apush ch 13

mexican war

(1846-1848) The war between the United States and Mexico in which the United States acquired one half of the Mexican territory.

treaty of guadelupe hidalgo

(1848) This treaty required Mexico to cede the American Southwest, including New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada and California, to the U.S. U.S. gave Mexico $15 million in exchange, so that it would not look like conquest.

zachary taylor

(1849-1850), Whig president who was a Southern slave holder, and war hero (Mexican-American War). Won the 1848 election. Surprisingly did not address the issue of slavery at all on his platform. He died during his term and his Vice President was Millard Fillmore.

gadsden purchase

(1853) U.S. purchase of land from Mexico that included the southern parts of present-day Arizona and New Mexico; set the current borders of the contiguous United States (the U.S. states, minus Hawaii, Alaska, and commonwealth of Puerto Rico)

sam houston

Commander of the Texas army at the battle of San Jacinto; later elected president of the Republic of Texas

bleeding kansas

A sequence of violent events involving abolitionists and pro-Slavery elements that took place in Kansas-Nebraska Territory. The dispute further strained the relations of the North and South, making civil war imminent.

free soil party

Formed in 1847 - 1848, dedicated to opposing slavery in newly acquired territories such as Oregon and ceded Mexican territory.

lincoln-douglas debates

Lincoln challenged Stephen Douglas to a series of 7 debates. Though Douglas won the senate seat, these debates gave Lincoln fame and helped him to later on win the presidency. These debates were a foreshadowing of the Civil War.

antonio lopez de santa anna

Mexican general who tried to crush the Texas revolt and who lost battles to Winfield Scott and Zachary Taylor in the Mexican War (1795-1876)

tejanos

Mexican residents of Texas

fifty-four forty or fight

Political slogan of the Democrats in the election of 1844, which claimed fifty-four degrees, forty minutes as the boundary of the Oregon territory claimed by the United States

commodore matthew perry

The Commodore of the U.S. Navy who compelled the opening of Japan to the West with the Treaty of Kanagawa in 1854. Japan also agreed to help shipwrecked soldiers as a result. Matthew Perry brought many steam ships with him to show America's strength, and to intimidate and persuade the Japanese.

gold rush

a period from1848 to 1856 when thousands of people came to California in order to search for gold.

mexican cession

agreement between Mexico and the US after the war; US got a large portion of the SW including CA, NV, AZ, NM, NV, UT, TX

know-nothing party

aka the American Party; major political force from 1854-1855; objective: to extend period of naturalization, undercut immigrant voting strengths, and keep aliens in their place

john c. fremont

an American military officer, explorer, the first candidate of the Republican Party for the office of President of the United States, and the first presidential candidate of a major party to run on a platform in opposition to slavery.

santa fe trail

an important trade route going between Independence, Missouri and Santa fe, New mexico used from about 1821 to 1880

james k. polk

president in March 1845. wanted to settle oregon boundary dispute with britain. wanted to aquire California. wanted to incorperate Texas into union. Last Jacksonian president, goals were annexation of California, to settle the Oregon dispute, and lower the tariff.

fire-eaters

refers to a group of extremist pro-slavery politicians from the South who urged the separation of southern states into a new nation, which became known as the Confederate States of America.

stephen f. austin

this man led 300 American families to settle in the Texas territory on land that his father had acquired

john tyler

10th U.S. President. 1841-1845. Whig

wilmot proviso

1846 proposal that outlawed slavery in any territory gained from the War with Mexico

kansas-nebraska act

1854 - Created Nebraska and Kansas as states and gave the people in those territories the right to chose to be a free or slave state through popular sovereignty.

dred scott v. sanford

1857 Supreme Court decision that stated slaves were not citizens: slaves were property no matter where they were living and the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional

ostend manifesto

A declaration (1854) issued from Ostend, Belgium, by the U.S. ministers to England, France, and Spain, stating that the U.S. would be justified in seizing Cuba if Spain did not sell it to the U.S.

popular sovereignty

A government in which the people rule by their own consent.

fugitive slave act

A law that made it a crime to help runaway slaves; allowed for the arrest of escaped slaves in areas where slavery was illegal and required their return to slaveholders

manifest destiny

A notion held by a nineteenth-century Americans that the United States was destined to rule the continent, from the Atlantic the Pacific.

compromise of 1850

CA admitted as a free state, increased fugitive slave laws, slave trade banned in Washington DC; popular sovereignty in most other states from Mexican- American War

harper's ferry/john brown

John Brown's scheme to invade the South with armed slaves, backed by sponsoring, northern abolitionists; seized the federal arsenal; Brown and remnants were caught by Robert E. Lee and the US Marines; Brown was hanged

alamo

Spanish mission in San Antonio, Texas, that was the site of a famous battle of the Texas Revolution in 1836