1. The Mexican-American War
Manifest Destiny Realized

2. Word about Texas spread throughout the U. S
Word about Texas spread throughout the U.S. with posters boldly stating, “Go to Texas!” Confident that Texas eventually would yield great wealth, Americans increasingly discussed extending the U.S. boundaries to the Rio Grande. President John Quincy Adams offered to buy Texas for $1 million; Jackson later upped the bid to $5 million. Mexico not only refused to sell Texas but also began to regret its hospitality to Anglo immigrants.
“Go to Texas!”

3. As Texas’ Anglo population surged, tensions grew with Mexico over cultural differences, as well as slavery. The overwhelmingly Protestant settlers spoke English rather than Spanish. Many of the settlers were Southern cotton or sugar farmers who had brought their slaves with them to Texas. Mexico, which abolished slavery in 1824, insisted that the Texans free their slaves.
“Get Out of Texas!”

4. 1.Texas War for Independence
Despite new immigration restrictions, the Anglo population of Texas doubled between 1830 and By 1835, more than 1,000 Anglos each month streamed into Texas. A year later, Texas’s population included only 3,500 Tejanos, 12,000 Native Americans, 45,000 Anglos, and 5,000 African Americans.
1.Texas War for Independence
-Mexico encouraged Americans to settle in Texas by giving land grants to empresarios.
-Conditions placed on American settlers moving to Texas:
1)Settlers must worship as Roman Catholics.
2)Anglo-Texans must become Mexican citizens.
3)No slavery
Anglo population surged in Texas; Mexico closed borders, ended slavery, & heavily taxed American goods
Mexico could not “police” this; Anglo population doubled

5. 1.Texas War for Independence
Despite new immigration restrictions, the Anglo population of Texas doubled between 1830 and By 1835, more than 1,000 Anglos each month streamed into Texas. A year later, Texas’s population included only 3,500 Tejanos, 12,000 Native Americans, 45,000 Anglos, and 5,000 African Americans.
1.Texas War for Independence
-Stephen F. Austin asked Mexican leader Santa Anna for self-government for Texas
Santa Anna has Austin jailed
-Santa Anna revoked local powers of Mexican states, inciting Texas War for Independence/other rebellions
-Determined to enforce Mexican laws, Santa Anna leads 4,000 troops to the old Spanish mission The Alamo
Surrounds Texans
-All 187 Texans die defending the Alamo, including Bowie/Crockett
-”Remember the Alamo!” battle cry
6 weeks later, Texans strike back
-Led by Sam Houston, Texans defeated Santa Anna and won independence

6. 2.The Lone Star Republic
-In 1836, Sam Houston became President of the Republic of Texas
“Lone Star Republic” with constitution based on the U.S. Constitution
-In 1838, Houston invited the U.S. to annex (add) Texas to the U.S.
-Opinion over annexation of Texas divided along sectional lines
1.South want to extend slavery into Texas
2.North feared that annexing Texas would add more slave states
-Election of 1844 had debate on expansion; Polk promised if elected he would annex Texas
Texas annexed in 1845

7. Northerners opposed war with Mexico
Northerners opposed war with Mexico. Antislavery Whigs and abolitionists saw the war as a plot to expand slavery and ensure Southern domination of the Union.
Southerners saw the annexation of Texas as an opportunity to extend slavery and increase Southern power in Congress. The Wilmot Proviso’s attack on slavery solidified Southern support for the war by transforming the debate on war into a debate on slavery.
3.Mexican War Begins
-Polk believed war with Mexico would give U.S. New Mexico and California
-Sent John Slidell to Mexico to purchase N.M. and California, get Rio Grande as border of Texas
Mexico refuses to see Slidell
-Polk sends Zachary Taylor to blockade the Rio Grande to protect it as the border of Texas
-Debate over war with Mexico also divided along sectional lines
South supports/North opposes
Wilmot Proviso tries to stop slavery’s expansion into Mexican territory
-John C. Fremont led an exploration party through California, further angering Mexico
-Mexico sent troops across Rio Grande, killing 9 U.S. soldiers
U.S. declares war against Mexico
DEBATE OVER
WAR WITH MEXICO

8. ~President James K. Polk, 1846
“…Mexico has passed the boundary of the United States, has invaded our territory and shed American blood upon American soil…War exists.”
~President James K. Polk, 1846
4.The U.S. Defeats Mexico
-Stephen Kearny marches from Kansas to claim New Mexico
New Mexico falls to the U.S. without a shot being fired
-California settlers, led by John C. Fremont, claimed California’s independence in the Bear Flag Revolt
Met by Kearny to defeat Mexican troops in California
-American generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott invade Mexico
Invasion lasts about a year, pushing Mexican troops into Mexico’s interior
-U.S. troops under leaders Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant were defeating Mexican soldiers
Wear down Mexican soldiers
-Scott captures Mexico city; U.S. defeats Mexico
Major Generals Zachary Taylor (left) and Winfield Scott (right) invade and defeat Mexico

11. For Mexico, the war in which it lost at least 25,000 lives and nearly half its land marked an ugly milestone in its relations with the U.S. America’s victory came at the cost of about 13,000 lives. Of these, nearly 2,000 died in battle or from wounds and more than 11,000 perished from diseases, such as yellow fever. However, the war enlarged the U.S. territory by approximately one-third.
5.The Spoils of War
-U.S. and Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
-Rio Grande as the border of Texas; Mexico ceded (gave up) New Mexico and California to the U.S.
-U.S. agreed to pay $15 million for the Mexican Cession
Present-day California, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming
-Guaranteed Mexicans living in old Mexican territory certain protections
-Five years later, President Franklin Pierce sends James Gadsden to pay Mexico $10 million for another piece of land in southern Arizona
Gadsden Purchase; for railroads
-Between the Mexican Cession & Gadsden Purchase, the area of the United States was increased by approximately 1/3 (!)
-Whig war hero Zachary Taylor elected President in 1848
In the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexico agreed to the Rio Grande border for Texas and ceded NM and CA to the U.S. The U.S. agreed to pay $15 million for the Mexican cession, and the treaty guaranteed Mexicans living in these territories freedom of religion, protection of property, bilingual elections, and open borders.

13. In 1848, the Democrats nominated Lewis Cass for president and hesitated about the extension of slavery into America’s vast new holdings from Mexico.
A small group of antislavery Democrats from the North nominated Martin Van Buren to lead a new party called the Free-Soil Party, which supported a Congressional prohibition of the extension of slavery into the territories. Van Buren captured 10% of the popular vote, but he received no electoral votes.
The Whig nominee, Zachary Taylor, easily won the election. Taylor’s victory, though, was soon overshadowed by a glittering discovery in one of America’s new territories.

14. “The whole country resounds with the sordid cry of gold, GOLD, GOLD
“The whole country resounds with the sordid cry of gold, GOLD, GOLD! while the field is left half-plowed, the house half-built, and everything neglected but the manufacture of shovels and pickaxes.”
~Californian, final issue editorial, 1848
6.California Gold Rush
-In 1848, gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill in the California Sierra Nevada Mountains
Word quickly traveled east
-Migration to California skyrocketed
-Among the “Forty-Niners,” the prospectors who flocked to California in 1849 in the gold rush, were people from Asia, South America, and Europe
Began dangerous mining towns called “boomtowns”; left behind “ghost towns”
-California’s population exceeded 100,000 people and was very diverse
Chinese, Mexicans, and free blacks the largest groups of migrants
Many stayed in West when found nothing and could not move back
-In 1850, California applied for statehood, beginning a fierce fight in Congress over the expansion of slavery
“The blacksmith dropped his hammer, the carpenter his plane, the mason his trowel, the farmer his sickle, the baker his loaf, and the tapster his bottle. All were off for the mines…I have only a community of women left, and a gang of prisoners, with here and there a soldier who will give his captain the slip at first chance. I don’t blame the fellow a whit; seven dollars a month, while others are making two or three hundred a day!”
~California: A Bicentennial History