Manifest Destiny
How our country got its shape :)
Although British hopes of winning the
Revolutionary War ended in 1781 with
their defeat at Yorktown, nearly two
years passed before the United States
and Britain signed the Treaty of Paris
and officially ended the war. The peace
process was complicated because France,
Spain, and Holland had also joined the
conflict, fighting with the Americans
against the British. Each of these
countries had their own strategic
national goals for the war, which made a
final peace harder to agree on. Also,
although Britain’s King George III did
not think he could win the war anymore,
he was still determined not to grant the
Americans independence. But, John
Adams, John Jay, and Benjamin
Franklin, the three Americans sent to
Britain to negotiate the peace treaty, insisted that independence for the colonies be built into the peace
agreement.
The Treaty of Paris was finally ratified in
September 1783, and it was a great
victory for the Americans. The treaty
not only recognized the United States of
America as an independent nation, but
also established boundaries that
extended far to the west of the 13
original colonies. The new country
would be bounded by the Atlantic
Ocean on the east, the Mississippi River
on the west, Florida on the south, and
Canada and the Great Lakes on the
North. Spain retained control of
Florida, and the United States was
permitted use of the Mississippi River.
As the map shows, much of the land
granted to the United States in the treaty
did not belong to any of the 13 original
states. For a time, some of the original
states tried to claim these new lands as their own. For instance, New York tried to claim lands that that
included present-day Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. North Carolina tried to claim portions of what is now
Tennessee, while Virginia tried to claim land that is now part of Michigan.
Stretching from the Mississippi River
to the Rocky Mountains and from the
Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian
border, the enormous Louisiana
territory was originally settled by the
French in the early 18th century. In
1802, France stopped allowing U.S.
merchants to use the city of New
Orleans, an important commercial city
located at the base of the Mississippi
River, to ship their goods. President
Thomas Jefferson was concerned
about this situation and sent James
Monroe to Paris to try to help Robert
Livingston, the American minister to
France, negotiate a deal. Jefferson,
Monroe, and Livingston hoped to be
able to purchase a small amount of the
territory - possibly a section as small as
just the eastern half of New Orleans - so that American merchants could continue to use the river to transport
their goods. However, as Monroe arrived in Paris, France was on the brink of war with Britain. It was also
fighting a losing battle against a slave uprising on the island of Hispaniola (the portion of the island that is now
Haiti) in the Caribbean Sea. Unable to send adequate troops to defend the territory from Britain, France
decided to make the Americans a surprising offer. Monroe and Livingston were astonished when the French
minister offered to sell America all 828,000 square miles of the Louisiana Territory for the price of $15 million.
The Americans jumped at the offer, and on April 30, 1803, the deal was finalized. The Louisiana Purchase
doubled the size of the country at a cost of approximately four cents an acre. It met with overwhelming
approval by Americans eager to expand the borders of their new country. Fifteen states, among them
Louisiana, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Colorado, and Nebraska later developed either entirely or
partly from the land gained in the purchase.
The United States signed the
Convention of 1818 with Great Britain
in order to settle some issues left open
by the Treaty of Ghent, which four
years earlier had ended the War of
1812. The new treaty stated that
Britain and the United States would
jointly occupy Oregon Territory (an
arrangement that lasted until 1846), and
clarified the northern border of the
Louisiana Purchase. The land acquired
by the United States in the treaty,
known as the Red River Basin, would
ultimately become part of the states of
Minnesota and North Dakota.
Although Spain, France, and Britain all
held Florida (or parts of it) prior to the
American Revolution, by the end of
the war, it was Spanish territory.
However, the location of the border
between the United States and Spanish
territory remained an issue of dispute
between the two countries. The
American acquisition of Florida
actually occurred in small steps.
Americans had long settled the
territory, and throughout the early
years of the 19th century American
settlers in Florida periodically rebelled
against Spanish authorities, sometimes
with the support of American officials.
Moreover, the use of the region as a
safe haven for runaway slaves, as well
as ongoing Native American hostilities,
also gave American authorities "justifications" for contesting Spanish sovereignty in Florida. In 1814 and then
again in 1817-1818, future American president Andrew Jackson led frontier forces in defeating and removing
various Native American tribes indigenous to the region, even as Spain retained official control there. At this
point, the United States and Spain had to either fight or negotiate over which country would retain possession
of Florida. At the same time, Spain was dealing with serious problems with its other colonies. Thus, neither
side wanted war, and in 1819, the two countries signed the Adams-Onís Treaty. The treaty, named after
Secretary of State John Quincy Adams and Spanish minister Louis de Onís, ceded Florida to the United States.
In exchange, the United States agreed to pay up to $5 million in damages to Americans who had claims against
Spain and to forfeit any claims to Texas.
Texas War for Independence
The Spanish were the first to colonize the states that today make up the American southwest, including the
state of Texas. In the waning years of the Spanish empire, in the early 19th century, Spain decided to allow
some Americans to settle in Texas. In 1821, Moses Austin obtained permission to lead a group of 300
American families in creating a new settlement there. After his death, his son Stephen Austin, took over the
plan and secured permission - this time from the newly independent Mexican government - to proceed with
the settlement. By 1835, approximately 20,000 American, Mexican, and European settlers had arrived in
Texas, bringing with them an additional 4,000 slaves. The Mexican government attempted to limit the influx
of American immigrants, to no avail. In 1835, fighting broke out between the Mexican Army and AngloAmerican colonists who were angry with the Mexican government for attempting to limit the practice of
slavery and for violating the Mexican constitution. In 1836, they declared Texas an independent state, called
the Republic of Texas. After a decisive Texan victory at the Battle of San Jacinto later that year, fighting
stopped. The Mexican government, however, never recognized the new state, and for the next decade, the
Lone Star Republic had a shaky existence. It was under constant threat of invasion from Mexico, and the
government did not have enough money in its treasury to work effectively.
In 1845, the Republic of Texas
voluntarily asked to become a part of
the United States, and the government
of the United States agreed to annex
the nation. Mexican leaders had long
warned the United States that if it tried
to make Texas a state, it would declare
war. And, almost immediately after
Texas joined the Union, the United
States and Mexico went to war about
where the proper border for the state
of Texas should be. This was called
the Mexican-American War. The
Republic of Texas included the
present-day state of Texas as well as
portions of New Mexico, Kansas,
Colorado, and Wyoming.
Oregon Country was a portion of land
between the Pacific Ocean and the
Rocky Mountains in the northwest
portion of the present-day United
States. In 1818, the United States and
Britain agreed to a "joint occupation"
of Oregon, allowing citizens of both
countries to settle there. Over the next
several decades, American and British
settlers came to Oregon for different
reasons. The British came mostly for
the fur trade, while Americans came to
be missionaries or to start farms or
larger settlements. By the 1840s,
Americans outnumbered their British
compatriots, and the fur trade was no
longer as lucrative as it had once been.
American expansionists - among them
President James Polk - were
increasingly looking to end the joint occupation and claim Oregon for America alone. Finding themselves in a
weakened position, the British agreed to negotiate. Negotiations between the United States and Britain over
the Oregon Country began in the summer of 1845. Because any states that would eventually be formed out to
the territory would be free states, anti-slavery Northerners were strongly in favor of acquiring as much of the
territory as possible. America's first proposal was that the territory be divided roughly in half, with the
boundary drawn at the 49th parallel. When the British rejected this offer, expansionist Northerners called for
greater American aggression, using the slogan "Fifty-Four Forty or Fight!" (Fifty-four Forty referred to the
latitude line marking the northernmost boundary of the territory.) Pro-slavery Souhtern Congressmen,
however, made it clear that they would not support a war with Britain over the territory. Britain did not want
to go to war over the issue either, and in 1846, the two countries reached an agreement to divide the territory
at the 49th parallel. Oregon Country would later become the modern-day states of Oregon, Washington, and
Idaho, as well as portions of Montana and Wyoming.
After Texas joined the United States in
1846, a boundary dispute broke out
almost immediately between the United
States and Mexico, the country from
which Texas had won its independence
a decade earlier. The U.S. said the
southern boundary of the state should
be the Rio Grande, which was further
south of the original boundary set by
the Nueces River. On April 25, 1846,
after the U.S. cavalry ignored an order
from the Mexican army to retreat to
the Nueces River and instead advanced
south to the Rio Grande, fighting
broke out. Three weeks later, Congress
declared war on Mexico. Fighting
continued for more than a year, and
ended in September 1847. In February
1848, the two countries signed the
Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo. The treaty recognized Texas as a U.S. state, and ceded a large chunk of land about half the area that belonged to the Mexican republic - to the United States for the cost of $15 million.
The Mexican Cession included land that would later become California, Nevada, and Utah, as well as portions
of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming. The treaty also stated that Mexicans who remained in the
state would be permitted to become U.S. citizens, and that they would be allowed to keep their property.
However, the treaty was never fully honored. In the decades following the signing of the treaty, MexicanAmericans were stripped of nearly 20 million acres of their land by American businessmen, ranchers, and
railroad companies, as well as by the U.S. Department of Interior and Department of Agriculure.
The Treaty of Gadalupe Hidalgo had
described the U.S.-Mexico boundary
vaguely, and following the MexicanAmerican War, the United States and
Mexico continued to dispute the
border between the two countries. The
addition of new American territories
granted by the Treaty of GuadalupeHidalgo was driving western
development, and there were rival
plans to build railroads to the west
coast. One plan called for routing a rail
line through disputed Mexican territory
south of the Gil River. In 1853,
President Franklin Pierce sent James
Gadsden to negotiate with Mexico.
Gadsden was president of the South
Carolina Railroad and a former military
officer who had been involved in the
forcible removal of Seminole Indians in Florida. The Mexican governemnt was in desperate need of money,
and it agreed to sell a small strip of land along the U.S.-Mexico border to the United States for $10 million.
Eventually the Southern Pacific Railroad built a line to California that crossed the territory. The Gadsden
Purchase included land in present-day Arizona and New Mexico.
Russian explorers first reached the land
that would eventually become the state
of Alaska in the 17th century. For
several centuries, Russia continued to
occupy the territory. The Crimean War
of the mid-19th century, however,
convinced the Czarist Russian
government that it could not defend
the territory in case of another war
with Britain. (Britain had shown signs
of interest in Alaska as an extension of
its territory in present-day Canada.)
Although the Russian government did
not want to lose Alaska, it thought it
would be better to receive
compensation for the territory from an
ally than lose it in battle to an enemy.
In 1867, Secretary of State William H.
Seward met with Russian diplomats
and,after an all-night negotiating session that ended at 4 a.m.,arranged for the United States to purchase Alaska
for the cost of $7.2 million - about two cents an acre. At the time, the purchase was widely unpopular among
Americans, partly because President Andrew Johnson was himself suffering from very low approval. Critics
of the purchase derided Alaska as "Seward's Folly" or "Andrew Johnson's Polar Bear Garden," arguing that it
was ridiculous to purchase land so far away from the rest of the United States. American attitudes quickly
changed, however, with the discovery of gold in Alaska in the 1890s. In 1959, nearly one hundred years after
it became an American territory, Alaska became the 49th state of the United States.
Throughout the 19th century, Britain,
France, and the United States all
showed special interest in the
independent island nation of Hawaii.
The three nations competed with each
other to gain special trading priveleges
there. Towards the end of the century,
however, American sugar plantation
owners came to increasingly dominate
the Hawaiian economy. These wealthy
planters wanted Hawaii to become a
part of the United States, so they could
sell the sugar that they raised to
Americans without worrying about the
U.S. government imposing a tariff (or
tax on imported goods). A tariff would
make their sugar more expensive for
American consumers, and thus would
have decreased the planters' profits.
When the Hawaiian leader, Queen Liluokalani, sensed a threat from the increasing power held by the
American planters, she tried to strenthen the monarchial government. In response, in 1893 a group of
American planters led by Samuel Dole organized a coup and deposed her. In 1894, Dole sent a delegation to
Washington, D.C., to ask the United States to annex Hawaii, but President Grover Cleveland opposed
annexation and argued that the queen should be restored. Dole then declared Hawaii an independent republic.
In 1898, a new president, William McKinley, came to office and agreed to annex the islands. Hawaii became
the 50th state of the Union in 1959.