APUSH Key Concepts of 5.1
U.S. interest in expanding trade led to economic, diplomatic, and cultural initiatives to create more ties with Asia.
* After Revolutionary War, merchants began trading with China, for silks, spices, porcelain, etc.; Chinese wanted American furs * China clipper ship developed for fast, efficient trade * John Jacob Astor became one of the first millionaires from the trade * Britain was asserting control in China, so the U.S. flexed its muscle and opened up Japan to western trade (gunboat diplomacy: Commodore Matthew Perry sailed into Edo Bay with steamships and cannon and forced Japanese to allow Americans to trade with them in Treaty of Kanagawa) * Hawaii dominated as trading post/refueling center * Secretary of State William Seward's expansionism is trying to create support network for American trade, by buying places for bases and recoiling stations in Pacific and Caribbean (purchase of Alaska his major expansion) * Seward also got the Burlingame Treat with China in 1868, guaranteeing rights of American missionaries in China, and setting guidelines for Chinese immigration to U.S.
The U.S. added large territories in the West through victory in the Mexican-American War and diplomatic negotiations, raising questions about the status of slavery, American Indians, and Mexicans in the newly acquired lands.
* Alamo and following battles led to Texas annexation by U.S. (after Texas was briefly independent - Jackson turned down their initial request for annexation out of fear over slavery causing more sectional conflict; Tyler, Clay, Van Buren, and Polk turned it into a major issue in 1844 election, when Tyler and Calhoun pushed through the annexation before election day) * Polk set out to start a war with Mexico, with the primary goal of attaining as much territory as possible (he wrote a request for a declaration of war saying the US had been attacked months before we were "attacked"); he sent diplomat John Slidell to try and buy the territory first, but he also sent John C. Fremont to California with an army, told Oliver Larkin in California to prepare for independence and annexation, sent the Navy around South America to Monterey Bay, and Zachary Taylor into Texas; Mexico refused to sell, so Polk ordered Taylor to set up camp in disputed territory along Texas-Mexican border, where a Mexican army was on the other side of the Rio Grande; violence broke out, so Polk pulled out the letter he wrote months before and sent it to Congress; Lincoln questioned it (and for his troubles, was not re-elected to Congress; Conscience Whigs (like Lincoln and Thoreau) deeply opposed to war as an expansion of slavery * Taylor won quickly, as did Polk's other military commanders; all American Southwest rapidly; Winfield Scott sent into Mexico when Mexico refused to accept a peace offer; Scott followed Cortez' path of conquest against Aztecs; Grant, Lee, Jefferson Davis and many other future Civil War generals fought; Santa Anna defeated, and Mexico forced to sign over vast amounts of territory for HALF what Polk had offered before war * 1846 elections saw anti-war Whigs seize control of Congress - Wilmot Proviso argued for complete ban on slavery in captured territories {David Wilmot was a New York Democrat looking for a popular issue to win him re-election] - House passed it, but Senate blocked it; one major reason we didn't annex all of Mexico was that John C. Calhoun and other racists didn't want Mexican Catholics in the U.S. - border was drawn north of population centers * New Mexico, Arizona, and California added; Oregon Territory organized shortly afterwards * Government negotiated treaties with many Native American tribes to cede their land claims * Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo promised citizenship for Native Americans and Mexicans, but it was largely ignored * Mexicans still remaining in acquired territory often lost land and property in courts, as white settlers considered them as foreigners, despite treaty promises, or due to pressure to sell
Westward migration was boosted during and after the Civil War by the passage of new legislation promoting Western transportation and economic development.
* Homestead Act made land free (160 acres free, if you lived on it and improved it for five years) [Union army sent out after Civil War to prevent Great Plains Native Americans from interfering from westward expansion and migration] * Transcontinental Railroad flung a transportation network across the continent, with other railroads filling in * national banking regulations reinforced on local and state banks; modern fiscal system emerged from the Civil War * high protective tariffs * Essentially, Lincoln was a Clay man - he instituted his version of Clay's American System
U.S. government interaction and conflict with Mexican Americans and American Indians increased in regions newly taken from American Indians and Mexico, altering these groups' economic self- sufficiency and cultures.
* In California, disease wiped out most of Native American populations after Gold Rush began; California whites went out of their way to kill the rest; Congress repudiated most of the treaties guaranteeing their land, reducing them to tiny reservations * Squatters and farmers often took away land from Mexican-Americans through courts or pressure to sell * bison systematically wiped out as a food source and replaced by cattle ranching * "reservation wars" fought after Civil War to reduce Native Americans to poverty and government-imposed restrictions * Bureau of Indian Affairs corruption widespread * Lincoln hanged 38 Dakota after there was violence in Minnesota; whole tribe expelled from state * Colorado militia committed the 1864 Sand Creek massacre against the Cheyenne, leading to all out war * 1866 Fetterman massacre saw Sioux shutting down the Bozeman Trail; Red Cloud forced government to abandon all forts along the Bozeman Trail * President Grant put Christian reformers in charge of Native American policy, and they instituted Christian assimilation, including taking away Native American culture, language, and religion, and sending their children to boarding schools, where they were forced to cut hair, dress in white clothing , speak English, and behave like whites [heading towards the disaster of the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887]
Substantial numbers of international migrants continued to arrive in the United States from Europe and Asia, mainly from Ireland and Germany, often settling in ethnic communities where they could preserve elements of their languages and customs.
* Irish and German Catholics emigrated to U.S. [two largest groups between Revolutionary War and Civil War] * Irish formed the backbone of the labor force in eastern U.S., both for factories and construction [railroads and canals] * Catholics defended their identity by spreading Catholic Church, and the institutions necessary to protect Catholic identity, particularly establishing parochial school system; Irish would run Catholic Church in U.S. up through end of 20th century) * Chinese came as "Gold Mountain Men" in California, after Gold Rush, then stay to provide labor force for railroads in Western U.S., as well as establishing businesses and farms * Chinese, like the Irish and Germans and other ethnic groups, typically lived in ethnic clusters (often enforced by poverty and racism)
Advocates of annexing western lands argued that Manifest Destiny and the superiority of American institutions compelled the United States to expand its borders westward to the Pacific Ocean.
* Manifest Destiny coined by journalist John O'Sullivan in 1845 as Americans began moving to reach Pacific Coast via Oregon, California, Texas {theory was we were spreading liberty, freedom, and republicanism; reality was Manifest Destiny was driven by anti-Catholicism, nativism, hostility towards Native Americans and Mexicans, and Protestantism; Manifest Destiny drove the acquisition of the American Southwest from Mexico in the Mexican-American War) * 54 40 or Fight! the rallying cry for 1844 election [which turned out to be a complete lie - Polk compromised with British in order to go to war with Mexico; southern aims thus trumped northern aims)
A strongly anti-Catholic nativist movement arose that was aimed at limiting new immigrants' political power and cultural influence.
* Samuel F.B. Morse wrote an anti-Catholic book in 1834 which became the bible of the nativist movements, warning Catholics couldn't be republican because they followed the authority of the Pope * poor Protestants often angry at Catholic immigrants out of fear of job competition; mob violence common * incredible hostility aimed at any attempt to use Catholic Bible in school, or for taxes to go to support Catholic schools [which is why Catholic schools today are self-supporting] * The Order of the Star-Spangled Banner is better known as the Know-Nothing Party, a secret society based on nativism and anti-Catholicism (also known as the American Party, it became one of the brief challengers of the Republican Party in the mid-1850s); when asked about their group, members said "I know nothing." * Know-Nothings wanted to ban immigration, and institute literacy tests for voting * In California, anti-immigration was aimed predominantly at Asians; laws similar to those used against slaves and blacks in the South were passed in California (it was illegal to teach an Asian to read and write briefly); the California Workingmen's Party organized under "The Chinese must go!" [in 1882, California got the Chinese Exclusion Act passed, barring almost all Chinese immigration - replaced by Japanese, until Gentleman's Agreement of 1907 ended that; Chinese Exclusion Act not ended until 1943, due to alliance with China against Japan in WWII]
The desire for access to natural and mineral resources and the hope of many settlers for economic opportunities or religious refuge led to an increased migration to and settlement in the West.
* Texas drew cotton slavery / ranching * Oregon Trail and "Oregon Fever" led to good farming lands in Oregon, California, and Pacific Northwest * Missions up and down California coast abandoned by Spanish after Mexican Independence; Mexico set Native Americans free; New England merchants moved in to get access to cowhides for leather; intermarried with Mexican ranchers (Californios) * Gold Rush led to 49ers heading in droves to California * Mormons fled west from Nauvoo to settle Deseret / Utah / Salt Lake City in an attempt to leave the United States for their religious freedom and practice of polygamy (soon brought back into U.S. by Mexican-American War
main 3 concepts:
-The United States became more connected with the world, pursued an expansionist foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere, and emerged as the destination for many migrants from other countries. -Popular enthusiasm for U.S. expansion, bolstered by economic and security interests, resulted in the acquisition of new territories, substantial migration westward, and new overseas initiatives. -In the 1840s and 1850s, Americans continued to debate questions about rights and citizenship for various groups of U.S. inhabitants.