and a Map Library with links to other major trail maps. 
• The Oregon Trail supports another PBS documentary film. The site features a state guide to "Historic Sites" along the trail, and a "Trail Archive" with excerpts from diaries and memoirs of travelers. There is also a full-text selection of Oregon Trail books from the overland period. Shop the Trail suggests the scope of the Oregon Trail "industry."
• Oregon Trail: The Trail West, is sponsored by the KANZA chapter of the Oregon-California Trails Association.
• The Gold Rush in San Francisco is a list of links to primary and secondary materials on the California Gold Rush compiled by the Museum of the City of San Francisco. The list consists of documents, images and articles, including entries from The Diary of Johann August Sutter and Gold Rush Stories from Pioneer Women. 

The Mexican War 

• The U.S.-Mexican War (1846-1848) is a bilingual online companion resource for the PBS documentary. The site "chronicles the war through multiple perspectives from both sides of the conflict." On the welcome page you will find an illustrated "timeline," "discussion," and additional "resources."The "Dialogues" section presents multiple viewpoints by distinguished scholars on various aspects of the war and a conversation with David J. Weber, Southern Methodist University, on the contested memories of the war's aftermath. 
• Invasion Yanqui: The Mexican War, 1846-1848 is a bilingual exhibit with extensive photographs of historical documents, artifacts, lithographs, and paintings from the Mexican War presented by Texas Humanities Resource Center.
• The U.S. - Mexican War is maintained by the Descendants of Mexican War Veterans, an organization honoring U.S. Veterans of the War with Mexico. The site -- organized in five parts: a concise history, images, documents, historic sites, maps -- includes search and translation features.
• Related Documents: 
• James K. Polk, "War Message," 11 May 1846; message sent to Congress five days after Mexico formally protested the joint resolution for the annexation of Texas. 
• Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, February 2, 1848 
• Gadsden Purchase Treaty, December 30, 1853. 

The Debate over Slavery 

• The congressional debate over the Compromise of 1850 included two impressive speeches. The manuscript of John C. Calhoun's speech is part of the American Treasures of the Library of Congress. Calhoun's speech (full text) posed the question, "How can the Union be preserved?" Daniel Webster spoke three days after Calhoun. His Seventh of March Speech, 1850, an important defense of the compromise, urged Americans to "enjoy the fresh air of Liberty and Union." 
• The Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Act summarizes events as part of the Africans in America  PBS series. 
• The Fugitive Slave Act is the complete text. For a view of the consequences of the act see Abolition, Anti-Slavery Movements, and the Rise of the Sectional Controversy, from the African American Odyssey exhibit at the Library of Congress. "The Fugitive Slave Law" includes three sections on this portion of the Compromise of 1850. 
• America's churches were increasingly divided over slavery. The African-American Pamphlet Collection at the Library of Congress: Religion & the Church facilitates exploration of these tensions and the reaction of churches to the Fugitive Slave Act. 

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The Migration from China

• Between 1849 and 1854, some 45,000 Chinese flocked to California. For background information on China and to understand the forces pushing Chinese to emigrate go to sites on The Taiping Rebellion and The Opium War.
• Documenting the experience of the Chinese in the California gold fields is the subject of four sites: 
• At Collision of Cultures, historian Sylvia Sun-Minnick describes Chinese miners' methods of taking their gold back to China.
• Prospecting - Chinese Placer Mining at the Oakland Museum discusses camp life and suggests the origins of anti-Chinese sentiment. 
• View the pen and ink drawing Mongolian Miners Working, then return to the Oakland site and compare it with the photograph of Chinese miners. Note the white miners on the left.