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War & Expansion: Crash Course US History #17

From: U.S. History by Crash Course

In which John Green teaches you about the Mexican-American War in the late 1840s and the expansion of the United States into the western end of North America. In this episode of Crash Course, US territory finally reaches from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific Ocean. After Oregon was secured from the UK and the southwest was ceded by Mexico, that is. Famous Americans abound in this episode, including James K Polk (Young Hickory, Napoleon of the Stump), Martin Van Buren, Zachary Taylor, and Winfield Scott. You'll also learn about the California Gold Rush of 1848, and California's admission as a state, which necessitated the Compromise of 1850. Once more slavery is a crucial issue. Something is going to have to be done about slavery, I think. Maybe it will come to a head next week._

Full Transcript

War Expansion Crash Course US History 17

speaker01 00:00:00

Hi I'm John Green, this is Crash Course us history and today we're going to discuss how the United States came to acquire two of its largest states, Texas, and there is another one Mr Green. Mr Green, I believe the answer you're looking for is Alaska me from the past, as you can clearly tell from the Globe, Alaska statehood never happened. No, I am referring of course, to California. Are we using your computer today? Stay on, we've talked about westward expansion a few times here on Crash Course, but it's usually about like Kentucky or Ohio, this time we're going really West, I mean, not like Hawaii West, but see the Shining sea west.

speaker01 00:41:00

So you might remember that journalist John O'sullivan coined the phrase manifest Destiny to describe America's gods given by right to take over all the land between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, regardless of who happened to be living there. Sorry Native Americans, Mexican French fur trappers, beavers, bison, prairie dogs, passenger pigeons. I'm not going to go so far as to give God credit for America's internal imperialism, but I will say that our expansion had a lot to do with economics, especially when you consider Jefferson's ideas about the empire of liberty. And I just say liberty. That means technically I also have to talk about slavery, but we're going to kick the slavery can down the road until later in the show, just like American politicians did in the 1008 hundred by 1860, nearly 300000 people had made the trip that has since been immortalized by the classic educational video game.

speaker01 01:26:00

Oregon Trail, by the way, is inaccurate in the sense that a family of six, even a very hungry one, can not eat a buffalo, but is extremely accurate in that a lot of people died of dysentery and cholera frickin disease. So Oregon at the time was jointly controlled by the us and Britain, northern Mexico, and at the time included what are now Texas, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico and California, but New Mexico and California with the only two with like big settlements. About 30000 Mexicans lived in New Mexico and about 3500 in California. And in both places says they were outnumbered by Native Americans.

speaker01 01:58:00

Let's go to the thought bubble. Mexico became independent, there were only about 2000 tejanos there, so to encourage economic development.

speaker01 02:04:00

Mexico's government granted a huge tract of land to Moses, Austin, Austin son Stephen made a tidy profit selling off smaller parcels of that land until there were 7 American Americans there. This made Mexico nervous. So, backpedaling furiously, Mexico annulled the land contracts and banned further emigration into Texas, even though slavery was already abolished in Mexico up to now, they had allowed Americans to bring slaves. Austin, joined by some Tejano elites, demanded greater autonomy and the right to use slave labor. Thinking the better of it, Mexican General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna decided to assert control over the rest of territory with an army, turning the elites demands for autonomy into a full scale of revolt for independence. On March 13, 18 thirty-sixth to Anna defeated the American defense defenders of the Alamo, killing 187 or 188. Sources differ. Americans, including Crockett.

speaker01 02:54:00

The Texas rebels, would remember the Alamo and come back to defeat Santa Ana.

speaker01 02:58:00

The Battle of San Jacinto and Mexico was forced to recognize Texas's independence, so Texas became the lone Star Republic and quickly decided that it would be much better to be a less lonely star and join the United States. So in 1837 Texas's Congress called for union, but all they heard back was not so fast. Texas, why? Because Texas wanted to be a slave state and adding another slave state would disrupt the balance in the Senate, So Jackson and Van Buren did what good politicians always do. They ignored Texas and then after Martin Van Buren wrote a letter denouncing any plan to annex Texas on the grounds that it would probably provoke a war Democratic convention. Southerners, through their support behind slave holding, Andrew Jackson P James k.y. Polk Clk, just managed to get a presidential victory over perennial, almost President Henry Clay and seeing the writing on the Wall Congress annex Texas in March 1845, days before Polk took office. Congress then forged an agreement with Britain to divide Oregon at the 49th parallel, which restored the slave state freeee state balance in the Senate.

speaker01 03:57:00

Thanks thought bubble Hey Dan, can I get the foreshadowing filter? I wonder if we're going to be able to keep that slave state three state balance forever the land hungry?

speaker01 04:05:00

James K Polk had another goal as president acquire California from Mexico. He tried to purchase it from Mexico, but they were like, no, which is Spanish for no. So Polk decided to do things the hard way. He sent troops under future President Zachary Taylor into this disputed border region, as expected, by which I mean intended fighting broke out between American and Mexican forces. Polk in calling for a declaration of war, claim that the Mexicans had shed blood upon American soil, although the soil in question was arguably not American. Unless you think of America as being, you know, all of this, a majority of Americans supported this war, although to be fair, a majority of Americans will support almost any war. I'm so sorry, but it is true, at least at first. It was the first war fought by American troops, primarily on foreign soil, as most of the fighting was done in Mexico.

speaker01 04:50:00

Among the dissenters was a Massachusetts transcendentalist, who is probably better known than the war itself. Henry David Thoreau was, in fact, thrown in jail for refusing to pay taxes in protest of the war and wrote on civil disobedience in his defense, which many American high schools are assigned to read and expected not to understand lest they take the message to heart and stop doing assignments like reading on civil disobedience. Another critic was concerned about the increase in executive power that Polk seemed to show, saying, oh, the president to invade a neighboring country whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion. And you allow him to make war at pleasure. That critic was none other than noted peace. Nick Abraham Lincoln, who would go on to do more to expand executive power than any president in the 19th century, except maybe Andrew Jackson.

speaker01 05:31:00

So Santa Anna's army was defeated in February 1847, but Mexico refused to give up. So Winfield Scott, who had the unfortunate nickname Old Fuss and Feathers, captured Mexico City itself in September. A final treaty, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, was signed in 18 8 and 48, under which Mexico confirmed the annexation of Texas and further ceded California, as well as several other places that would later become states. But we're fit on the map. In return, the us paid Mexico $15 million and agreed to a no backseat deal In re Texas, thereby freeing Mexico from the shackles of Amarillo.

speaker01 06:05:00

I'm sorry Amarillo, and no I'm not. Am I am? I'm not, I am, this is great Stan, the people of Amarillo hate me. Also the people of New Jersey, Alaska is in the green parts of North America. We don't even have Arizona New Mexico on the chalk board. Pretty soon I will have alienated everyone. Anyway, thanks to the land for Mexico, our dream of expanding from the Atlantic to the Pacific was finally complete, and as always happens when dreams come true, trouble started after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo between 75000 and 100000 Spanish speaking in Mexicans and 150000 Native Americans were under the jurisdiction of the United States, despite the fact that the treaty granted Spanish descended Mexican male citizens and property rights, the Mexicans were still seen as inferior to Anglo Saxons, whose manifest destiny was, of course, to overspread the continent, and the fact that these Mexicans were Catholic didn't help either, especially because in the eastern part of the United States there was a rising tide of anti Catholic antique immigrant sentiment known as nativism, and there was a new political party, the American party dedicated entirely to such sentiment they were referred to as the know Nothings, because when you ask them about their politics, they would answer that they didn't know anything's an expert branding strategy, although they did manage to win an unexpected number of local offices in the state heralded for its ignorance. Massachusetts you thought I was going to say New Jersey, but I'm trying to make nice with the New Jersey people, because they take it pretty personally, meanwhile in California weren't enough white English speaking American residents to apply for statehood until gold was discovered in 1848, leading, of course, the San Francisco's NFL team, the San Francisco 48 ers.

speaker01 07:39:00

By 1852, the non Indian population in California had risen from 15000 to 200000 and it was 360000 on the eve of the Civil War, not all of those migrants, mainly young men seeking their fortunes, were white. Nearly 25000 Chinese people migrated to California, most as contract workers working for mining and railroad companies, and there were women, too, who ran restaurants and worked as cooks and laundresses and prostitutes, but the ratio of men to women in California in 1860 was 3 to 1 S mer.

speaker01 08:08:00

It's time for the mystery document, The rules here are simple. I read the mystery document and I'm either shocked by electricity or by the fact that I got it right. We would beg to remind you that when your nation was a wilderness and the nation from which you sprung barbarous, we exercised most of the arts and virtues of civilized life, that we are possessed of a language and literature, and that men skilled in science and the arts are numerous among us, that the productions of our manufactories are sale, and workshops, form no small share of commerce of the world, and that for centuries colleges, schools, charitable institutions, asylums, and hospitals have been as common as in your own land, and we beg to remark that so far as the history of our race in California goes, it's it with the test of truth that we are not the degraded race You would make us. So it's someone who said we had a great civilization when you were a wilderness, plus they called us barbarous. It's either ancient Rome or China. I'm going to lean toward China that only gets me halfway there now I have to think of the name of the person, and I don't know any famous people from mid 19th century China who lived in the us. People say I can't sing Norman ossing who the hell is Norman osinga these days?

speaker01 09:18:00

California is known for its groovy laid back. Oh, your back hurts, here's some pot attitude, but that was not the case in the 19060 S.

speaker01 09:28:00

The California constitution of 1000 and 850 limited civil participation to whites, no Asians, no black people or Native Americans could vote or testify in court. Indians were kicked off their land if it had any mineral value, and thousands of their orphan children were sold as slave, and all of this led to the Indian population of California dropping from 150000 to about 30000 between 1848 and 18 and 60. So it wasn't at all clear whether California was the kind of place to be admitted to the U as a free state or as a slave. The Missouri compromise was of no help here, because half of California is below the 3006 30 line and half is above it. So a new Free Soil Party formed in 1848 calling for the limiting of slavery's expansion in the West so that it could be open for white people to live and work. I just want to be clear that most of the people who were for limiting slavery were not. Unraced, so they nominated the admirably whiskered Martin Van Buren for the presidency, and Van Buren and Democratic nominee Lewis CA then split the northern vote, allowing the aforementioned Zachary Taylor to win.

speaker01 10:25:00

So in 1000 and 850, when California finally did ask to be admitted into the Union, it was as a free state. Southerners freaked out because they saw it as the beginning of the end of slavery. But then to the rescue came Henry Clay for his last Huan. He said, we can kick this problem down the road once more and brokered 4, 4 part plan that became known rather anticlimactically as the compromise of 1850 historians. Can you name nothing Before points were one, California would be admitted as a free state to the slave trade, but not slavery would be outlined in Washington DC 3. A new super harsh fugitive slave law would be enacted and four, popular sovereignty. The idea was that in the remaining territories taken from Mexico, the local white inhabitants would decide for themselves whether the state would be slave or free when it applied to be part of the United States.

speaker01 11:13:00

The compromise of a 1950, a great reminder that nothing protects the rights of minorities like the tyranny of the majority. There was a huge debate over the bill in which, noted, as at John C, Calhoun was so sick that he had to have his proto-slavic anti acompli his remarks read by a colleague on the other New York Senator William Seward and abolitionist also argued against compromise based on slavery being, you know, wrong. But eventually the compromise did pass, thus averting a greater crisis.

speaker01 11:38:00

For 10 whole years, Ralph Waldo Emerson predicted that if the United States acquired part of Mexico, it would be like swallowing arsenic and indeed, arsenic can be a slow acting poison. Now, I don't think Ralph Waldo Emerson was a good enough writer to have thought that far ahead, but he was right. Some people say that Manifest Destiny made the Civil War inevitable, but as we'll see next week, what really made the Civil War inevitable was slavery. The story of Manifest Destiny the underlying problem. The United States didn't govern according to its own ideals. It didn't extend liberties to Native Americans or Mexican Americans or immigrant populations or slaves. Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next week. Get much worse.

speaker01 12:15:00

Crash Course is produced at dankin by Stan Muller, our script supervisor is Meredith Danko. The show is written by my high school history teacher Raoul Meier, and myself. Our associate producer is Danica Johnson, and our graphics team is Thought Cap Bay. If you'd like to contribute to delivered to you can captions, you can also ask questions and comments where they will be answered by our team of historians. Thank you for watching Crash Course, and as we say in my hometown, don't forget to be awesome.