AHIS 100
Manifest Destiny
Dr. Kane
mkane2@albany.edu
Office Hrs: W 10:30-11:30 & F 11:30-12:30
Social Science 60S
maevekane.net/ahis100/lecture-slides
November 4
to recap
- financial panics destabilize US from within
- Americans seek out religious revivals as a way of asserting control through reform
- Americans erase Indians as a way of asserting their own right to land
today
- Friday reading - listen to the interview and compare maps
- western migration
- changing Indian policy
- ecological change
- Mexican-American War
- Plains Indian Wars
- land, labor and identity
why did Americans and new European immigrants feel pushed or pulled westward?
(more than one right answer)
- A. Economic panics left many unable to afford land east of the Mississippi
- B. Families who lost everything in earlier economic panics moved west in an attempt to escape their debts
- C. Claiming Indian land in the west allowed marginally white immigrant Catholics and Jews to claim a white American identity
- D. Many Americans believed that God had ordained the US as a moral force to perfect the world, beginning with the west
- E. The Monroe Doctrine called for the US to spread democracy across the western hemisphere
context for Removal
- recognized as independent nations before Revolution
- 1787 Northwest Ordinance - recognition of Indian title
- 1789 Constitutional Commerce Clause
- 1790 Nonintercourse Act - federal authority over land sales
- 1794 Treaty of Canandaigua - conflict between state power and federal power
why the shift in Indian policy?
- states rights states rights states rights - 9th & 10th Amendments
- Constitutional Commerce Clause: "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes"
- strict constructionist southerners
- hardening racial lines - racial binary
- land for plantation slavery
Mexican-American War 1845-1848
- Mexico invites Anglo American settlers in order to claim Texas frontier from Americans and Native groups
- Anglo Americans reject Mexico's abolition of slavery and Catholicism requirement
- Americans illegal immigrants into Mexico!
why was the US reluctant to annex Texas as a state?
(more than one right answer)
- A. Annexing Texas would add another slave state, disturbing the balance in the Senate
- B. Americans feared that annexing Texas would lead to war with Mexico
- C. Americans feared that annexing Texas would lead to another economic panic
- D. Annexing Texas would mean recognizing citizenship for thousands of Mexicans and Natives, disturbing the white political majority
opposition and results
- annexation of Texas added another large slave state
- brought US into conflict with large and powerful Native groups
- war of aggression and conquest seen as betrayal of American ideals
- US agreed to recognize Mexican and Native landownership and citizenship (does not happen)
Orphan Train Scandal
- who cares about orphans?
- no modern welfare, foster system or adoption
- Mariposa Arizona, 1860
- 40 Irish Catholic orphans from NYC
- are Catholics Americans? are Mexicans Americans?
why did the Monroe Doctrine and Manifest Destiny come into conflict?
- A. the Monroe Doctrine was intended to prevent the spread of slavery beyond the original colonies; Manifest Destiny sought to expand it
- B. the Monroe Doctrine was intended to keep peace with Native groups; Manifest Destiny required their removal
- C. the Monroe Doctrine was intended to keep the US out of prolonged military conflicts; Manifest Destiny increasingly caused military conflicts
- D. the Monroe Doctrine was intended to maintain diplomatic ties with Britain; Manifest Destiny increased economic and social ties to France
land labor and identity
- American financial growth based in expansion of slavery
- expansion of slavery dependent on appropriation of Native lands
- American white political identity defined in relation to slave labor and Indian land