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Texas
After having won its national independence from Spain, Mexico hoped to attract settlers--even Anglo settlers--to farm it sparsely populated nothern frontier province of Texas. -
Texas
Friction developed between the Americans and the Mexicans when Mexico outlawed slavery and required all immigrants to convert to Roman Catholicism. -
Revolt and independence
General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna made himself dictator of Mexico and abolished that nation's federal system of government. -
Revolt and independence
When Santa Anna insisted on enforcing Mexico's laws in Texas, a group of American settlers led by Sam Houston revolted and declared Texas to be an independent republic. -
Industrial Technology
befor 1840, factory production had mainly been concentrated in the textile mills of New England. After 1840, industrialization spread rapidly to the other states of the Northeast, The New Factories produced shoes, sewing machines, ready-to-wear clothing, firearms, precision tools, and iron products for railroads and other new technologies. -
Boundary Dispute in Maine
In the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842, the disputed territiory was split between Maine and British Canda. The treaty also settles the boundary of the Minnesota territory, leaving what proved to be the iron-rich Mesabi range on the U.S side of the border. -
Annexation denied
John Tyler wasd a southern Whig, who was worried about the growing influence of the British in Texas. He worked to annex Texas, but the U.S Senate rejected his treaty of annexation in 1844. -
The Election of 1844
Leading the northern wing of the Democratic party, former president Martin Van Buren opposed immediate annexation. He was challenged for the Democratic nomination in 1844 by the proslavery, proannexation southerner, John C. Calhoun. -
Industrial Technology
An electric telegraph successfully demonstrated in 1844 by its inventor, Smaueal F. B. Morse, went hand in hand with the growth of railroads in enormously speeding up communication and transportation across the country. -
War With Mexico
The U.S annexation of Texas led quickly to diplomatic trouble with Mexico. Shortly after taking office in 1845, President Polk dispatched John Slidell as his special envoy to the government in mexico City. Polk wanted Slidell to persuade Mexico to sell california and New Mexico territories in the United States and settle a dispute concerning the Mexico-Texas border. -
Immediate Causes of the War
On April 24, 1846, a Mexican army crossed the Rio Grande and captured and American army patrol, killing 11. Polk used the incident to send his already prepared war message to Congress. -
Annexing Texas and Dividing Oregon
The treaty was submitted to the Senate for ratification. Some northerners viewed the treaty as a sellout to southern interests because it removed British Columbia as a source of potential free states. -
Wilmot Proviso
in 1846, the first year of war, Pennsylvania Congressman David Wilmot proposed that an appropriations bill be amended to forbid slavery in any of the new territories acquired from Mexico. the Wilmot Proviso, as it was called, passed the House twice but was defeated in the Senate, -
Military Campaigns
Zachary Taylor's foce of 6.000 men drove the Mexican army from Texas, crossed the Rio Grande into northern Mexico, and won a major victory at Buena Vista. -
Military Campaign
President polk then selected Genera; Winfield Scott to invade central Mexico. The army of 14,000 under Scott's command succeeded in taking the coastal city of Vera Cruz and then captured Mexico City. -
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo--Mexican Cession
The treaty negotiated in Mexico by American diplomat Nicholas Trist provided for the following:
1. Mexico would recognize the Rio Grande as the southern border in Texas.
2. the U.S would take possession of the former Mexican provinces of California and New Mexico--the Mexican Cession. For there territories, the U.S would pay $15 million and assume the claims of American citizens against Mexico. -
Mining Frontier
The discovery of gold in California in 1848 set off the first of many migrationss to the mineral-rich mountains of the Wast. The gold rushto California was followed by gold or silver rushes in Colorado, Nevada, the Black Hills of the Dakotas, and other western territories. -
Clayton-Bulwer Treaty
Wanting to check each other from seizing this oppurtunity, Great Britain and the U.S agreed to a treaty in 1850. it provided that neither nation would attempt to take exclusive control of any future canal route in Central Amercia. -
Ostend Manifesto
elected to the presidency in 1852, Franklin Pierce adopted prosouthern policies and dispatched three Amber diplomats to Ostend, Belgium, where they secretly negotiated to buy Cuba from Spain. The Ostend Manifesto that the diplomats drew up wa sleaked to press in the U.S and provokes an angry reaction from antislavery members of Congress. -
Gadsen Purchase
In 1853, Mexico agreed to sell thousands of acres of semidesert land to the U.S for $10 million. known as the Gadsen purchase, the land forms the southern sections of present-day New Mexico and Arizona. -
Walker Expedition
expansionists continued to seek new empires with or without the federal governments support. Southern adventurer William Walker had tried unsuccessfully to take Baja California from Mexico in 1853. Finally, leading a force mostly of southerners, he took over Nicaragua in 1855. Walker's regime even gained temporary recognition from the U.S in 1856. -
Pnic of 1857
the midcentury economic boonm ended in 1857 with a financial oanic. there was a serious drop in prices, especially for midwestern farmers, and increased unemployment in northern cities. The South wa sless affected, for cotton prices remained high. -
Expansion After The Civil War
In 1867, Secretary of State William Seward succeeded in purchasing Alaska at a time when the nation was just recovering from the Civil War.