Hi and welcome to lecture number 44. This is historical topic 5.2, Manifest Destiny. The theme for today is Geography and the Environment. The learning objective is explain the causes and effects of westward expansion from 1844 to 1877. The first key concept covers the reason for why people moved west. 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.
Mineral resources refers to gold and silver found in the West. In 1848, by the time that California is part of the United States, the discovery of gold leads to a rush of prospectors settling in Northern California. When word gets out, settlers trek across the Great Plains and through the Great Basin into Northern California to try and sift for gold in the rivers. It was so plentiful that one could really just pan into a river and sift out the gold flakes from the water.
Once most of the gold was extracted from the rivers and streams, larger mine operations were developed. and towns developed after that. The large population growth that California experienced allowed it to quickly reach the threshold necessary to apply for statehood before any other part of the Mexican session.
A similar type of rush happens in Nevada as a result of the discovery of a large silver deposit at Comstock Lode in 1859. The last major mineral resource discovery to occur in this period was the discovery of gold on the Black Hills of South Dakota in 1874. This also brought more settlers to that region, but it was problematic because the US government had granted that region to the Sioux less than a decade earlier in the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie. The Black Hills Gold Rush is ultimately responsible for the displacement of the Sioux from the Black Hills and their continued quest to recover that land that US courts have since confirmed was wrongfully taken away. Additionally, the fur trade is a major industry in the Pacific Northwest.
Towns like Astoria, Oregon were built around the fur trade. and people also moved out west for religious refuge. The Mormon religion came about in the previous historical period as part of the larger Second Great Awakening. Mormons had been living in the Midwest around Illinois, though they experienced discrimination as others around them were skeptic of the religious dogma and cultural practice of polygamy.
So they began to migrate to Utah led by Brigham Young, the second president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Their path, shown on the map on the screen, is now a historic trail called the Mormon Pioneer Trail. Salt Lake City grows as a large settlement and staging area for resupplying and staging their further migration past the Sierras into California.
In total, more people migrated to the west coast and did settle in the plains and Great Basin. The expansion and settlement further west was part of the American idea of Manifest Destiny, which the next key concept covers. Advocates of annexing western lands argued that Manifest Destiny and the superiority of American institutions compelled the United States to expand its border westward to the Pacific Ocean. The phrase Manifest Destiny was popularized by a journalist named John O. Sullivan. He advocated for the annexation of Texas and Oregon.
Other famous newspaper and journalists also promoted people moving west. The journalist Horace Greeley, who was an abolitionist and kept a correspondence with Abraham Lincoln at the start of the Civil War, is often attributed with saying, Go West, young man, in response to a young reporter asking for advice on how to pursue more professional opportunities. Finally, Mark Twain, as a young adult, moved to Nevada as part of the Civil Rush, but never made it as a minor.
He instead took on a job as a newspaper correspondent for a paper in Virginia City, Nevada. He eventually made it out to the San Francisco Bay Area, following different writing jobs. Towards the end of this historical period, he uses his experiences out west to write the semi-autobiographical book called Ruffing It.
Manifest Destiny was fueled by nationalism and population increase. Urban centers in the east were getting too crowded so people were looking to spread out, and there were economic opportunities aside from mining with the beginning of railroad construction and laying telegraph wire across the country. It was these same technological advancements that allowed people to reach western territory so much faster as well.
Manifest Destiny, or the objective of expanding American territory to the Pacific Ocean, was completed by 1848 at the conclusion of the Mexican-American War, which is covered in the next lecture. A rundown of territorial acquisitions is as follows. Texas is annexed in 1845, nine years after achieving independence from Mexico. A treaty with Britain clears up the contested territory in Oregon, and then the territory is split in half and the new boundary between the U.S. and British Canada is the 49th parallel.
James K. Polk had campaigned in the 1844 election on the slogan 54-40 or fight, meaning that he wanted to have the entirety of the Oregon territory, but thought better of it once he actually was in office. The Mexican Cession is added in 1848 after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Finally, the Gadsden Purchase adds a thin strip of land south of Arizona for the purpose of building a southern transcontinental railroad line.
After the Civil War ends, the US purchases Alaska from The next key concept covers ways in which the federal government encourages this migration. Westward migration was boosted during and after the Civil War by the passage of new legislation promoting western transportation and economic development. The federal government was heavily involved in moving people west by creating incentives. The very first one is called the Preemption Act in 1841. This allowed people to move into the federal land before it had been organized into a territory. They could live there, settle the land, improve it, build their houses, and then once the federal government organized those territories, they could purchase the land from the federal government at a reduced rate.
Ultimately, it made it legal for squatters to squat in federal land. The second piece of legislation is the Pacific Railway Act in 1862, a piece of legislation passed in the midst of the Civil War. It issued land grants to the railroad companies so that they could build a transcontinental line that would link cities in the Midwest to California. The first transcontinental line was completed in 1869. The picture shows two engines meeting on the same track at Promontory Point, Utah, a settlement just north of Salt Lake City. Finally, the Homestead Act of 1862. This was the attempt of the federal government to get people to move into the Great Plains region.
It awarded 160 acres of government land for free to anyone who was willing to move there and improve it for five years. The quality of land that was awarded was down to random luck. Most plots could have little access to water or transportation.
Most people awarded land through the Homestead Act couldn't make it the full five years. Even after the Homestead Act was passed, most people were still buying land from land speculators that had access to transportation and water, though they paid higher prices. The last key concept covers foreign policy.
U.S. interest in expanding trade led to economic, diplomatic, and cultural initiatives to create more ties with Asia. New cities and ports on the West Coast and railroad lines connecting the rest of the country meant that trade with Asia was faster. Before, trade had to go all the way around onto the Pacific Ocean, down around the bottom tip of South America, and then up to the East Coast. That was really difficult, it took a long time, and it did get progressively faster with the advent of steamboats, but it was still a very long process. Now, goods could be brought in through the ports like San Francisco, and then put on a transcontinental railroad line to reach various markets.
Some of the goods that Americans imported from China included silk, porcelain, and tea. With this increased access to Asian markets, the US goes further in opening trade with as many Asian countries as possible. Japan had closed off itself to any international trade previously. It had been over a hundred years that they opened their borders to outside merchants.
President Millard Fillmore had sent Navy Commodore Matthew Perry to get Japan to open trade relations with the US. Commodore Perry enters Tokyo Bay with a naval war fleet, with cannons loaded and pointed into the city of Tokyo to show the strength of the United States to try and convince Japan. that the U.S. and Japan should become trading partners. It was certainly an aggressive way to start a trade relationship. Perry tells the Japanese that he would return in 1954 for their response.
Japan had no response to the threat and entered into the Treaty of Kanagawa with the United States. Finally, here's the recap. American settlers moved west for new opportunities, and they began to believe it was destiny for annexation of all western territories. The U.S. claims reached the Pacific Ocean after the Mexican-American War.
and the federal government encouraged migration through different pieces of legislation. Finally, the US took an interest in expanding its foreign trade and influence beyond the Pacific into Asia. Thank you for watching.
If you would like to watch the next lecture you can click on the video link on the screen and if you're looking for more practice to help you on the AP exam you can visit apushlights.com. I wish you the very best in all of your studying and look forward to seeing you back on the next lecture.