Chapter Focus Questions What was manifest destiny? What were the major differences between the Oregon, Texas, and California frontiers? What were the most important consequences of the Mexican-American War? What was the link between expansion and slavery? What were the issues in the election of 1848? 1© 2009 Pearson Education, Inc.

The Fur Trade The fur trade was the greatest spur to exploration in North America. Not until the 1820s could American companies challenge the British. Trappers known as mountain men: – accommodated themselves to local Indians, – rarely came in contact with whites and, – might be viewed as the advance guard of the market revolution. By the 1840s, however, the beaver was virtually trapped out. 2© 2009 Pearson Education, Inc.

The artist Alfred Jacob Miller, a careful observer of the western fur trade, shows a mountain man and his Indian wife in his 1837 Bourgeois Walker and His Wife. Walker and his wife worked together to trap and prepare beaver pelts for market, as did other European men and their Indian wives. 3© 2009 Pearson Education, Inc.

MAP 14.1 Exploration of the Continent, 1804–30 Members of British fur trading companies like Alexander Mackenzie and David Thompson led the way. Lewis and Clark’s “voyage of discovery” of 1804–06 was the first of many government- sponsored western military expeditions. Lieutenant Zebulon Pike crossed the Great Plains in 1806, followed by Major Stephen Long in 1819–20. Meanwhile, American fur trappers, among them the much-traveled Jedediah Smith, became well acquainted with the Far West as they hunted beaver for their pelts. 4 © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc.

Expansion and Indian Policy Government policy looked upon the West as a refuge for eastern Indians who were removed. Encroachment on the new Indian Territory was not long in coming. The government pushed for further land concessions from the western tribes, though the tribes in Oklahoma held on to their lands until after the Civil War. The major battles between whites and Indians in the Great West occurred after the Civil War. 5© 2009 Pearson Education, Inc.

MAP 14.2 Indian Territory Before the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 Indian Territory lay west of Arkansas, Missouri, and lowa and east of Mexican Territory. Most of the Indian peoples who lived there in the 1830s and the 1840s had been “removed” from east of the Mississippi River. The southern part (now Oklahoma) was inhabited by peoples from the Old Southwest: the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles. North of that (in what is now Kansas and Nebraska) lived peoples who had been removed from the Old Northwest. All these Indian peoples had trouble adjusting not only to a new climate and a new way of life, but to the close proximity of some Indian tribes who were their traditional enemies. 6© 2009 Pearson Education, Inc.

MOVING WEST

Manifest Destiny, an Expansionist Ideology In 1845, journalist John O’Sullivan coined the phrase “manifest destiny” to imply Americans had a basic right to spread across the continent and conquer whomever stood in their way. Westward expansion would increase trade and enable whites to “civilize” the Indians. Democrats saw expansion as the cure for national ills by providing new opportunities in the West, leading to increased trade with Asia. Whigs feared expansion would bring up the slavery issue. 8© 2009 Pearson Education, Inc.

Manifest Destiny (and the Annexation of Texas) a belief that Providence provided the Americans with the bountiful continent, and therefore Americans were the chosen people, the new Israelites. Millions of Americans believed that God willed them North America Reasons for Manifest Destiny: a. Americans felt they had a mission to settle agriculturally the untamed land the fur trappers had blazed paths through in the 1820s and 30s, strengthening the myth of the romance and adventure of the west. B. Desire to trade with East Asia, Americans felt the Columbia River was the “North American road to India.” Eastern businessmen hoped to profit in the natural harbors of San Diego, San Francisco, and Puget Sound. These harbors were a large part of the motivation to use the west as an avenue to the far east. I. The Annexation of Texas

Take 5 minutes and write a reaction to the concept of Manifest Destiny.