Fitzgerald

Manifest Destiny Map

Read each description of a step and plan a brief set of notes on a scratch sheet of paper for each step.

Color the each region or trail a single color. Maps on Smartboard, p. 458, or loaded on website can help you.

Plan where in the margin near its place you can put each small set of notes.

Boxes should be logically placed near the region.

Labeling lines should be straight and not cross.

Write your brief notes summarizing each reading in the margin.

Box in each set of notes with the color of the region it describes and connect the box to the area with a labeling line.

Steps in possession of Land -

Original Thirteen Colonies rebelled with Declaration of Independence 1776 –

The Declaration of Independence is the usual name of a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies, then at war with Great Britain, regarded themselves as thirteen independent states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. Instead they formed confederation under the Articles of Confederation.

Area ceded to Confederation Government after Revolutionary War 1783

The Treaty of Paris, signed in Paris by representatives of King George III of Great Britain and representatives of the United States of America on September 3, 1783, ended the American Revolutionary War. Its territorial provisions were "exceedingly generous" to the United States in terms of enlarged boundaries.

Louisiana Purchase 1803

Millions of American lived west of the Appalachian Mountains by 1800. Louisiana had recently been acquired by France through war with Spain in Europe, and New Orleans was a huge settlement. Many American ships transported goods down the Mississippi River to American cities in the East, using the New Orleans harbor to transfer goods. The U.S. offered to buy New Orleans to protect this shipping. Napoleon offered to sell all of the Louisiana Territory, more than 828,000 square miles, because the war in Europe was going badly for him, he had lost the French Caribbean colony of Haiti to rebellion, and he needed the money. The Louisiana Purchase was the largest land purchase in the history of the United States and the cheapest at 3 cents per square mile.

British Cession and Area Ceded to Britain 1818

Spanish Cession 1819

The Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819, also known as the Transcontinental Treaty, was a treaty between the United States and Spain in 1819 that gave Florida to the U.S. and set out a boundary between the U.S. and Spain along the Louisiana Territory's southern boundary. Florida had become a burden to Spain, which had no settlers there and could not afford to keep soldiers there to control Natives and pirates in the region.

Santa Fe Trail and Old Spanish Trail – See page 452 for trails.

Trade routes first used by American traders in 1821.

Oregon Trail - See page 452 for trails.

During the early 1840's, several thousand Americans had migrated to the northwest coast along the Oregon and California Trails. They knew they were in British or Mexican territory, but like the Texans they hoped that the U.S. would annex these lands as well.

Republic of Texas splits from Mexico 1836 and annexed 1845

During the 1820s, Mexico had just gained independence from Spain. Mexico wanted people to settle in Texas and offered large tracts of fertile and inexpensive land to whites who were willing to move there. Americans began to move to Texas. Disagreement developed between the Mexican government and American settlers: Mexico had outlawed slavery, Mexico was a Catholic country and required settlers to convert to Catholicism while most American settlers were Protestant and Mexico insisted that settlers in Texas pay taxes on goods imported from the U.S. In 1836, settlers voted to declare independence from Mexico and after two months of fighting, including the famous siege of the Alamo, forced Mexico to sign a treaty recognizing Texas as an independent republic. Texans hoped that the U.S. would annex Texas. But the United States wanted to avoid war with Mexico and anti-slavery forces in the north were against adding Texas to the Union because would tip the delicate balance of power between slave and non-slave states in the Senate. Texas would remain an independent republic for nearly a decade.

Manifest Destiny – Label painting.

In the election of 1844, James Polk ran for president as a strong supporter of expansion. He and others subscribed to the idea of Manifest Destiny, the doctrine that it was America's God-given right to extend its boundaries to the Pacific Ocean (and even beyond). Americans believed God was on the side of American expansion, democracy would spread, and population growth in the U.S. made expansion necessary.

Oregon Territory and British Columbia split by Treaty with Great Britain 1846

Polk's first order of business as president was settling the dispute with Great Britain over the Oregon Country. A treaty signed in 1846 established the present-day boundary between the U.S. and Canada, dividing the land equally by extending the current boundary to the Pacific. This helped calm the fears of northerners, because Oregon, which did not have slavery, would balance Texas, which did have slavery, in the Senate.

Mormon Trail - See page 452 for trails.

Mormons settled in Salt Lake City in 1846, after facing the destruction of their colonies and murder of their people and leaders by mobs in New York, Illinois and Missouri because of their religious beliefs and unorthodox practices: communal ownership of property, the Book of Mormon as a holy text in addition to the Bible, and polygamy. The Mormons prayed they would be safe in this unsettled desert area of Mexico.

The War with Mexico and the Mexican Cession 1848

After the Congress formally voted to annex Texas in 1845, the country prepared for full-scale war with Mexico. American forces provoked Mexican attack by occupying land under dispute and then war was declared because American blood had been shed by Mexican troops. The Mexican-American War began in early 1846 and lasted for a little over two years. American troops invaded from the North along the border of Texas, from the Gulf of Mexico marching into Mexico City and across the Southwest to California, which was already under attack by American Mountain Men, traders who had started their own Bear Flag Revolt. Under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), Mexico ceded to the United States most of its southwest and Pacific territories, including what is now California, Nevada and Utah, and most of New Mexico and Arizona.

California Trail - See page 452 for trails.

The discovery of gold in northern California in 1848 (at Sutter's Mill) fueled a rapid migration west, leading to the rapid formation of the state of California in 1850.

Gadsden Purchase from Mexico 1853

The Gadsden Purchase, or Treaty, was an agreement between the United States and Mexico, in which the United States agreed to pay Mexico $10 million the land necessary for a southern transcontinental railroad