HIST 2111
Chapter 11: A Nation on the Move:
Westward Expansion, 1800-1860

Jefferson’s Corps of Discovery Heads
West
• Europeans had always been looking for the alleged ‘Northwest Passage’ –
an all-water route across the North American continent. Hoped it would
be a quick route to the Pacific Ocean and to trade with Asia
• May 1804 – September 1806, Meriwether Lewis (Jefferson’s personal
secretary) and William Clark (once had been Lewis’ commanding officer)
along with 4 dozen men, and a Shoshone teenager, Sacajawea and her
husband, French fur trapper Toussaint Charbonneau (and their baby),
explore and map the Missouri River, the Rocky Mountains, and the Pacific
Coast for over a year
• Took notes and samples of things they encountered. Curious, Lewis often
tasted samples of minerals that he found, which made him seriously ill
• Kept records of geography and different Native American civilizations they
encountered.
• Also tried to establish good relationships with them so they would not
block white settlements. The Blackfoot were hostile and 2 of them were
killed by the corps

Jefferson’s Corps of Discovery Heads
West
• Only 1 member of the expedition died
(appendicitis), though they suffered from
snake bites, dysentery, venereal disease, etc.
• Lewis was named governor of the Louisiana
Territory but died in 1809 – probable suicide
(2 prior attempts)
• Sacajawea died in 1812 and Clark became
guardian of her 2 children

Spanish Florida and the Adams–Onís
Treaty
• The boundaries of the Louisiana Purchase were contested:
• The U.S. claim to West Florida was in dispute and most of the nation wanted the
entire peninsula
• Adams began negotiations in 1817; however, Andrew Jackson commanded
American troops along the Florida frontier and had orders from Secretary Calhoun
to stop the continuing raids on American territory by Seminole Indians south of
the border.
• Jackson used these orders as an excuse to invade Florida and seize Spanish forts at
St. Marks and Pensacola (Seminole War).
• Adams urges the government to assume responsibility for the raid and said that
the U.S. had the right under international law to defend itself against threats from
across its borders
• This demonstrated to the Spanish that the U.S. could easily take Florida and Adams
implied that it may do so
• Therefore, Spanish minister, Luis de Onís agreed to a settlement: Adams–Onís
Treaty: 1819, Spain ceded all of Florida to the U.S., and gave up its claim to
territory north of the 42 parallel in the Pacific Northwest. In return (for a time),
the U.S. gave up its claim to Texas and forgave Spain’s $5 million debt to the U.S.

The Missouri Crisis
• Slavery was already established in Missouri when it applied for admission
to the Union in 1817
• Representative James Tallmadge, Jr. of NY proposed an amendment to the
Missouri statehood bill that would prevent the further introduction of
enslaved peoples into Missouri and provide for the gradual emancipation
of those already there. He stated that enslavement was immoral and
opposed to the nation’s founding principles of equality and liberty
• In the South, they argued that enslavement was necessary for wealth and
allowed “free white men” to exercise their true talents instead of toiling in
the soil. They also argued that enslaved peoples were ‘cared for’ and
‘better off exposed to Christianity and enslaved peoples than living as free
heathens in uncivilized Africa’
• Provoked a controversy for the next 2 years
• In 1819, there were 11 free states and 11 slave-holding states, and the
admission of Missouri would upset that balance

The Missouri Crisis
• Maine was also up for admission and Speaker of the House Henry Clay told
northern members that if they blocked Missouri from entering the Union
as a slave state, southerners would block the admission of Maine
• However, the Senate agreed to combine the admission of Missouri and
Maine into the same bill, with Maine being admitted as a free state and
Missouri as a slave state
• Senator Jesse B. Thomas of Illinois then proposed an amendment
prohibiting slavery in the rest of the Louisiana Purchase territory north of
the southern boundary of Missouri .
• The Senate adopted the Thomas Amendment and Speaker Clay managed
with much difficulty, to guide the amended Maine-Missouri bill through
the House
• This is known as the Missouri Compromise and was considered a “happy”
resolution of a danger to the Union – it maintained an equal balance
between free and slave states

American Settlers Move to Texas
• U.S. offered to purchase Texas twice in the 1820s from Mexico
• 1824 – Mexican government enacted a colonization law offering
cheap land and a four-year exemption from taxes to any American
willing to move into Texas, to increase the non-Native population
and provide a buffer zone. Americans agreed to uphold the
Mexican Constitution there.
• Thousands arrived, mostly southerners and their enslaved peoples
(goal: build cotton plantations)
• Mexico outlawed slavery in 1829
• By 1830, there were 7000 Americans in Texas, outnumbering the
Tejanos (Mexican residents of the region)
• Stephen F. Austin: of Missouri established the first legal American
settlement in Texas in 1822

American Settlers Move to Texas
• Friction between American settlers and Mexican
government:
• Americans disliked the Mexican legal system, which
provided for an initial hearing by an alcalde- an
administrator who often combined the duties of major,
judge, and law enforcement. Then, a written record of the
proceeding was sent to a judge in Saltillo, the state capital,
who decided the outcome.
• Intense anger of Mexico’s ban against enslavement
• Disliked Roman Catholicism
• Believed they were superior to Mexicans
• Often tried to undermine the Mexican system of
government

American Settlers Move to Texas
• 1830: due to the American settler's reluctance to abide by
Mexican law, and their desire for independence, the
Mexican government forbade U.S. immigration in 1830
• It also increased its military presence
• American settlers continued to stream illegally across the
long border
• 55 delegates from the Anglo-American settlements met in
1831 to demand the suspension of customs duties, the
resumption of immigration from the U.S., better protection
from tribes, the granting of promised land titles, and the
creation of an independent state of Texas
• Mexico’s new president, Santa Anna agreed to ALL
demands, except the call for statehood

American Settlers Move to Texas
• General Santa Anna seized power as dictator of Mexico
in the mid 1830s and overthrew the Mexican
Constitution of 1824:
• Increased the powers of the government at the
expense of the state governments
• He sent troops to collect customs duties
• Texans assumed this was aimed at them
• Sporadic fighting between Mexicans and Texans began
in 1835
• 1836 – American settlers proclaimed their
independence from Mexico

Remember the Alamo!
• Santa Anna led a large army into Texas
• Mexican forces annihilated an American garrison at the Alamo
mission in San Antonio after a famous (if futile) defense by Texas
“patriots” including Davy Crockett
• Women and children inside the mission were allowed to leave, with
an enslaved male who was freed by the Mexican army
• General Sam Houston managed to keep a small force together
• April 21, 1836: Battle of San Jacinto, Houston defeated the Mexican
army and took Santa Anna prisoner. Under pressure, Santa Anna
signed a treaty giving Texas independence
• Santa Anna was soon removed from power and the Mexican
Congress refused to be bound by the agreement

The Lone Star Republic
• Sam Houston was now president of Texas (its own country)
• Sent a delegation to Washington with an offer to join the Union
• President Jackson feared that adding a large new slave state would
increase sectional tensions and blocked annexation. He delayed
recognizing the new republic until 1837
• England and France began to forge ties with the new republic and
President Tyler persuaded Texas to apply for statehood again in 1844
• Northern senators, fearing the admission of a new slave state, defeated it
• Some Mexican residents of Texas (Tejanos) had fought with Americans, but
after Texas won its independence, their positions grew difficult
• The Americans did not trust them and feared they were agents of the
Mexican government. They were driven out of the new republic and the
ones who stayed had to settle for a politically and economically
subordinate status
• Anglo-American settlers in Texas now wanted New Mexico

James K. Polk and the Triumph of
Expansion
• Control of “Oregon country” in the Pacific northwest was also a major
political issue:
• Both Britain and the U.S. claimed sovereignty in the region
• Agreed in 1818 (treaty) to allow citizens of each country equal access to
the territory and this continued for 20 years (joint occupation)
• By the mid1840s, white Americans substantially outnumbered the British
• Also devastated much of the Native American population (measles
epidemic)
• Democrat James K. Polk, resolves the Oregon question: asserted the right
to claim all of Oregon after he was rebuffed by the British minister in
Washington to establish the U.S.-Canadian border at the 49th parallel
• British government finally agrees to Polk’s plan
• June 15, 1846, the Senate approved a treaty that fixed the boundary there

War with Mexico, 1846-1848
• Mexico broke relations with America after Texas became a state
• Dispute emerges over the boundary between Texas and Mexico:
• Texans claimed the Rio Grande as their western and southern
border:
• Mexico argued that it was the River Nueces to the north of the Rio
Grand
• Polk accepted the Texas claim and sent a small army under General
Zachary Taylor to Texas in the summer of 1845 to protect it against
a possible Mexican invasion
• Part of the area in dispute was New Mexico, where Spanish and
native residents lived in a multiracial society that had endured for
nearly a century and a half

War with Mexico, 1846-1848
• Members of several Native American tribes and around
7,000 Mexicans lived in California
• Americans began to arrive gradually, 1st as traders, then
merchants, and lastly as farmers
• Polk decided he wanted New Mexico and California for
the U.S.
• Sent secret instructions to the commander of the Pacific
naval squadron (same time as he sent Taylor to Texas) to
seize the California ports if Mexico declared war
• Representatives of the president quietly informed
Americans in California that the U.S. would response
sympathetically to a revolt against Mexican authority there

War with Mexico, 1846-1848
• Polk sent a special minister to try to buy off the Mexicans, but his offer
was rejected
• Polk ordered Taylor’s army to move to the Rio Grande on January 13,
1846.
• The Mexicans refused to fight for months
• According to disputed American accounts, some Mexican troops crossed
the Rio Grande and attacked a unit of American soldiers
• May 13, 1846, Congress declared war 40-2 in the Senate, and 174-14 in
the House
• Whig critics argued that Polk deliberately led the U.S. into war and had
staged the border incident
• Victory was not as quick as Polk had wanted
• Polk also ordered more offensives against New Mexico and California
• The conquest of California was completed by the autumn of 1846

War with Mexico, 1846-1848
• Mexico still refused to concede defeat
• Polk and General Winfield Scott launched a new campaign
• Scott’s forces were about 14,000, and he kept American casualties
low, and never lost a battle before seizing the Mexican capital
• A new Mexican government took power and announced they were
interested in a treaty
• Polk sent Nicholas Trist to negotiate and on February 24, 1848, the
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was reached. Mexico agreed to cede
California and New Mexico to the U.S. and acknowledged the Rio
Grande as the boundary of Texas
• The U.S. promised to assume any financial claims its new citizens
had against Mexico and to pay the Mexicans $15 million
• Polk was angry as he had wanted Mexico too

California and the Gold Rush
• January 1848, traces of gold were found in the foothills of the Sierra
Nevada:
• News of this spread t/o nation and much of the world; hundreds of
thousands of people flocked to California
• Crazed excitement and greed!
• Migrants were known as “Forty-Niners” and abandoned farms, jobs,
homes, and families
• The Gold Rush also attracted some of the first Chinese migrants to the
western U.S. Hoped to become rich quickly and return to China.
• Emigration brokers loaned them money
• The Gold Rush produced a serious labor shortage in California, and this
provided opportunities for many, including Chinese immigrants
• A new state law permitted the arrest of ‘loitering’ or orphaned Native
Americans and their assignment to a term of “indentured” labor.
• Few forty-niners ever found gold

The Liberty Party, the Wilmot Proviso,
and the Antislavery Movement
• David Wilmot, committed to protecting white workers, attached an
amendment to an 1846 revenue bill: the Wilmot Proviso: would
have barred slavery from all the territory acquired from Mexico. It
passed the House but failed in the Senate
• Wilmot’s stance hinted at the party divisions that were to come
• Formation of the Liberty Party: 1840, a single-issue party of
abolitionists who fervently believed that slavery was evil and should
be ended by political means
• Antislavery advocates were different from abolitionists: they did not
challenge the presence of slavery in states where it already existed.
They opposed its expansion of slavery because of its effect on white
labor

The Free-Soil Party and the Election of
1848
• Barnburners: Martin Van Buren’s antislavery supporters supported
the Wilmot Proviso
• Hunkers, were their opponents and refused to support it
• The Barnburners held their own convention and chose anti-slavery
pro-Wilmot Proviso delegates to send to the Democrats’ national
convention in Baltimore
• Both sets of delegates were seated and most votes went to Lewis
Cass, an advocate of popular sovereignty – citizens should be able
to decide issues based on the principle of majority rule
• Angry, the Barnburners united with antislavery Whigs and former
members of the Liberty Party formed a new party – the Free-Soil
Party: “free soil, free speech, free labor, and free men” – sought to
exclude slavery from the western territories, leaving these areas
open for settlement by farmers and ensuring that laborers would
not have to compete with enslaved peoples

The Free-Soil Party and the Election of
1848
• Many Free-Soilers believed in a cabal known as “Slave Power” – a
term Northerners used to describe the disproportionate influence
that they felt elite southern slaveholders wielded in both domestic
and international affairs
• The Free-Soil party selected Van Buren as its presidential candidate
• For the 1st time, a national political party committed itself to the
goal of stopping the expansion of slavery
• The Democrats chose Lewis Cass
• The Whigs chose General Zachary Taylor (owned enslaved peoples)
• The Democrats split their votes between Van Buren and Cass,
causing Taylor to win.

The Compromise of 1850
• Henry Clay presented a bill to the Senate in January 1850 regarding the
controversy over California entering as a free state and upsetting the
balance between slave and free states.
• Debated for 7 months
• President Taylor dies suddenly of food poisoning, July 9, 1850; Millard
Fillmore becomes president, and he is flexible
• Persuades northern Whigs to call into line
• Clay was ill so Stephen Douglas (D, Illinois) introduces a series of separate
measures, enacted in September – Compromise of 1850:
• To satisfy the North: California was admitted as a free state, trade of
enslaved peoples was prohibited in Washington, D.C., and Texas lost its
boundary dispute with New Mexico
• To satisfy the South: there were no slavery restrictions in Utah or New
Mexico territories, slaveholding was permitted in Washington, D.C., Texas
received $10 million, and the Fugitive Slave Law required northerners to
return runaway enslaved peoples to their owners under penalty of law