7th Grade Louisiana Social Studies: The Developing and Expanding Nation PDF

California Gold Rush Grade 7 Louisiana Social Studies Bayou Bridges: A K–8 Louisiana Social Studies...

California Gold Rush Grade 7 Louisiana Social Studies Bayou Bridges: A K–8 Louisiana Social Studies Curriculum The Developing and Expanding Nation The Developing and Expanding Nation A comprehensive program in world and U.S. history, integrating topics in geography, civics, economics, and the arts, exploring civilizations, cultures, concepts, and skills specified in the 2022 Louisiana Student Standards for Social Studies Student Volume Multiple-effect evaporator Trail of Tears Bayou Bridges units at this level include: Governing the New Nation Growth of the New Nation The Developing and Expanding Nation A New Spirit of Change A Nation at War Reconstructing the Nation www.coreknowledge.org CoreKnowledge® Locomotives pulling trains CKHG™ ISBN: 979-8-88970-097-5 Core Knowledge Curriculum Series™ LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR_Covers.indd 1 08/02/24 1:15 PM  THIS BOOK IS THE PROPERTY OF: STATE Book No. PROVINCE Enter information COUNTY in spaces to the left as PARISH instructed. SCHOOL DISTRICT OTHER CONDITION Year ISSUED TO Used ISSUED RETURNED PUPILS to whom this textbook is issued must not write on any page or mark any part of it in any way, consumable textbooks excepted. 1. T eachers should see that the pupil’s name is clearly written in ink in the spaces above in every book issued. 2. The following terms should be used in recording the condition of the book: New; Good; Fair; Poor; Bad.  The Developing and Expanding Nation Student Volume LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR.indb 1 08/02/24 2:58 PM Creative Commons Licensing This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. You are free: to Share—to copy, distribute, and transmit the work to Remix—to adapt the work Under the following conditions: Attribution—You must attribute the work in the following manner: This work is based on an original work of the Core Knowledge® Foundation (www.coreknowledge.org) and the additions from the Louisiana Department of Education, made available through licensing under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike4.0 International License. This does not in any way imply that the Core Knowledge Foundation or the Louisiana Department of Education endorses this work. Noncommercial—You may not use this work for commercial purposes. Share Alike—If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one. With the understanding that: For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. The best way to do this is with a link to this web page: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ Copyright © 2024 the Louisiana Department of Education for the additions to CKHG and the Core Knowledge Foundation for its predecessor work CKHG. www.coreknowledge.org ISBN: 979-8-88970-047-0 All Rights Reserved. Core Knowledge®, Core Knowledge Curriculum Series™, Core Knowledge History and Geography™, and CKSci™ are trademarks of the Core Knowledge Foundation. Bayou Bridges is a trademark of the Louisiana Department of Education. Trademarks and trade names are shown in this book strictly for illustrative and educational purposes and are the property of their respective owners. References herein should not be regarded as affecting the validity of said trademarks and trade names.  The Developing and Expanding Nation Table of Contents 01 Chapter 1: Westward Expansion: Cultures and Conflicts................................. 2 02 Chapter 2: Continued Expansion, Conflict, and Compromise............................. 16 03 Chapter 3: Regional Development and Interactions..................................... 36 Glossary............................................................. 56 LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR.indb 3 08/02/24 2:58 PM  Chapter 1 Westward Expansion: Cultures and Conflicts The Framing Question What enabled westward expansion, and what effect did it have on Native Americans? Moving West The early 1800s were a time of great change for the United States. Still a young nation, the country was growing rapidly. Not only were its borders being pushed farther and farther west, but its population was increasing as well. Some American people felt that anything was possible. They had already created the government they desired, so why not create the life they desired as well? Settlers had high hopes as they packed up their belongings and moved Throughout the 1800s, people pushed the frontier west. west in greater and greater numbers. 2 LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR.indb 2 08/02/24 2:58 PM  As America’s population grew and spread out, one thing became clear: the United States needed to improve its transportation system. By 1800, some improvements had already taken place. Many of the roads that connected the growing cities and towns of the East had been widened, allowing them to handle wagon traffic and horses. It was now possible to travel between the main towns by stagecoach. Turnpikes and Canals Another transportation improvement, which began in the Northeast, was the development of roads called turnpikes. Just before 1800, some people decided that if they could build good roads, they could charge people for using them. Every ten miles (16 km) or so, the road’s owners would collect a toll, or fee. They did this by placing a pike, or pole, across the road. This prevented travelers from passing until they paid the toll. That is how the turnpike got its name: when the toll was paid, the pike would be turned, allowing the traveler to pass. Unfortunately, none of the turnpikes solved the growing needs of people who were moving west. 3 LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR.indb 3 08/02/24 2:58 PM  Getting across the Appalachian Mountains posed a big problem. Other than the Cumberland Gap, there are only a few lowland areas that pass through the mountains. One such place is in the northern part of New York State. Rather than build a road there, however, DeWitt Clinton, who was the mayor of New York City and the lieutenant governor of the state, had another idea: a canal, or As well as building the Erie Canal, the workers waterway, that would connect Lake Erie also built eighty-three with the Hudson River. sets of canal locks. A lock is a part of the canal that moves boats up or down A canal would allow farmers near the by raising or lowering the water level in the lock. Great Lakes to ship their corn, wheat, and hogs to Albany, New York, by water. From Albany, the goods could The Erie Canal was an instant success. be shipped down the Hudson River Increased trade caused Buffalo, New York, to New York City. Clinton’s canal, later to grow from a small town into a large called the Erie Canal, would be 363 miles city. New York City became the largest city (584 km) long. in the young nation. Other states rushed Without modern tools such as chainsaws, to copy the success of New York with excavators, and bulldozers, the canal was east–west canals of their own. Even though a challenge to build. Every tree along the none were as successful as the Erie Canal, route had to be cut down by hand. All these canals also encouraged settlement of the dirt had to be dug by thousands in the West. of workers, one shovelful at a time. It seemed an impossible task. Despite Think Twice such obstacles, work on the Erie Canal began in 1817. Eight years later, the job Why was the building of the Erie Canal an extraordinary achievement? was finished. 4 LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR.indb 4 08/02/24 2:58 PM  Because of the Erie Canal, goods that had previously cost one dollar to ship overland from Buffalo to New York City could now be sent for less than a dime—and in half the time. track was just thirteen miles (21 km) long. A team of horses pulled wooden coaches Railroads along the tracks, which were made of wood with strips of iron on top. In 1830, Not long after the success of the first a young mechanic named Peter Cooper canal systems, a greater improvement designed and built a steam engine to pull in transportation was introduced—the the coaches. This locomotive, as Cooper railroad. The world’s first railroad service for called it, could reach a speed of eighteen passengers and freight began operating in England in 1825. Three years later, the Vocabulary first railroad in the United States was built locomotive, n. a railroad engine in Baltimore, Maryland. The whole railroad 5 LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR.indb 5 08/02/24 2:58 PM  miles (29 km) per hour. In the 1840s, railroad companies started using passenger cars shaped like long boxes instead of short coaches. However, a person needed a taste for adventure to ride on one of the early railroads! The cars had seats on each side and an aisle down the middle. That was a bit better for passengers, but not much—the seats were very uncomfortable. In the winter, railroad companies put a stove at the end of each long car for warmth. Unfortunately, the stoves helped very little. The cars were drafty, and only those sitting close to the stoves could warm their toes! decided for itself how wide to make its Despite all these discomforts, the railroad tracks. One might build the tracks five feet quickly became a popular way to travel. In (1.5 m) wide, another two inches (5 cm) the 1830s and 1840s, hundreds of railroad wider, a third two inches (5 cm) narrower. companies sprang up. Nearly all of them That also meant that each company’s were small companies, with tracks only locomotives and cars could only roll on forty to fifty miles (65–80 km) long. At its own tracks. Every forty to fifty miles that time, there was no national railroad (65–80 km), when a train reached the end network. That meant each company of one company’s line, passengers had to People were excited about the possibilities of railroad travel. This early illustration depicts a race between Peter Cooper’s locomotive, “Tom Thumb,” and a horse-drawn railway carriage. 6 LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR.indb 6 08/02/24 2:58 PM  get off and walk to the next company’s railroad line. Nevertheless, by the 1840s, railroads had become the most important Progress for Some, Pain form of transportation within the country. for Others Writers’ Corner Settlers applauded each improvement Write a podcast script describing in transportation because it helped what it might have been like them move farther west more easily. For to travel from Baltimore, Maryland to Ellicott’s Mills, Native Americans, however, each new Maryland on the Baltimore road, canal, and railroad meant they were and Ohio Railroad in the 1830s. closer to being pushed off their land. Most Native American peoples east of the Mississippi River had been displaced from their lands by 1830. 7 LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR.indb 7 08/02/24 2:58 PM  The displacement of Native Americans violated the act by using coercion, fraud, during the late 1700s and early 1800s and bribery to force or trick Native was catastrophic. By 1830, most Native American peoples into moving. Americans in the East had been forced to Knowing that fighting against the U.S. move west of the Mississippi River. Army was a losing battle, a group of Native American tribes that lived in Vocabulary the southeastern United States had displacement, n. the process of decided on a different strategy. These removing from the usual place or land five tribes—the Choctaw, Creek (or Muscogee), Cherokee, Chickasaw, and Still, nearly one hundred tribes remained Seminoles—believed that their best on land in the East that settlers wanted. chance to keep their land was to adopt It is important to note that some people the ways of the settlers. They farmed the did understand just how unfair the taking land, built more permanent homes, wore of Native American land was. After a the same clothing as white settlers, and bitter fight, under President Andrew even published a newspaper in English Jackson, Congress passed the Indian and Cherokee. Unfortunately, the efforts Removal Act in 1830 by only three votes. of the five tribes did not stop settlers Afterward, some people sent petitions from arriving and claiming their land. to Congress protesting the new law. The Indian Removal Act gave U.S. presidents Think Twice extensive power to negotiate with What advantages did the settlers and Native American peoples east of the the U.S. Army and government have Mississippi River to encourage them to that made it impossible for Native move westward into Indian Territory, Americans to prevent their land being taken from them? lands that were not part of the states of Louisiana and Missouri or the Arkansas Territory. Specifically, the land set aside for tribes being removed was located in present-day Oklahoma. A few tribes, such as the Sauk and Fox in Illinois, resisted but Removal of the Five Tribes ultimately lost the struggle. Presidents Some Choctaw leaders decided to make Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren a deal with the U.S. government. In 1830, 8 LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR.indb 8 08/02/24 2:58 PM LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR.indb 9 9 The Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, Cherokee, and Seminole nations were forced to leave their homelands and move west. 08/02/24 2:58 PM  they signed a treaty with the United nation did not support him, and he was States. Although other Choctaw opposed executed. The United States agreed to this, these leaders agreed to give up nullify the sale, but the damage had been Choctaw lands in Mississippi for other land done. American settlers began moving in Indian Territory. The U.S. government into Creek territory. promised to provide money and help Clashes between the Creek and the United with the move, but the government was States escalated into a full-scale war, unwilling or unable to uphold its end of known as the Second Creek War (1836–37). the agreement. As a result, thousands Many Creek people were killed, and the of Choctaw people died on the long survivors were forced out to Mobile, journey westward. Alabama, and New Orleans, Louisiana. In Vocabulary the end, thousands of Creek people died during removal. treaty, n. a formal agreement between two or more groups, especially countries Of the five tribes, the Seminoles held out against the U.S. government the longest. The Chickasaw, wary of trusting the U.S. The Seminoles had originally lived in the government to move them, negotiated southern part of present-day Georgia. the sale of their lands and moved When the British colonists in Georgia themselves. They spent two years, from tried to enslave them in the mid-1700s, 1830 to 1832, working out the deal. Their the Seminoles fled south to Florida. journey was harsh, but they did not rely Florida was owned by Spain at the time. on the United States for help, so they had In 1821, the United States officially gained more freedom in choosing what route Florida from Spain. Within a few years, the to take westward. Consequently, they government took measures to remove suffered far less loss of life than the other the Seminoles and send them to Indian nations. Territory. One of the Seminole leaders Movement of the Creek did not happen who fought against removal was Osceola all at once. In the 1820s, a Creek leader (/ahs*ee*oh*luh/). Osceola and his warriors named William McIntosh negotiated defeated troops from the U.S. Army in the sale of Creek land for a large sum several battles. The army commander for himself. The majority of the Creek invited Osceola to meet to discuss peace, 10 LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR.indb 10 08/02/24 2:58 PM  The Cherokee fought as well, but their battle was different. It began in court. The Cherokee and the Trail of Tears The Cherokee had made a treaty with the United States government in 1791. The treaty stated that the land where the Cherokee lived belonged to them. In the 1820s, the state of Georgia began to demand that the Cherokee nation follow new laws and regulations set by the state. When a group of Americans, including a Osceola, leader of the Seminoles, during their war man named Samuel A. Worcester, moved against the United States onto Cherokee land, the state of Georgia but it was a trick. When Osceola arrived, tried to make them move off the land, he was taken prisoner. Osceola was held claiming that they needed a permit at Fort Moultrie, in South Carolina. There, from the state to live there. In fact, the his health deteriorated, and he died. The government of Georgia did not want Seminoles fought on bravely, but they Worcester and the others on that land were eventually defeated and sent to because they were advising the Cherokee Indian Territory in the West during the on their legal rights and ways to enforce 1850s, except for a few hundred who their treaty. Officials from Georgia arrested remained in Florida. Worcester and the others when they refused to move off of Cherokee land. Find Out the Facts Vocabulary Find out more about the experiences of the five tribes in the wake permit, n. a formal authorization to of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. do something 11 LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR.indb 11 08/02/24 2:58 PM  The Americans were convicted and sent to resisted removal under their leader, prison for four years. Tsan-Usdi, or John Ross. Chief John Ross Worcester and the others appealed to tried many times to put a stop to removal, the Supreme Court. They thought that but he was unsuccessful, and ultimately the state of Georgia should not have the he led his people to Oklahoma. right to enforce laws within Cherokee One tactic the soldiers used to force the land. They also wanted the court to Cherokee to move was entering their weigh in on an important question—was homes with weapons. They rounded that land Cherokee land, or was it part people up and made them stay in of the state of Georgia? The Supreme stockade camps before forcing them Court heard the case, called Worcester v. to travel. Disease spread through the Georgia, in 1832. The court ruled in favor stockades. In addition, many people did of Worcester, stating that the Constitution not have proper clothing or supplies, said that Native American nations were having been forced to leave all their independent nations under federal belongings behind. Even before they supervision. Therefore, the states had no began to make the trip west, many authority over Native American lands. people were ill and unfit to travel. Think Twice Why would the Cherokee not Vocabulary want Georgia to be able to require stockade, n. a prison or camp guarded settlers to have a permit to live on by the military Cherokee lands? Georgia ignored the Supreme Court’s The journey to Indian Territory took decision, in particular the opinion of several months. Most of the Cherokee Chief Justice John Marshall, and President walked the whole way. They suffered from Andrew Jackson did as well. President disease, hunger, and bitter cold. About Jackson is reported to have said, “John fifteen thousand people started out Marshall has made his decision, now let on the long trek. Only eleven thousand him enforce it.” Defying the judgment of arrived in Indian Territory alive. The the U.S. Supreme Court, President Jackson Cherokee called this journey Nunna daul sent the U.S. Army to force the Cherokee tsuny, which means the Trail Where They off their lands in 1838. The Cherokee tribe Cried, or the Trail of Tears. 12 LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR.indb 12 08/02/24 2:58 PM  The Reservation System The removal of Native Americans from their ancestral homelands continued throughout the rest of the nineteenth century. The Indian Appropriations Act, passed by Congress in 1851, established areas known as reservations, where the United States pushed Native Americans to live. In 1887, the Dawes Act divided land within the reservations into small plots for individuals and families. Vocabulary reservation, n. an area of land set aside by the federal government for Native Americans Over time, the U.S. government decreased Thousands of adults and children died on the journey the amount of land in the reservations or to Indian Territory. allowed it to be decreased through sale. Find Out the Facts It also pushed more and more nations off their homelands and into reservations. Find out more about what Native Americans experienced on the The reservation system remains in place Trail of Tears. today, although not all Native American people live on reservations. Writers’ Corner Using your research on the Trail of Find Out the Facts Tears, write a report about the Research more about how the realities of this journey. reservation system has changed since it was first introduced in 1851. 13 LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR.indb 13 08/02/24 2:58 PM  PRIMARY SOURCE: EXCERPT FROM PRESIDENT ANDREW JACKSON’S FIRST ANNUAL MESSAGE, DECEMBER 8, 1829 Our conduct toward these people is deeply interesting to our national character. Their present condition, contrasted with what they once were, makes a most powerful appeal to our sympathies. Our ancestors found them the uncontrolled possessors of these vast regions. By persuasion and force they have been made to retire from river to river and from mountain to mountain, until some of the tribes have become extinct and others have left but remnants to preserve for a while their once terrible names.... The fate of the Mohegan, the Narragansett, and the Delaware is fast overtaking the Choctaw, the Cherokee, and the Creek. That this fate surely awaits them if they remain within the limits of the States does not admit a doubt. Humanity and national honor demand that every effort should be made to avert so great a calamity. Source: Jackson, Andrew. “First Annual Message to Congress, December 8, 1829.” In The Statesmanship of Andrew Jackson, as Told in His Writings and Speeches, edited by Frances Newton Thorpe. New York: The Tandy-Thomas Company, 1909, p. 58. 14 LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR.indb 14 08/02/24 2:58 PM  PRIMARY SOURCE: MEMORIAL OF THE CHEROKEE NATION (1830) A memorial is a letter generally written to petition or persuade a political leader. The Cherokee wrote many such memorials to Congress, asking them to recognize their right to their lands and to treat them with respect as equals. The undersigned memorialists, humbly make known to your honorable bodies, that they are free citizens of the Cherokee nation.... When the ancestors of the people of these United States first came to the shores of America, they found the red man strong.... They met in peace, and shook hands in token of friendship. Whatever the white man wanted and asked of the Indian, the latter willingly gave. At that time the Indian was the lord, and the white man the suppliant [beggar]. But now the scene has changed....... Our neighbor, the state of Georgia, is pressing hard upon us, and urging us to relinquish our possessions for her benefit. We are told, if we do not leave the country, which we dearly love, and betake ourselves to the western wilds, the laws of the state will be extended over us, and the time, 1st of June, 1830, is appointed for the execution of the edict. When we first heard of this we were grieved and appealed to our father, the president, and begged that protection might be extended over us. But we were doubly grieved when we understood... the president had refused us protection.... The land on which we stand, we have received as an inheritance from our fathers, who possessed it from time immemorial, as a gift from our common father in heaven. We have already said, that when the white man came to the shores of America, our ancestors were found in peaceable possession of this very land. They bequeathed it to us as their children, and we have sacredly kept it as containing the remains of our beloved men. This right of inheritance we have never ceded, nor ever forfeited. Permit us to ask, what better right can a people have to a country, than the right of inheritance and immemorial peaceable possession? Source: “Memorial of the Cherokee Indians.” January 20, 1830. Reprinted in Niles’ Weekly Register, March 13, 1830, p. 53. 15 LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR.indb 15 08/02/24 2:58 PM  Chapter 2 The Framing Question Continued Expansion, How did the United States grow in the mid-1800s? Conflict, and Compromise Manifest Destiny and the Push Westward By the 1820s, the United States had expanded its borders across a large swath of North America. At this time, roughly nine out of ten Americans made a living by farming. Agriculture took up most of the land in the East. The population was also rapidly increasing. Americans sought new land to settle, but there was more to expansion than that. Some Americans believed that they had created a special nation unlike any other. In the United States, citizens chose their own government. In turn, the government was supposed to respect and protect the rights of its citizens. By expanding their country’s boundaries, Americans said, they would be “extending the area of freedom” and bringing the blessings of liberty to the people who would live there. Some believed that it was America’s Manifest Destiny to expand to the Pacific Ocean. 16 LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR.indb 16 08/02/24 2:58 PM  Many American artists depicted the At this point in history, this vision westward expansion as progress. of freedom did not include Native Americans, African Americans, or women. The concept of Manifest Destiny also affected countries that controlled land along the U.S. borders. Mexico and Great Britain had claimed most of the land in these border areas. They did not think that America’s march to the Pacific was inevitable. In fact, they were determined to prevent it. Conflict with Mexico In the early 1800s, the people of Mexico rebelled against Spain, which had ruled their country for nearly three hundred years. Mexico won its independence in 1821 and took over all the Spanish lands in North America, including Texas. At that time, few Mexicans actually lived in Texas. The new government of Mexico wanted to build up the area, but it was unable to persuade many Mexicans to move there. When Stephen Austin, an American, offered to start a settlement inhabited by American settlers in Texas in exchange for land, the Mexican government gladly accepted. In the early 1820s, Austin brought three hundred settlers from the United States into Texas. Later, he brought 17 LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR.indb 17 08/02/24 2:58 PM  Even though Texas belonged to Mexico, many Americans settled there. several hundred more. The Mexican self-government. Some even talked about government soon made a similar deal with making Texas independent from Mexico. other Americans, and like Stephen Austin, In 1830, the Mexican government they, too, started settlements in Texas. announced it would not allow any more It wasn’t long before the Mexican Americans to settle in Texas. But it was too government realized it had made a late. There were already more than sixteen big mistake. Before settling in Texas, thousand Americans living there, far more the Americans had promised to adopt than the five thousand Spanish-speaking the Roman Catholic religion of Mexico, Mexican residents. become loyal Mexican citizens, and free any enslaved workers they brought to Think Twice Texas. The settlers did not keep any of Why were Americans more willing these promises. Instead, they ignored to settle in Texas once Mexico won some of Mexico’s laws and asked for more independence from Spain? 18 LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR.indb 18 08/02/24 2:58 PM  For Mexico’s new ruler, General Antonio López de Santa Anna, that was the last The Alamo straw. Early in 1836, General Santa Anna led an army of four thousand soldiers During the 1830s, the Mexican toward the settlement of San Antonio. government tried to tighten its rule over San Antonio was defended by a small Texas and eliminate slavery. Texan settlers group of Texans under the command of became angry because this would mean a twenty-six-year-old William Travis. Rather loss of local control and an end to their use than retreating, Travis and his men took of enslaved labor on cotton plantations. shelter behind the walls of an abandoned Fighting broke out with Mexican soldiers Spanish mission known as the Alamo. in a number of settlements. Texas leaders decided to form an army and chose On February 23, 1836, Santa Anna gave the Sam Houston, onetime U.S. Army officer order to attack the Alamo. For twelve days, and former governor of Tennessee, to Mexican cannons pounded the mission. lead it. The Texans returned the fire until their Although the Alamo fell to Santa Anna’s troops, the battle there became an important symbol of resistance for Texans. 19 LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR.indb 19 08/02/24 2:58 PM  ammunition was nearly gone. In the early advance on the Mexican soldiers resting hours of March 6, Mexican troops stormed the near the river. walls of the Alamo and, eventually, killed its The Battle of San Jacinto was over in less defenders. By the time the Alamo fell, Texans than twenty minutes. Half of the Mexican had already declared their independence army was killed during this surprise attack. from Mexico. They formed their own country The rest were captured, including Santa and called it the Republic of Texas. Anna. The Texans threatened to put him However, it is one thing to declare to death unless he signed an agreement independence; it’s another to actually promising to withdraw all Mexican troops win it. To do this, Texans had to defeat from Texas and accept Texan independence. the Mexican army. In 1836, Mexico was a Santa Anna signed the agreement and was country of millions of people. Texas barely released. Sam Houston became the first had thirty thousand. The strategy that president of this new country. General Sam Houston took was to avoid Houston, and most other Texans, actually fighting the larger Mexican army. Instead, wanted Texas to become a state in the he and his forces retreated. United States. However, Texas accepted Houston wasn’t simply retreating, though. enslaved labor, and many in the United At this time, he was also building up States, especially in the North, did not and training a small army. On April 21, want any more states that allowed slavery. 1836, the Mexican army was camped It wasn’t until 1845 that Congress agreed near the banks of the San Jacinto (/san/ that Texas could become a state. juh*sihn*toh/) River, less than a mile Find Out the Facts (1.6 km) away from Houston and his army. In those days, battles usually began Find out more about the leaders in Texas who declared its independence in the morning and ended at nightfall. from Mexico. At 3:30 p.m., believing there would be no fighting until the next day, General Santa Anna allowed his soldiers to put down their guns and rest. This was Sam Houston’s chance. At 4:00 p.m., Houston War with Mexico signaled to his troops to move out of After the admission of Texas to the the woods that had sheltered them and United States, U.S. relations with Mexico 20 LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR.indb 20 08/02/24 2:58 PM  rapidly worsened. President James K. Polk Mexico had invaded America and shed strongly supported the expansion of U.S. American blood on American soil. The territory along the southern border, and president wanted Congress to declare war this desire threatened Mexico’s claim to on Mexico. On May 13, 1846, Congress did the land there. When Mexico refused to just that. The United States and Mexico sell large territories to the United States, were now officially at war. President Polk moved American troops It is important to note that Mexico did into land within Texas claimed by Mexico. not agree that it had invaded American Mexico responded by sending troops land. It did not believe that the Rio across the Rio Grande and attacking the Grande was the border between the two American army. In May 1846, President countries. Mexico claimed that the border Polk told members of Congress that was the Nueces (/noo*ay*says/) River, Map of War with Mexico, 1846–48 The United States acquired most of the present-day American Southwest from Mexico in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. 21 LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR.indb 21 08/02/24 2:58 PM  some 150 miles (241 km) north of the Rio Americans. However, Americans had long Grande. Mexico and the United States traded at the territory’s only town, Santa disagreed about ownership of the territory Fe. Each spring, traders made the journey between the two rivers. there from Independence, Missouri, along How had relations between Mexico the Santa Fe Trail. In Santa Fe, they traded and the United States become so bad? their goods for silver, furs, and other The reasons for the disagreement were frontier goods. rooted in the American desire to expand In 1846, President Polk offered to buy the size of the United States. President California and New Mexico from Mexico. Polk had his eye on even more land, The Mexican government refused to sell, including Mexican-controlled California. and this is why President Polk then sent When Mexico won its independence from General Zachary Taylor and his soldiers Spain, it had gained all of the Spanish- across the Nueces River to station them owned land in North America, including on the bank of the Rio Grande. This California. Early in the 1800s, a number of provocative act put American troops onto Americans arrived in California. the disputed area of land between the Still, as late as the 1840s, there were fewer two rivers. President Polk expected the than one thousand Americans living Mexican army to oppose this move—and there. There were ten times that many they did. The outcome was war. Californios, or Spanish-speaking people Think Twice from Spain and Mexico, and many Native Why was the decision to move Americans. However, President Polk knew American troops across the Nueces that California had harbors that could be River, onto the bank of the Rio Grande, controversial? used for trade with China and the rest of Asia. He also suspected that Great Britain Not all Americans were pleased that their had its eye on California and might take it country had gone to war with Mexico. if the United States did not. One such person was Abraham Lincoln, President Polk also wanted New Mexico, who challenged the president to point the territory located between California to the exact “spot” on “American soil” and the western part of the United States. where American blood had been shed. About 220,000 Spaniards and Mexicans In Concord, Massachusetts, a writer lived there, and the territory had very few named Henry David Thoreau protested 22 LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR.indb 22 08/02/24 2:58 PM  the war by refusing to pay his taxes. He was put in jail for doing so. Thoreau’s act of civil disobedience demonstrated his belief that when people believe their government is doing wrong, as a matter of conscience they should peacefully refuse to join in. Vocabulary General Zachary Taylor, also known as Old Rough and Ready, led American troops to victory at the Battle of civil disobedience, n. a refusal to Buena Vista. follow the law or government because it goes against one’s conscience; an act both New Mexico and California were in of protest the hands of the United States. But there People like Lincoln and Thoreau were in was still more fighting ahead in California. the minority, however. Most Americans The war finally ended after the American supported the war, and tens of thousands navy carried an American army to the of young men volunteered for the army. shores of Mexico, where they defeated the In September 1846, the U.S. Army quickly Mexicans in several battles. Six months struck against the Mexican forces. General later, the Americans entered the Mexican Taylor marched his troops into northern capital of Mexico City in triumph. Mexico and captured the town of The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed Monterrey in a three-day battle with the on February 2, 1848, officially bringing an trapped Mexican soldiers. Soon after, Taylor end to the war. As part of the treaty, Mexico defeated Mexican forces at the Battle of gave up almost all of the present-day Buena Vista. American Southwest. California, the land A second, smaller American army marched that became the states of Nevada and Utah, into New Mexico and captured Santa Fe. most of what became the state of Arizona, From there, the American army marched and large parts of present-day Wyoming, to California and found that a handful of New Mexico, and Colorado all became part Americans living in Northern California of the United States. In return, the United had already overthrown Mexican rule. Less States agreed to pay Mexico $15 million. This than eight months after the war began, was known as the Mexican Cession. 23 LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR.indb 23 08/02/24 2:58 PM  The Mexican Cession, Gadsden Purchase, and the division of Oregon Country with Britain expanded the United States’ territory across the North American continent. Five years later, the United States bought one more piece of land from Mexico. This strip of land forms the southern parts of Oregon present-day Arizona and New Mexico. It is Some Americans were interested in known as the Gadsden Purchase. Oregon because of the animals that In the meantime, General Zachary Taylor lived there. By 1800, beaver and otter had become a war hero, having led furs had become very valuable. New American troops to important victories England merchants sent ships around over Mexico. He used this popularity Cape Horn, the southernmost tip of to enter a career in politics, running for South America, and up to Oregon to president in 1848. He was elected and trade with Native Americans for furs. This served as the twelfth president of the journey was thousands of miles long and United States, but he became ill and died very dangerous. Despite this fact, many less than a year and a half later. merchants were willing to risk its perils for 24 LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR.indb 24 08/02/24 2:58 PM  The Oregon Trail began in Independence, Missouri, and ended in Oregon City, Oregon. the profits of the fur trade. The British also They were quickly followed by many set up a f­ ur-trading company in Oregon. more. These settlers, who were interested in acquiring land to farm, traveled in Soon, both Britain and the United States wagon trains that sometimes stretched a had claimed the Oregon Country. Few mile (1.6 km) or longer. A team of mules Americans or British actually lived there. As a or oxen pulled each covered wagon in the result, the two countries agreed to delay the slow-moving columns. Domestic animals issue of ownership until a later time. moved alongside or behind wagons. In While British ships continued to make the early spring, the families would gather the long and difficult journey to Oregon, in Independence, Missouri, and make American fur traders found a way to carry preparations for the six-month, two- on the fur trade over land. They crossed the thousand-mile (3,200-km) trip. A month Rocky Mountains at South Pass and headed or so later, when enough grass had grown to Oregon. The first large group of people along the trail for their animals to feed on, who traveled to Oregon set out in 1843. they would set out on the Oregon Trail. 25 LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR.indb 25 08/02/24 2:58 PM  Covered wagons brought settlers westward on the Oregon Trail. Find Out the Facts Research more about what people experienced as they traveled Searching for a New Home along the Oregon Trail. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day In 1846, Britain and the United States Saints started in western New York revisited the issue of ownership of in 1830. Its members are known as Oregon. They came to an agreement, Mormons. Its founder, a man named finalized in the Oregon Treaty, which Joseph Smith, declared that an angel had drew the border of Oregon at the given him a book of divine revelation that forty-ninth parallel, with U.S. ownership was equal to the Old and New Testaments to the south and British ownership to the in the Christian Bible. Because Mormon north. Vancouver Island is split by this beliefs were considered a threat to a more line, but the treaty gave all of Vancouver traditional American way of life, followers Island to Great Britain. of Joseph Smith faced intimidation. As a 26 LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR.indb 26 08/02/24 2:58 PM  result, they looked for a place where they could make their own rules and live as could live as they wished. That place was they wished. out west. Within a few months, more than five A Mormon church leader, Brigham Young, hundred wagons and 1,500 of Young’s led a small group of Mormons westward followers had arrived to make a new in 1846. They, too, traveled on parts of life for themselves. Working under the the Oregon Trail, though their route, direction of church leaders, the Mormons which became known as the Mormon prospered. The leaders ordered that Trail, started in Illinois and did not end in irrigation canals be dug for farming. Soon, Oregon. In July 1847, the group reached Mormon farmers were producing fine the top of a range of mountains near the crops of wheat, vegetables, and other Great Salt Lake, in present-day Utah. The foods. Mormons also sold supplies to area around the lake was very dry, and pioneers headed west to California. Most most people would not have chosen it of the Mormon settlers lived in the City as a place to farm. But Young knew that of the Saints, which later was called Salt the soil was rich and that if the Mormons Lake City. Others moved into the valleys of irrigated it and worked hard, they could what would eventually become the states succeed there. In addition, the land at of Utah and Idaho. that time was not part of the United States. It belonged to Mexico. This meant Find Out the Facts the Mormons would not be subject Research events in the life of to the laws of the United States. They Brigham Young. Mormons built the City of the Saints, known today as Salt Lake City. 27 LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR.indb 27 08/02/24 2:58 PM  crops or livestock instead. Many attacked Native Americans and seized their land. Gold in California Within three decades, most of the 150,000 Native American people who had lived in In January 1848, the discovery of small California before the gold rush were dead. nuggets of gold inspired waves of settlers There would be other gold rushes in the from across the United States and other American West, but by 1860, the great countries to move to California with gold rush of California was just about over. dreams of striking it rich. Thousands of people journeyed to California in 1849 to Think Twice seek their fortune. They became known Why might people have been more as the “forty-niners.” Most forty-niners likely to become rich by starting a went to find gold, but some went to business than by finding gold during this time? make a living by selling goods to the miners. Merchants became rich by buying picks and shovels back east, shipping them to California, and selling them for ten or twenty times the original cost. A German immigrant named Levi Strauss made work pants for the miners. These “Levis” caught on, and Strauss made a small fortune. As for the miners, the earliest to arrive quickly scooped up most of the gold that lay in the beds of shallow streams and on or near the surface of the earth. After that, it took a lot of digging and even more luck to find the precious yellow metal. A few miners did strike it rich. Most miners, though, barely found enough gold to make a living. In time, Most forty-niners did not strike it rich and took on other jobs instead. Some became farmers, while others many of them gave up mining and raised started small businesses. 28 LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR.indb 28 08/02/24 2:58 PM  be used with the telegraph machine. Find Out the Facts His system encoded all letters of the Find out more about life as a forty-niner in California during this first alphabet and the numbers zero through gold rush. nine as dots and dashes. Using Morse code, a person could tap out a message at the transmitter that could be copied at Writers’ Corner the receiver. The message could then be Imagine you are a forty-niner. Write translated to readable language. a letter to your family back east describing your daily life digging for gold. Vocabulary telegraph, n. a machine that communicates messages over long distances by sending signals through wires Developments in Communication Telegraph companies sprang up quickly. Now that the United States stretched In 1856, the Western Union Telegraph from one side of North America to Company was founded, and by 1861 it had the other, people needed to be able laid telegraph lines across the continent. to communicate across the vast land. The telegraph became a major means of Two major developments changed long-distance communication, even long communication in the 1800s. after the invention of the telephone. In the 1830s, two teams of inventors were granted a patent for a telegraph machine. One was a British group consisting of Sir William Fothergill Cooke and Sir Charles Wheatstone, while the second was an American team composed of Samuel Morse, Leonard Gale, and Alfred Vail. Their inventions sent electrical signals through a wire from a transmitter to a receiver. In 1835, Samuel Morse of The telegraph machine sent electrical pulses in short and long bursts representing dots and dashes, which New York invented a code that could corresponded to a code developed by Samuel Morse. 29 LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR.indb 29 08/02/24 2:58 PM  Unfortunately, this setup cost far too Think Twice much money to last very long. In addition, Why do you think people continued to use telegraph machines even after the telegraph line laid by Western Union the telephone had been invented? prompted many people to send messages by telegraph rather than by mail. In Yet not everyone lived near a telegraph 1861, after only eighteen months, the office. Since its founding, the United States Pony Express closed. Mail was thereafter has had a postal system to deliver letters delivered by train and stagecoach, and and packages. It used riders on horses then ultimately by automobile. or runners on foot at first, and then later used stagecoaches and steamboats. But the now vast land was too large for this to remain a good solution. In 1860, William Russell, Alexander Majors, The Transcontinental Railroad and William Waddell began the Pony In 1862, Congress passed the first Pacific Express. This private company used riders Railway Act to build the transcontinental on fast horses to take mail quickly along railroad. At the time, railroads already long routes. Riders stopped at stations at reached as far west as Omaha, Nebraska, times to change horses and eventually to so the new line would only have to hand off the mail to new riders, relay-style. go from there to the Pacific coast. This was still a distance of 1,800 miles (2,900 km)—longer than any railroad line ever yet built! Congress selected two companies to construct this railroad line. The Union Pacific Railroad Company would build westward from Omaha. The Central Pacific Railroad would build eastward from Sacramento, California. Vocabulary transcontinental railroad, n. a railroad Experienced riders on fast horses carried mail along that stretches across an entire continent long routes. 30 LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR.indb 30 08/02/24 2:58 PM  The two lines would connect somewhere displaced. The two companies building in between. As an incentive, the U.S. the railroad hired thousands of workers. government gave each company a gift of The task was enormously difficult, as ten square miles (26 km2) of land alongside tall mountains stood in the way, and each mile (1.6 km) of track they laid. The gathering the supplies to get started was idea was that once the railroad was built, a challenge. Supplies had to be brought that land would become valuable, and the in, often from the East. The workers had railroad could sell it. The government also to labor in all weather. One winter, there loaned each company money to help pay were forty-four storms. for the construction. Most of the workers on the Central Such plans were indeed spectacular, Pacific line were Chinese immigrants. but they came at a very high price for They had come to California hoping to Native Americans, who continued to be find riches in the gold fields. Now they Without Chinese and Irish workers, it would have been impossible to complete the transcontinental railroad on time. 31 LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR.indb 31 08/02/24 2:58 PM  did the backbreaking and dangerous carried on. Finally, on May 10, 1869, the two work of laying railroad tracks through lines met at Promontory Point, Utah. Leland the Sierra Nevada. Working in gangs of Stanford Jr., president of the Central Pacific, thirty each, they labored twelve hours a was given the honor of driving the final day, six days a week. They chopped trees spike into the last railroad tie. To celebrate and cut them into railroad ties, or beams the occasion, the spike was made of gold. to which the rails are fastened. They built railroad bridges. Using simple tools such Think Twice as hammers, chisels, pickaxes, shovels, Why would the U.S. government and wheelbarrows, they cut through have been motivated to build the transcontinental railroad? mountains. They used explosives, too, but they were sometimes very dangerous, and accidents and deaths occurred. You will learn more about the Chinese immigrant experience in the next chapter. “Free” Land At first, the people working on the Union In 1862, Congress passed the Homestead Pacific line were mainly Irish immigrants, Act. This law gave 160 acres (65 hectares) but the railroad company also hired of land free to anyone who would settle some African American, Latino, and on it and farm for at least five years. Native American workers. Later, Civil War These homesteads were available to army veterans joined the work crews. Americans and to immigrants. Over the While these workers also had to lay track next forty years, the U.S. government across some mountains, most of their gave away eighty million acres (thirty railroad stretched across the Great Plains. million hectares) of land under the Laying track across flat prairie land was Homestead Act. The land was not really certainly easier than cutting through the government’s to give, as it was taken mountains, but it had its own difficulties. from Native Americans. The Homestead Winter temperatures on the Great Plains Act aimed in part to help poor people can be brutally cold. Just to stay alive, start family farms. However, even with the shivering workers sometimes used free land, poor families could not afford precious railroad ties to build bonfires. other farm costs, such as fencing, plows, Year after year, under the blazing summer animals, barns, and seed. Therefore, sun and in below-zero winter cold, the work most people able to “homestead” on 32 LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR.indb 32 08/02/24 2:58 PM  the Great Plains were already farmers part of the country’s Manifest Destiny. who had saved some money. Still, some The West also came to mean the poor people did manage to homestead. frontier—that line that marked the Among them were thousands of African farthest edge of American settlement. Americans from the South. Many of them Americans watched with pride and were formerly enslaved people who wonder as that line moved steadily, set out for Kansas. Borrowing a term relentlessly westward all through from the Bible, they called themselves the rest of the 1880s. Exodusters because they were making an exodus, or departure, from their homes. Think Twice Many Americans continued to see Why did the U.S. government have to westward settlement—including the give away land to encourage people forced relocation of Native Americans—as to settle the Great Plains? African American homesteaders, 1887 33 LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR.indb 33 08/02/24 2:58 PM  PRIMARY SOURCE: JOHN O’SULLIVAN’S EDITORIAL ON MANIFEST DESTINY (1845) John O’Sullivan was an editor who supported the annexation of Texas. He was the first to use the term manifest destiny, which appears in this editorial he wrote in the United States Magazine and Democratic Review. Texas is now ours.... The next session of Congress will see the representatives of the new young State in their places in both our halls of national legislation, side by side with those of the old Thirteen. Let their reception into “the family” be frank, kindly, and cheerful, as befits such an occasion, as comports not less with our own self- respect than patriotic duty towards them.... Why, were other reasoning wanting, in favor of now elevating this question of the reception of Texas into the Union,... it surely is to be found, found abundantly, in the manner in which other nations have undertaken to intrude themselves into it, between us and the proper parties to the case, in a spirit of hostile interference against us, for the avowed object of thwarting our policy and hampering our power, limiting our greatness and checking the fulfillment of our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions....... The day is not distant when the Empires of the Atlantic and Pacific would again flow together into one, as soon as their inland border should approach each other. But that great work [of a transcontinental railroad], colossal as appears the plan on its first suggestion, cannot remain long unbuilt. Its necessity for this very purpose of binding and holding together in its iron clasp our fast settling Pacific region with that of the Mississippi valley—the natural facility of the route—the ease with which any amount of labor for the construction can be drawn in from the overcrowded populations of Europe, to be paid in the lands made valuable by the progress of the work itself—and its immense utility to the commerce of the world with the whole eastern coast of Asia, alone almost sufficient for the support of such a road.... Source: United States Magazine and Democratic Review, July–August 1845, pp. 5–10. 34 LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR.indb 34 08/02/24 2:58 PM  PRIMARY SOURCE: SAMUEL BOWLES TRAVELS ON THE UNION PACIFIC We witnessed here the fabulous speed with which the Railroad was built. Through the two or three hundred miles beyond were scattered ten to fifteen thousand men in great gangs preparing the road bed; plows, scrapers, shovels, picks and carts; and, among the rocks, drills and powder were doing the grading as rapidly as men could stand and move with their tools. Long trains brought up to the end of the completed track loads of ties and rails; the former were transferred to teams, sent one or two miles ahead, and put in place upon the grade. Then rails and spikes were reloaded on platform cars, these pushed up to the last previously laid rail, and with an automatic movement and a celerity that were wonderful, practiced hands dropped the fresh rails one after another on the ties exactly in line, huge sledges sent the spikes home, the car rolled on, and the operation was repeated; while every few minutes the long heavy train behind sent out a puff from its locomotive, and caught up with its load of material the advancing work. The only limit, inside of eight miles in twenty-four hours, to the rapidity with which the track could thus be laid, was the power of the road behind to bring forward the materials. As the Railroad marched thus rapidly across the broad Continent of plain and mountain, there was improvised a rough and temporary town at its every public stopping-place. As this was changed every thirty or forty days, these settlements were of the most perishable materials—canvas tents, plain board shanties, and turf- hovels—pulled down and sent forward for a new career, or deserted as worthless, at every grand movement of the Railroad company. Only a small proportion of their populations had aught to do with the road, or any legitimate occupation. Most were the hangers-on around the disbursements of such a gigantic work, catching the drippings from the feast in any and every form that it was possible to reach them. Restaurant and saloon keepers, gamblers, desperadoes of every grade, the vilest of men and of women made up this “Hell on Wheels,” as it was most aptly termed. Source: Morris, Richard B., and James Woodress, ed. The Westward Movement, 1832–1889. Webster Publishing, 1961, pp. 33–34. 35 LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR.indb 35 08/02/24 2:58 PM  Chapter 3 Regional Development and Interactions The Framing Question How did technology and immigration shape the early United States? A Changing Nation The first half of the 1800s was a time of great change for the United States. This was not only because the country’s borders expanded dramatically. The people who moved into the new regions changed the land. New technologies shaped how people worked, lived, and played. And many, many people from all over the world moved to the United States, bringing with them their own Factories changed not only how people worked but where they lived. cultural influences. 36 LABB_G7_U3_The Developing and Expanding Nation_SR.indb 36 08/02/24 2:58 PM  Changing Technology Some of the new technologies that transformed the United States were first developed over three thousand miles (4,800 km) away, in Great Britain. At this time in Great Britain, the invention of new machinery was transforming cloth-making. One machine spun cotton into thread two hundred times faster than a person