America Past; D21; Manifest Destiny

[music] [music] When Americans today think of the early 19th century, they may be dimly aware of the industrial north in the growing cities. They probably are aware of the plantation South and the system of slavery. But the section of the country that really captures their imagination is the West.

The same area of the country that had fascinated the artists and the writers of the time. When we talk about the West, you have to ask well, where was it. Well, the West was the area beyond the frontier. Fine. Where was the frontier? Well, that depends on what year you're talking about. The first frontier in what is now the United States was the East Coast. Jamestown, Plymouth. That was the frontier. Was a frontier of Western Europe. Then the frontier moved a little further west to the Appalachian Mountains. And the West was everything beyond that. Then it moved over the mountains. To Daniel Boone, the West was Kentucky and Tennessee. Then it moves to the Mississippi River. Then you have it essentially jumping. It moved into Texas, but it jumped on to the Pacific coast. Why did it skip the Great Plains? Simple. There was gold in California. There was good land in Oregon. Let's go get that. Let's not stop in the

Great Plains. Today the Great Plains are interesting. They have huge wheat fields. They're valuable. But in those days they were just viewed as something to get across. In fact one map actually labeled that area the Great American Desert. If you were looking for a place to settle, you would not get out a map and say, "Great American Desert. That looks like a good spot. Let's go there." You'd go to Golden California or to the good land in Oregon. [Music] As Americans fill up their country [blanketing] their country, they view themselves as fulfilling some sort of a divine plan. But they like to refer to it, at least after the 1840s, as our manifest destiny. It was God's plan the United States should extend to the Pacific Ocean.

Some writers went even further. One maintained that the United States should stand from the rising to the setting sun, just where ever you would draw that line. Others said that the entire western hemisphere should belong to the United States with a capital in Mexico City. Now most Americans didn't go quite that far. But they did believe that it was their manifest destiny, that it was just meant to be, the United States would extend to the Pacific. If the Indians got in the way, they would have to be dealt with. If some other country owned the land, it would have to be taken. This westward movement was not going to be stopped. It was our manifest destiny. At least that's the way they saw it. [unknown man speaking] "The father of the universe set aside the American continent for the free development of our multiplying millions." Now does the fact that the United States experinced a Frontier, a Western movement, have any lasting importance, say on the nature of American people, today or in

the past? Well, one historian believed that it did, and he developed a whole theory of history called the Frontier Theory. His name is Frederick Jackson Turner. He lived around 1890, and he got to reading the census reports of 1890, and he saw that they said there no longer was a frontier in the United States. And he got to thinking about that. Would that make any difference? The fact that we no longer had a frontier. Had it made any difference in the past? And then he developed this Turner thesis, or this Frontier Theory, on the effects of the frontier. You see he believed that there's such a thing as national character, that groups of people have a character just like individuals do. And that Englishman are different from Frenchmen, and Frenchmen from the Italians, and that Americans are basically different from all of them. And why are we different? Well, according to Turner we're different because we had a frontier experience, and they didn't. Now I just want to

one of the basic ideas in the Frontier Theory. One feature of the frontier was that it served as a safety valve for American society. If things got rough in the east, if labor conditions became unbearable, workers didn't rebel They didn't start a riot. They just moved west, according to Turner. He noted that in Europe every industrial city of Europe in the 1830s and 40s had at least one revolutionary rebellion. That did not happen in the United States. Why? Well, according to Turner, because instead of rebelling they went west. They simply let off steam, as the safety valve, moving to the west. He predicted that when the frontier no longer existed, that America would begin to have difficulties in its urban areas. He saw the frontier as leading to an isolationist America. During the 19th century, we were not very involved in foreign affairs. You study American history through that period and very seldom do you really go into diplomatic history

because Americans were filling up their continent. They were not strong enough in the first place but they didn't need to be involved in world affairs. He thought that when the frontier was closed, that our energy was taken away from developing the west, that we would become more involved in international concerns. He also saw the frontier as having an effect on the character of Americans, that it made Americans more self-confident. Almost every European visitor commented upon how confident Americans were. In fact they thought they were braggarts. And he said that was a frontier characteristic: self-confidence. We came out here. We dealt with the Indians. We dealt with the weather, with the blizzards, with the varmints, and the locusts, and the prairie fires, and we had to go of it. Aren't we something? We can do anything. We can wrestle our way through bobcat's, go bear hunting with a switch. You name it, we can do it. We have self confidence. And he says that's typical Americans. That other nations notice it

and it's a result of the frontier experience. He said Americans are more democratic than other people. They were less concerned with who your family was. They didn't care if there was a nobleman back there or a horse thief. Out here in the West that didn't make any difference. If the desperadoes are coming over the hill or the Indians and you can shoot straight, then you're all right in my mind. I don't care who your family was, who your father was. What can you do? That Americans are more concerned with that. There was no accident that Blacks were treated better in the West than in the East. That the West was the first area to give women the right to vote in Wyoming, for example. Those are Democratic tendencies and he says that was typical of the Democratic frontier experience. He saw the frontier as being anti-intellectual and that as being an American trait. We weren't so concerned with what was called book learning. In fact Westerners were kind of suspicious of somebody who had too much book

learning. What can you do? Can you plow straight? Can you shoot straight? Can you build a cabin? If it's raining, I don't care if you can tell me what causes rain. That's book learning. Can you build a roof to keep it out? That's more important. And then Americans developed a interest and an admiration for people who were practical minded rather than intellectual. The frontier was a safety valve. It made America isolationist. It gave Americans self-confidence and it made them democratic. And it may also have made them somewhat anti-intellectual. All of that he saw as a being a result of the frontier experience. Let's look now at how the United States expanded to the Pacific, how they fulfilled what they viewed as their manifest destiny. Really there's three major areas I want to look at: the annexation of

Texas, the adding of the Oregon Territory, and the acquisition of the southwestern part of the United States and California. Remember at the end of the American Revolution, the United States looked like this. Everything east of the Mississippi River, except Florida which belonged to Spain. Everything west of the Mississippi River also belonged to Spain. And In 1803, we had purchased the vast area of Louisiana and in 1819, we had acquired Florida as a result of a treaty with Spain. Well, let's start with Texas. What do you think of when you think of Texas? The Alamo? A lot of people do. That old Spanish Mission in San Antonio. Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie. If you wanted a view of the typical Texas of the 1820s, it would be essentially uninhabited lands. Very few people lived there. Maybe about 5,000 Indians,

but very few Spanish and very few Americans. There are a few scattered forts with Spanish or Mexican troops in them. The American flag wouldn't be flying there. What flag would be? After 1821 it wasn't the flag of Spain either. It would be the flag of Mexico. In 1821 Mexico decided that she had had enough of being part of the Spanish Empire. She broke away and became an independent country. So when we talk about the areas in the West as we acquire them, we're not acquiring them from the Spanish government. We're getting them from the Mexican government. Now under Spain,Texas, as I said, was an uninhabited. And Spain wanted it that way. She wanted a buffer between her lands in Mexico and the United States. Americans were always moving west. They were aggressive. They were pushy. They were headed toward the Pacific. Let's just keep a buffer here to keep them away

from where most of our people are. But once Mexico became independent, well, the new government thought a little differently about it. What can you do with empty land? You can't even tax it. You aren't going to get any taxes out of Indians. Why not encourage people to come in there? Give them land, give them free land if they'll come, and then tax them. Wouldn't that be better? No, it wouldn't have been, as she thought it was. So it should be making these offers. The best known person to accept the offer was Stephen Austin, actually taking over after his father Moses Austin's death, And Stephen Austin brought large numbers of people into Texas, gave them land grants, and they settled in that area. By 1830 about 20,000 Americans had taken advantage of the opportunity to settle in Texas. Some of those people had left the United States for the good of the United States, actually. Some of them later became heroes. Davy Crockett is going to die at the Alamo. He was a publicity mad professional frontiersman,

one who, in our peculiar way, we've decided to adopt as a hero. Jim Bowie was a slave smuggler, invented his big old Bowie knife to kill people with, later becomes a hero. Now in theory, if you came into Texas, you were to abide by certain rules. You would become a Mexican citizen. Obey Mexican laws, one of which outlawed slavery. But many of the people moving in owned slaves, and they brought them with them. That's going to be a source of conflict. You were to become a Catholic. Most frontiersmen were not Catholics. They were Protestants. Or they were willing to say they were Catholic if that would get them some free land. But their heart wasn't in it. And of course you had the difference in language. Well, with 20,000 Americans living in Texas and maybe 4,000 Mexican citizens, you're going to have conflict. The government in Mexico City was corrupt. The president was

Santa Anna. And he was a egotistical, personally corrupt individual, who was in an office and out of office eleven times and managed to keep his head on his shoulders through it all. But he was contemptuous of the Texans. He did not understand their problem and they were contemptuous of him. For matters just went from bad to worse until the March of 1836. Texas declared itself independent. They started a rebellion against the government of Mexico for their independence. They sat down, wrote themselves a formal declaration of independence, just like America had done, only the Texan one was much longer. And there was a war then between Texas and Mexico. It lasted about a month, the month of March in 1836. By far the best known fighting of that war took place in the Alamo, that old Spanish Mission in San Antonio. A rather large area of school rooms,

warehouses, living quarters, and the church, and the Texas Army that holed up in the Alamo, 187 of them. Thirteen thousand members of the Mexican army outside. Well, what's going to happen? Exactly what you think is going to happen. When 13,000 oppose 187, the 13,000 are going to win. [Gunfire] [Gunfire, yelling] The fight lasted three days, and the Texans surrendered. [click sound] Sometime you hear that the Mexican army killed everyone in the Alamo. That isn't quite true. They just killed the soldiers in the Alamo. They did not kill the women and children. Santa Anna figured that that would serve as a good lesson to the Texans, and he sent the message out. "Remember the Alamo. If you revolt against us, this is what's going to happen to you."

The Texans turned that around and said, "Fine. We'll remember. We're going to get revenge." Less than two weeks later they got their revenge. Sam Houston and the Texas Army defeated Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto, a short distance from Houston, Texas. And Texas, then, became an independent country. This was not a war between the United States and Mexico. This was a war between the Texans and their home government of Mexico. They became an independent country. Well, they wanted to become part of United States. They asked Congress to admit them as a state, but they were turned down. And they were turned down for nine years. For nine years Texas was called the Lone Star Republic of Texas. The Lone Star Republic of Texas. Why were they turned down? Really two reasons. One, if we let them in, there was a danger that Mexico would think we had put them up to the rebellion all along and it might mean a war

between the United States and Mexico. And secondly, Texas almost certainly would have been a slave state. Most of the people who had moved to Texas had come from the south. They brought their slaves with them, and the northern states just didn't want to admit another slave state. So they kept them out for nine years. In 1845 Texas became a state. Looks a little bit different than the Texas now. The boundaries were different. But she was admitted with the understanding that later she could be carved up into five smaller states. Not an idea that's very appealing to most Texans. But that's Texas. Let's go to the northwest now. Oregon. Oregon included the present state of Oregon, it included Washington, included Idaho, but it included part of Canada as well. Look at the northern boundary of Oregon. It goes clear up to Alaska. It goes up to 54 degrees north latitude. If you want to be

exact about it, it went up to 54 degrees and 40 minutes north latitude. That was what was called Oregon. At one time Russia had claimed that as she had some fur trappers in there. Spain had claimed it, but she had given up her claims. England claimed it, considered it to be part of Canada. And the United States claimed it. The real conflict there developed between the United States and England. Those are the two countries that had most serious claims to Oregon. The first people in Oregon had been fur trappers and missionaries. Kind of an odd combination, most fur trappers were solitary, tall tale telling people roaming about the West, and the missionaries mainly Methodist and Presbyterian, people like Marcus and Narcissa Whitman. Narcissa Whitman was the first white woman to cross the Rocky Mountains. The people in Oregon, the missionaries, would write back to people in the east telling them of the fertile soil,

the possibility of making a good living there. People in the east read those letters. They looked at the Depression around them. They looked at our crowded cities, and they took off for Oregon by the thousands. Leaving from Independence, Missouri, they follow the Oregon Trail, along the Platte River through Nebraska, on across Wyoming and into Oregon. And as more and more Americans got to Oregon, there was more and more demand for Oregon to become part of the United States. So we tried to work out something with England. The problem was where do you divide it up? What looks logical to you? Now just look at it. If you were going to divide this territory, where would you draw the line? Well, to a lot of people they said just take that border between United States and Canada and run it

on west. That's 49 degrees north latitude. Just run it on across. That looks logical. Let England have the north part; we'll take the south. But the United States said no. We want the whole thing. We want clear up to 54 degrees and 40 minutes north latitude. James K. Polk ran for president promising to get it all. It made a great slogan 54 40 or fight. That boundary of 54 40 north, a real fight. That sounded good. He was elected. Shortly after he was elected, we decided to draw the boundary at 49 degrees north latitude. We took the Canadian boundary, just drew it on to the Pacific and that's where it is to this day. We did not want a war with England over Oregon. Partially because it looked more and more like they might suddenly get involved in a war with Mexico. What territory did Mexico control that might lead to a war?

Well, she claimed the southwestern part of the United States and California, and technically it was hers. Controlled might be a bit too much. She had some troops there, about 1,500 stationed in various forts stretching from Mexico City clear to northern California. It had been almost impossible for Mexico to defend that area if someone was really serious about taking it. Well, the United States was serious about taking it. Great Britain might have been, too. She had her navy floating off the coast of California ready to move in at any time. And United States didn't like that. We wanted California. We wanted to get harbors. San Francisco, San Diego in particular, because we were engaged in trade with the Far East and that would be an excellent place to jump off from to cross the Pacific. And we certainly didn't want the British seizing it. So the president, who was Polk, James K. Polk, the same one that had annexed Oregon, tried to buy California from Mexico.

Offered him 10 million dollars. Mexico refused to sell. Mexico had lost a great deal of territory lately, and she felt she just simply could not turn around and sell off California to the United States just because we wanted it, without facing maybe a revolution at home. So the offer was rejected. But Polk was obsessed with the idea that he was going to have Mexico. How dare Mexico refuse my offer to buy? He also is concerned with the fear that if he didn't get it, the British very well might. One American sea captain incidentally sailed into Monterrey, California, and the Spanish governor there, the Mexican governor, thought we were at war and surrendered the whole state without firing a shot. Found out that we weren't at war after all. Everybody apologized. They ran the flag back up again. So that shows how easily California could have been taken. We had another problem with Mexico besides California and that was the border of Texas.

Mexico did not like the fact that we had annexed Texas, and we had let Texas become a state. Really claimed that it wasn't ours. But even if it were ours, there was a dispute over the boundary. According to the United States, the boundary was the Rio Grande River. According to Mexico, it was the Nueces river. The area between those two rivers was claimed by both countries. It was sort of a no man's land. So what President Polk did was to send the United States Army under General Zachary Taylor into that no man's area. He claimed he was defending United States property. But Mexico also had troops in that area which she claimed was her property. Well, you know what's going to happen. Sooner or later, those two armies are going to bump into each other and you're going to have a war on your hands. A war which almost certainly Polk was anxious to have. Well, in April of 1846 they bumped into each other and the war started.

[Gunfire] [Gunfire] [Gunfire] It went very well for us. Zachary Taylor invaded Mexico from the north, won the battle of Buena Vista, became a national hero. He's going to run for president after the war, and going to be elected. Up to that time he had never even bothered to vote before, yet suddenly he's a political leader. General Winfield Scott invaded Mexico from Vera Cruz and, after stubborn resistance by some very young Mexican troops, captured Mexico City. The war ended in 1848. It was ended by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. We got the southwestern part of the United States. But we agreed to pay 15 million dollars for it. That's a little unusual. Generally if you capture territory in a war, you don't offer to pay for it. You just take it. Maybe we had some guilty feelings

about that. We paid it. We also agreed to pay any debts that Mexico owed to those citizens living in that area. There was one little chunk of territory left to be added, a little dot of desert down in southern New Mexico and Arizona that we wanted for a railroad route. We bought that, paid ten million dollars for that. It's known as the Gadsden Purchase. It was added in 1853. Well, was the problem of the west solved now? We've got all the territory. Was there any difficulties, were there any difficulties? Yes, there were. There will be arguments about who owned the land that we got from Mexico. We'll talk about that next time. There will be opposition to the war, that it was an unjust war. But most of all it will bring up the question if, will we allow slavery to spread into this new territory or will it be free territory? Alexander Stephens of Georgia said that when he thought about that question of slavery and what it might mean to the nation, that the future to him looked dark and cloudy, thick and gloomy. But most

Americans didn't agree with him. To them our manifest destiny was fulfilled. The United States at last reached to the Pacific.