Manifest Destiny | American History Flipped Classroom

Welcome students and teachers. This is another episode of Lessons in Humanities. The title of today's lesson is Manifest Destiny. Today, I will be talking about the further expansion of the settlers into the West and the conflicts they would have with the many Native American tribes, including the Comanche. I will also talk about the newly developed Republic of Texas, the annexation of the United States of Texas, plus the Mexican-American War, which will fulfill the manifest destiny that the Americans were striving for. So, if you think that is interesting, please stick around. Before I begin today's lecture, I would just like to let you know, if you are interested in this PowerPoint presentation or the Google Slides version of it, please visit my store below. And also, there's a lot of great lesson plans on the Lessons in Humanities store, worksheets, primary source activities, lots of great stuff. So, please visit it. And of course, before we start, please give me a thumbs up and subscribe. That would really help my channel. Let's begin. So, from what you can see in this picture, we see this image of a woman or a goddess or a spirit moving into the frontier. So, this is kind of the traditional picture that is often depicted when people talk about manifest destiny. And you can see the settlers and their wagons with their horses moving west, and the railroads, and the telegraph. In the background, you can see New York and some steamboats in the Hudson River. And then, if you look in the bottom left there, you see Native Americans moving into the dark. So, this is kind of the idea of manifest destiny at that time. Now, this is 1800s when manifest destiny became very relevant. It was coined in the year 1845. So, we're at the end of this timeline. So, in the 1800s, the United States would expand rapidly, right? So, in 1800, which is only about 25 years after the American Revolution or after the founding of the United States, 24 to be exact, you know, 1803 actually is when Jefferson would purchase, Louisiana purchased, which would double the size of the United States. And then, for the rest of the next 50 years, more and more settlers would be moving west. So, for this lecture, we'll be discussing this later period and what will lead up to the Mexican-American War. So, first, it's useful to look at the map and see the development from the early colonies, which grew rapidly when this was British America. But eventually, it would become the United States of America. And they would go all the way to the Mississippi River. And of course, like I just mentioned, it would be the Louisiana Purchase, which would double the size of the United States. And the United States would go all the way to the Midwest. And it wouldn't be until after the Mexican-American War that the United States would get the territories, which in this map is the Utah Territory, the New Mexico Territory, and then, of course, California. So, this is what Manifest Destiny is. And this is going to be reached after the Mexican-American War. Let's see how it got there. First of all, this is a quote, okay? So, this is a quote from a man named John L. O'Sullivan. And he was a columnist and an editor. And he's the one who famously coined Manifest Destiny. And you can see it in this text right here. He used it in an essay for the Democratic Review publication. And this man, O'Sullivan, was very well known and influential. And he was a Democrat. And a lot of the Democrats at the time believed in Manifest Destiny. A lot of the Whigs did not. Now, the same year that O'Sullivan wrote this essay, the United States actually annexed Texas. And that's going to lead to the Mexican-American War. And that's going to lead to all the territory in the New Mexico area, and the modern-day Arizona area, and California. So, his quote goes like this, this question of the reception of Texas into the Union 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. So, there's a lot in this text that you can see. But the United States, especially the Democrats, and a lot of people in government and in control, and of course, citizens were accusing Mexico of hampering their power and limiting their greatness. Because Texas was independent when they annexed it to the United States, but Mexico thought it was theirs, or it really was theirs before it became an independent republic. But this idea of Providence or God, so there is a religious connotation to this idea, this kind of superiority complex, I guess you could say, plus this religious duty to go all the way to the West. That was a popular mindset in the mid-1800s. Now, he coined this phrase in 1845, but this had been going on for a long time. There's this idea that it was inevitable that the United States would move all the way to the West, which it will, and make it a world power. So, Manifest Destiny. Manifest Destiny, as it says here in this slide, is just a long-held belief, well before it was coined in 1845 by O'Sullivan. And it was a belief in the 1800s that the American settlers were destined to expand to the Pacific Ocean. And I should mention, it also encompassed the idea of expanding into the Caribbean, like Cuba and other places. This was a divine call to spread democracy to the West. So, it was this idea that the United States was a leader in the which Monroe, James Monroe, president, he told the Western, or sorry, the European nations to stay out of the Western Hemisphere. So, he's setting the stage for American dominance in the Western Hemisphere. Now, this would lead to territorial expansion of the U.S., but also devastation of the Native American tribes. So, at one point, it was hard to get through the Native American tribes, right? That was one limitation to moving West, especially when you had powerful nations like the Comanches. But over time, with more settlers and more and more people, the multiplying millions, as O'Sullivan said, it wasn't quite that many at that time, but it would be eventually, settlers would overtake the Native American tribes. And we'll talk a lot about that today. Also, as I mentioned earlier, the Democrats generally believed in this, and the Whigs did not. The Whigs, and then later the Republicans, they didn't believe in this. But this idea of Manifest Destiny followed the Jeffersonian, and later Jacksonian idea of a democratic agrarian republic that would be an example for the world. So, it kind of sounds like that city upon a hill, you know, John Winthrop, back in the 1600s. Now, some notable Americans who were against the idea of Manifest Destiny include Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and many more. Some people that believed in Manifest Destiny included the Young American Movement. So, the Young American Movement, well, this was founded in 1845, the same year as O'Sullivan. In fact, O'Sullivan was a part of creating this movement. And they advocated for free trade and social reform, territorial expansion. They believed in American exceptionalism and support for Republican anti-aristocratic movements abroad. So, I think you see some of that today with this idea of American exceptionalism. So, a lot of Americans might get criticized for this idea, where others will say this is just being patriotic and having faith and admiration for your own country. So, it could be French exceptionalism or Spanish exceptionalism or Chinese exceptionalism. Some people will argue that, while other people will say it's kind of an arrogant, you know, superiority complex in a way. But whatever, no matter what people think, this was an ideology at that time. And these type of people were supporting Manifest Destiny. So, Western Migration. So, Western Migration, after the War of 1812, there were more settlers that moved to the Great Lakes regions. So, of course, that was controlled by Native Americans like Tecumseh and his Confederacy. It was also controlled by, there were lots of British out there, especially in Canada. So, after the War of 1812, it was opened up for Americans to expand into that region. Now, of course, the Missouri Compromise in 1812, now that had been part of the Louisiana Purchase since 1803, but it takes some time for people to get over there, right? Without roads and canals and steamships in the early 1800s, it was very difficult to go over land. It was easier to go over the Atlantic Ocean. So, with enough people in Missouri, and they brought a lot of slaves from the South, and then some Northerners came too as well. This was the first major confrontation about moving to the South. Sorry, about moving to the West. Let me correct myself. So, this is when there was a conflict whether it should be a slave state or a free state. So, the North wanted it to be a free state, the South wanted it to be a slave state. So, this was about morals, about ethics, but it was also about power. So, if the slave states had one extra state than the North, they would have more power in Congress and the Electoral College, and the same with the North. So, that was converted, a disaster, a potential civil war with the Missouri Compromise, where they added another state, Maine, as a free state and Missouri would be a slave state. But this problem will not end, and we won't see it much in today's presentation, but at the very end, when they gain all that territory, including California and New Mexico, there has to be more decisions like this. Are they going to be slave states or free states? That will lead to a civil war. But nonetheless, expansion west of Missouri was limited in the early mid-1800s. First of all, farmland was not fertile enough. It was difficult. They would be able to create farms, but it was not as fertile as other lands in the United States or even further west of the Midwest into Oregon, which was fertile. Of course, the Rocky Mountains were too difficult to pass. That was a treat. Now, the only people that would really go that far would be the fur traders, because they could find Native Americans and trade, but that was difficult to get over. And the Native Americans were strong, especially the Comanches, and I'm going to devote a portion of this lecture on the Comanches. Now, of course, there's also a racist belief in here that the Native Americans, from some Americans' point of view, were inferior, and that the democratic, liberal, agrarian society like Jefferson and Jackson wanted to create, or even from the northerners, the more industrial perspective, there was this idea of white superiority at that time. That doesn't mean everybody, but a large percentage, of course. So, there's going to be conflicts with the Native Americans, and there's going to be territorial expansion. So, a lot of Americans and settlers had this feeling of religious duty to bring these constitutions, these governmental ideals, and their religion, their Christian religion to the West. So, there was a religious duty to do that. But, like I mentioned in the last slide, there's also this racist belief as well, which would lead to more expansion to the West, but that would bring conflicts with the Native Americans. And some of the Native Americans in the West were just too strong at that time, and it would be difficult in the early 1800s to get by that, in addition to not having railroads or enough roads to get over there. Of course, we have the Indian Removal Act in the Trail of Tears. So, this is actually in the Southeast. But, this is one of the problems that the Americans had for expanding their empire, I guess you could say. This is not the empire of the late 1800s, of the United States expanding. It was difficult because of this. And this is what they would call the Indian Problem. Now, this is obviously from the American perspective, more so the white American perspective, because the Native Americans had been in what is now the United States and the Americas for thousands and tens of thousands of years. But, from the American perspective, it was the Indian Problem. So, I can only imagine from the Native American perspective, it was the white problem. But nonetheless, in the Southwest, there were Native Americans, Cherokees and Chickasaws and Seminoles and Creeks and Choctaw, amongst other Native American tribes. Some of these tribes actually became very Americanized. The way they dressed, and some converted to Christian. Some even had slaves. So, they picked up that terrible institutional practice from the South. But nonetheless, they were wanted to be moved by a certain percentage of the Americans. And they were removed forcibly. I mean, the Indian Removal Act was basically a forced signed treaty. So, they weren't just pushed out right away. They were a little bit a few years later, under the administration of Martin Van Buren, they would actually be forced out by certain tribes, like the Cherokee, would be forced out by the military. But originally, when it was signed underneath Andrew Jackson, it was supposed to be a treaty or a signature where Native Americans would agree to move. And they would be paid and given help when they moved across the Mississippi, mostly into the Oklahoma area. But it didn't work out that well. Some didn't want to leave, some refused to leave. And they were enforced by the military, like I said. And this would lead to what is known in history as the Trail of Tears. And there would be about 46,000 Native Americans forcibly moved. And approximately 4,000 died on this journey. Some estimates are much more than that. So, it's impossible to exactly know. Many did die on the way over. Yep. So, this was part of fixing that, quote unquote, the Indian problem. This is in the Southeast, and this is going to open up land for the Americans. And it's also going to, and they own Florida, it's also going to give them opportunity to move into the Caribbean area, like Cuba. And the Caribbean area is part of Manifest Destiny, right? When we think of Manifest Destiny, we think of just moving to the West, all the way to Florida, but, sorry, California. But it also includes going into the Caribbean. Now, the Seminole Wars. So, the Seminole Wars are interesting. So, here, so the Seminole Wars, this happened in Florida, right? This happened in the United States and Florida. Actually, it was Spanish Florida at the beginning. So, this was three different wars. And like I said, this was Spanish Florida, belonging to the Spanish. But there were three wars with the United States and the Seminoles. And the first Seminole War, I only have two on the screen here, but the first Seminole War was between 1816 and 1819. And, you know, there was a population of indigenous peoples in Florida region, which declined rapidly in the 1500s with the Spanish. And then the Creek Native Americans, which were kind of in the southern part of the United States, not quite the Florida area, more like the Alabama, Mississippi area, Louisiana area. Some of them would move into Spanish Florida in the 1700s. And then through what the Spanish called them, and the name got changed over time, they would become Seminoles. But they're really Creek Native Americans. Now, the Seminoles were attacking Americans on the border between Spanish Florida and the United States. They're also helping black slaves escape and sometimes arming them and helping them go to freed colonies, or they would become part of the tribes, some of the blacks would become part of the tribes of the Seminoles. And the Americans didn't want that. So, this is the first Seminole War. Basically, Andrew Jackson was sent down to stop this. And his directions were very unclear from James Monroe at the time. And then the Secretary of State was John Quincy Adams. His instructions were unclear. And then if you don't know anything about Andrew Jackson, he's kind of a guy who does whatever he wants. So, he basically did a full-scale attack on Florida. And lots of the troops were in Florida at that time. In Spain, they couldn't protect themselves from it. They didn't have enough people there. And they had other territories to be concerned with. So, they actually just agreed to cede Florida to the United States. And this would be called the Adams-Onís Treaty. So, Adams, that's the Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, and Onís would be the representative for the Spanish. But because of this, the United States got Florida. So, that's territorial expansion. Now, is that included in Manifest Destiny? Well, I guess you remember this is just an idea, a historical idea that we look at. Back then, they didn't call it Manifest Destiny. And they didn't call it Manifest Destiny in the 1840s and 1850s after it had been coined. It's how we chunk history into different time periods. But this could be considered because they expanded to Florida. Then the Second Seminole War was in 35 to 42 in the 1800s. And this is part of the Indian Removal Act. So, by force, the Seminoles fought back. Of course, there's a third one. And that's just another attempt by the Seminoles to stop American encroachment in that area. So, after the Indian Removal Act and the Trail of Tears, some Native Americans did remain in the southeast. They refused to leave. All right. So, we have the Black Hawk War. So, the Black Hawk War, this happened up near the Illinois area in Sox, Meskwaki, and Kickapoo. Please correct my pronunciation if anybody here can help me with that. In the Illinois area, they tried to reclaim some land that was there, that was lost. And this is just a brief conflict. And it took place and local tribes were forced to move to the Kansas area. The important thing about here is we see this continuity in American history of Native Americans continually being moved farther and farther to the west. And this can go back to the 1600s with the Pequot Wars or King Phillips Wars, which happened in New England, where they were forced out of their ancestral lands. Even Bacon's Rebellion, which was part of a rebellion against the local government, but also included the Native Americans in the area. And then the Indian Removal Act, and then the Trail of Tears, the Black Hawk War, and many other examples in early American histories of Americans moving out the Native Americans to the west. So, that's the important point here. Now, these Native American tribes, they're going to be moving to the west, as I mentioned, right? And this is new land to them. But of course, there's already a lot of Native American tribes in the west. Hundreds, right? In the 1800s, and certainly a lot more back in the 1400s when the Spanish first came. But before the Civil War, approximately 60,000 Native Americans were forced from the east to the west. But there were already many tribes, Native American tribes in the west, some of them very powerful, like the Comanches. So, let's talk about the Comanches. So, in the 1700s, they became the most powerful tribe in the southwest. They mastered the use of horses, which were brought over by the Spanish. So, they were around much earlier than the 1700s, but the most powerful tribes at that time were the ones who were able to get horses and breed them, and learn how to ride them, and saddle them, and take care of them, and make them strong. This was like a technology back then. So, the people who learned how to do that, the Native Americans learned how to do it, became the strongest. In the 1700s, those were the Comanches. And the Comanches, which we will learn soon, are going to be partly responsible for the Mexican American War. Not only that, the Mexican American War is going to lead to the Civil War. So, I think you can find a connection there. Let's talk about that. But in 1821, Mexico, it became independent from Spain. So, they claimed land controlled by the Comanches, but the Comanches were too powerful and would not leave. In the 1830s, the Comanches did routinely attack Mexico. So, Mexico, this new nation, they routinely attacked, thousands of attacks by the Comanches. And a lot of them were in kind of the Texas area, Oklahoma area, New Mexico area. And they befriended a lot of American traders. So, this was Mexico at that time. This is not America, but there's a lot of American settlers that moved into this area, and they brought their slaves. But they befriended a lot of the American traders. And they joined forces with other tribes like the Kiowa, the Apache, and the Navajo. And they launched thousands of attacks on Mexico. So, again, my friends, if you can help me with some of the pronunciation of some of these tribes, I'm not very good at it. But in the 1840s, they actually have their own country. And maybe country is a misnomer, but it was actually a territory controlled by the Comanches. So, Comanche area. And this is when their power peaked. So, they traded with the Republic of Texas, which had become independent by that point, I should mention. And then they raided in Mexico. So, this was a real problem for the Mexicans. Okay, here's a map of the territory for the Comanches. So, you can see it goes from the northern central part of Texas to New Mexico and Oklahoma and Kansas, which are the states that are there now. And they were fierce. And the Americans couldn't get past them, moving to the west, and they were a burden to the Mexicans. Now, here's an interesting story. There's a woman. Her name was Cynthia Ann Parker. And she was a white girl in Texas. She was born in Illinois, and she moved down to Texas with her father. And he was supposed to stop some of the raids of the Comanches. But at 10 years old, Parker was kidnapped by the Comanches in northern central Texas. Now, the Comanches could be brutal. So, sometimes they would kidnap some people on their raids, and they would kill others. For example, babies. They were too busy riding on horses and raiding that they couldn't take care of a baby. So, they would kill the baby. But a 10-year-old girl, they would kidnap. And that's what they did with Cynthia Ann Parker. So, she was raised by the Comanches, and she completely forgot about her American culture, her white traditions. And she adapted Comanche traditions. In fact, she married a Comanche chieftain. His name was Pita Nocona. And she had three children with the chieftain. One of the children would also become a Comanche chieftain. His name was Quena Parker. But nonetheless, she was rescued. I should put that in quotation marks. 24 years later, people found her, and they realized that she had been kidnapped by the Comanches. She was brought back to the white society with only two of her, only one of her children, I'm sorry, two of them were left behind. But she could not adapt to white society. She didn't want to adapt to white society, and she lost two of her children, and her third one had died from disease. So, she refused to eat food and died, basically committed suicide. Now, this is interesting because often in the history books, and from an American perspective, you think, well, you know, why would you want to live this different lifestyle like the Native Americans? But she got that experience, and that was what she was used to. And from that perspective, that's what she wanted, right? It's kind of like Benjamin Franklin, you know, he wrote to some local Native Americans in the 1700s. Or not him, some other people, some of his compatriots, some people from that time period, you know, offered the local Native Americans to bring them into their schools and educate them like the white people of New England at that time. And they said, well, no, sorry, we don't want that. We've done that before. The Native Americans said that in the New England area. They said, we don't want that. We've done that. They came back weak, and they couldn't hunt, and they couldn't survive in the cold, or they couldn't survive in work long hours. So, we offer you to come to our side, and we'll treat your boys to be like men, and hunt, and live in the wild. So, it's all about perspective. Development in the West. So, though there are hundreds of tribes in the West, in Mexico, and settlers continue to move to the West, right? And they would set up camps along little navigatable rivers, and built these little towns. When the railroads started coming later, they would build towns near the railroads, and that'd be very profitable for the towns. And it would also be away from rivers, which was unusual for that time. As competition increased in the East, and more immigrants came into the United States, more and more people would journey to the West. But as I mentioned before, part of the West is Mexico and Comanches. But in the 1800s, we have the Market Revolution, which helped them move easier. Like the railroads, like I just mentioned. Also, like the canals, and the steamships, and the roads. It's going to make it much easier to move to the West. And actually, in 1811, there was a federally funded National Road. It went from Maryland to Illinois, so people in the Far East could at least get to Illinois, and then take other paths to the West. But there was difficulties, because moving to the West, sometimes they would have to take loans. And there would be a boom and bust economy in the Market Revolution. And this would make it hard for people to repay their loans, especially if they weren't selling commodities, or whatever way they were earning money. But nonetheless, manifest destiny continued. But there was a problem. Texas and Mexico were in the way. So, let's take a look here. So, in 1821, Mexico became a country. So, there's the Mexico War of Independence between 1808 and 1821. Now, the Spaniards had controlled large portions of the New World since the 1500s. But in 1821, Mexico defeated the Spaniards, and became their own independent country. And they made their own constitution in 1824. Now, Texas at that time was Mexico. It was a part of Mexico. So, the newly independent Mexico, they actually wanted to create a buffer zone between the Comanches. Like I said, they were attacking Mexico, and they were dangerous. So, they needed some type of buffer zone. So, they actually wanted settlers to move into the Texas area to create that buffer zone. So, they were welcoming to Americans, who were mostly settlers who came into that area. And it should be mentioned, they brought their slaves, which will be part of the slave question moving forward. But there was conflicts that arose, because too many Americans came, right? So, too many Americans came, and they were bringing their traditions, and bringing slaves, which Mexicans didn't want. And to stop these conflicts, Mexico tried to stop the massive immigration. So, at first, they wanted the Americans to come to buffer, and protect, or kind of put a buffer between them and the Comanches. And later, they wanted to leave. And how were they going to make them leave? They were going to outlaw slavery. They were going to acquire Americans, who were mostly Protestants, to convert to Catholicism, to become Catholics. And they were going to do some new tax laws. But the Americans ignored this, and more and more came to the Texas area. So, we're going to have the Texas Revolution. That's going to be another part of the story. So, in 1834, there's this guy named Antonio de López de Santillana. Let's just call him Santillana. That's easier. He became the President of Mexico. Now, he was a dictator. He was very, he believed in a greatly centralized government. Now, he repudiated the Mexican Constitution of 1824. So, the Texans, well, actually, the Texans, and especially the Texan Americans that were living there, they supported the Constitution. So, they requested to become a separate state within Mexico. But Santillana, the dictator, refused. So, the Texans declared independence. And that's going to bring the Texas Revolution. So, Texas Revolution, I mean, the most famous battles was Alamo and Goliad. And these were attacks where the Texans were greatly outnumbered by Santillana and the Mexican forces. And hundreds of Texans were massacred. And this really encouraged more Texans to join the fight, because stories of this massacre came out. And people started saying, remember the Alamo, right? And there would be a battle with more support from local Texans called the Battle of San Jacinto. And this was, and my Spanish friends, please help me with that pronunciation as well. So, this was a decisive battle. It was only an 18-minute battle. And the Texans took revenge for the Alamo and Goliad. But in this battle, or shortly after, around this time period, Santillana was captured. And he was the leader, the president of Mexico, and he was forced to sign a treaty, the Treaty of Velasco. And this acknowledged Texas independence. And there was a new government of Mexico that didn't want Santillana to do this. They said, he's not our leader anymore. And we do not recognize the Republic of Texas. But the United States did recognize the Republic of Texas. So, we have a new country. But Mexico doesn't think it's a new country. But the United States does. And that's the Republic of Texas. So, they're going to be from 1836 to 1845 before they become a part of the United States. Now, before I talk about the annexation of Texas, and then the later Mexican-American War, let's go over a few of the presidents at this time period and their relevance. So, we have William Henry Harrison. He's the first Whig president. And he was only president for 31 days. He got sick. He did a long inaugural speech. He didn't wear a coat. He was cold out. And 31 days later, he died. Now, did he die because of that long speech? That's not a fact. Some people argue that that's true. But nonetheless, he gave the longest speech in American history. And he had the shortest presidency of only 31 days. So, he was the ninth president and the first Whig president. And the Whigs didn't generally believe in manifest destiny or attacking or annexing Texas or further expanding the United States. But he was replaced by John Tyler. And John Tyler was a slave-holding Southerner who was supposedly a Whig. But he didn't really lead like a Whig. In fact, Harrison only put him on the ticket to get support in the South. In fact, he was a Democrat. But he didn't agree with Andrew Jackson's crisis in the late 1820s and 1830s. So, he became a Whig. So, he would replace Harrison. And because he was not a true Whig and he did things like veto a bill for a new national government twice, which was something the Whigs believed in, he was kicked out of the Whig party. So, he was still president, but the Whigs evicted him from the party. And he was basically a lame duck president, if you will, and not very successful. And right before he left office, he decided to annex Texas. Now, this is relevant because the question about annexing Texas had been around for quite a while, even back in the Andrew Jackson periods. But why did John Tyler do it, being a Whig? Well, number one, he wasn't really a Whig. And number two, it's argued that he wanted to have some type of legacy or prominence. So, he did it right before he left office. And also, the president who won in 1844 is going to be the guy on the lower left picture there, James Polk. And this guy was a passionate Manifest Destiny idealist. And he knew that he was going to annex Texas, because that was the big question of the day. So, John Tyler said, hey, why don't I do it anyways? And of course, James Polk comes into the presidency. And the United States already has Texas, but there's a border dispute between the United States and the Texas area and Mexico. And that's going to lead to the Mexican-American War, Mr. Polk's War. And one of the great leaders in Mr. Polk's War is Zachary Taylor. And Zachary Taylor, he was one of the great leaders in the Mexican-American War, and he will be the next president. Polk only agrees to be the president for four years. Okay. So, the annexation of Texas. So, this happened in 1845, like I said, underneath John Tyler. But you have to remember, there's a lot of Americans already in Texas, right? So, a lot of them would be happy to join Texas or join the United States. Let's see here. So, the big fear, though, was a fear of a war with Mexico, which will happen. And there's also a fear that there will be more conflicts between the North and the South over the slavery question. That will also happen. They will be realized. And people remember what happened during the Missouri Compromise. They were worried that would also happen with adding Texas, not to mention other states that would come later. But they do it. It was President Tyler who did it right before he left, and James Polk would support this, of course. And Texas would be next to the United States, and they would become another state of the United States. And Mexico, as expected, will be furious, which will lead to the Mexican-American War. So, it wasn't exactly just Texas that led to it. So, there's land between Mexico and the U.S. that was disputed. So, there's the Nueces River and the Rio Grande. It's a small strip of land where there were no Americans or Mexicans. There were only Native Americans. But both claimed it to be their land. So, I think this was more of a power grab. But nonetheless, James Polk, he sent a diplomat to Mexico to buy this land, this Nueces Strip, this land between the Rio Grande and Nueces River. And he also offered to buy California and the New Mexico Territory, the southwest of what is today the United States. But many historians believe that this was an empty gesture, that Polk wanted to say he tried diplomacy before war. And Mexico, of course, refused Polk's offer. And that's going to lead to a war. So, Mr. Polk's war, Mexican-American War. So, there's no war right now. So, he offers to buy this territory. And he offers to buy California and the New Mexico Territory. And Mexico refuses. So, Polk, who is kind of this guy who is like Andrew Jackson-like, they call him the young Hickory. They called old Hickory Andrew Jackson. So, he really looked up to Andrew Jackson. And if you know anything about Andrew Jackson, this was a very hot-headed, strong president, controversial president. So, Polk, he sends 4,000 soldiers under the leadership of Zachary Taylor, who will be the next president, to Corpus Christi in Texas. It's near the border of the disputed area. Polk ordered Taylor to cross into the disputed area. Now, when the soldiers crossed over, 11 American soldiers were killed. And the war would begin. But it should be mentioned that historians and many argue that when he sent those soldiers into the disputed area, that his sole purpose was for Mexico to fire the first shots, the first shots, and then war would begin. He could blame it on Mexico and get the support of Congress, which he did. Congress supported, and the Mexican-American War had begun. So, the Mexican-American War is from 1846 to 1848. They fought on numerous fronts. One front was in northern Mexico with Zachary Taylor. And the second front was, well, it was the first amphibious assault in American history. So, this was Winfield Scott. He went through the Gulf of Mexico to Veracruz. So, they sailed to Veracruz, they hiked for miles to the Mexico City, which was the capital of Mexico. And the trail they took, which was on purpose, was they took the same trail that Hernan Cortez and his troops took in 1519 when they conquered Tenochtitlan. And Tenochtitlan was Mexico City. It's what the Aztecs called Mexico City before the Spanish took it over. So, they take the same route, and they conquer Mexico City, much like the Spanish did in 1519. And for four months, the American military will control Mexico City, and that's the capital. So, they're going to control it until they have a treaty. And they're going to have a treaty. It's called the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. So, Winfield Scott, the general, and his troops, controlled the city for four months. And the United States, finally, with Mexico, had an agreement that they would be given Texas area, New Mexico territory, which includes Arizona, California, and even parts of what is today Nevada, and Colorado, and Oklahoma. So, Manifest Destiny would be realized with the defeat of the Mexicans in the Mexican-American War. Now, the new American Southwest, it would attract a lot of entrepreneurs and settlers, so many Americans would move into this area. It would also help make the United States a world power. Zachary Taylor would also become the president. He's one of the great leaders in this battle with Mexico. He would become the president, who would also die in office, unfortunately. But the Mexican-American War, this was like a training for the upcoming Civil War generals, like Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, Thomas Stonewall Jackson, William Tecumseh Sherman, George McClellan, and many more. So, this was like a warm-up for the Civil War, which was becoming very soon. And that's another important thing to mention about the Mexican-American War. You can consider this like a turning point. This is going to lead to the Civil War, because there's going to be disputes about territories. These new territories, they have to become states. And, you know, there was just a huge battle and compromise made in Missouri in the 1820s. So, naturally, there'd be more battles and disputes over the continuation or the expansion of slavery into these territories. But it's going to be gold that is going to make a lot of people move to the West. So, you know, gold was found there in 1848. So, before that time, it was difficult to get to the West, right? I mean, the Spanish had been there for a while. It was mostly Native Americans that had been there for thousands and ten thousands of years. But, you know, in the 1500s and 1600s, there'd be missionary cities, small cities by the Spanish that was very spread out and sparse. And some Americans would go there, but it was really, really difficult to get to, right? I mean, there's mountains, there's bad weather, there wasn't very good trades, sorry, trails. People starved trying to get there. And of course, Native American conflicts would also hamper Americans' ability to get there even before it became the United States. In fact, it was Oregon, which was more attractive than California to most people because it had more fertile land. And in 1848, there was about 20,000 Americans that were west of the Rocky Mountains, and three-fourths of those Americans were in Oregon. And they took the infamous Oregon Trail, which was a large, where large-wheeled wagons could go from the Mississippi River to Oregon. But like I said, in 1848, gold was discovered in California, and the population boomed. For example, in San Francisco in 1848, they had 500 people. In 1853, they had 50,000 people. So adventurists, rugged individualists, and fortune-seekers poured into California. Now, there were fights in Congress. They wanted to build a transcontinental railroad that went all the way to California, and they will eventually build it. But this was a big controversy, like which route would it take? Because if it went through, for example, St. Louis, or Chicago, or other major cities, or even small cities, it would really improve those local economies. But they wanted to get more and more people out to the west. Now, there's going to be some problems as more and more people try to go to California, or they develop in other cities in these new territories in the west. There's lots of lawlessness. There's a lot of people that went there to look for gold and never found it. There were racial conflicts, and there was the everlasting dispute over slavery. There was also lots of migrants that would move to this area. For example, before, there was lots of Irish and Germans that would come to the United States. They were on the east coast, and a lot of Germans and some Irish would go to the west as well. But now, there's some Mexican immigrants and Chinese immigrants, and many of them worked very difficult, hard jobs in the mines. Now, here is an ad from that time period you can take a look at. It's very racial, the depiction of an Irish man and of a Chinese man, and they're just devouring the United States. So, in the middle there, you see Uncle Sam. So, this is a very racist kind of cartoon showing how some people felt about the migrants coming over and taking over their country. That's the feeling at that time. But nonetheless, that is manifest destiny. The United States will reach the west. There will be conflicts with the Native Americans. There will be racist sentiments towards the Chinese and towards the Irish, towards the Mexicans and different immigrants that come to the United States. But the real big issue, though, is slavery. There's lots of slaves in Texas, and a lot of people from the south want to bring slaves to the west. When there's going to be new states created, they're going to want them to become slave states to give the south more power. The north doesn't want that for moral reasons and also for reasons of power. They want the north to have more power and become more of an industrial nation. These conflicts are going to lead to the Civil War. So, that's all I have for you today. I hope you can leave a comment and please do give me the thumbs up and also subscribe to my channel. That will help the algorithm and would be greatly appreciated. So, I'll see you next week. Thank you so much.