Week 11 · Chapter

Chapter 11 — Manifest Destiny & Expansion

U.S. History to 1877 Free sample edition

The module's primary reading · ~60–70 minutes · Objectives 1 and 6 · Read it first this week, before the lecture and the slide deck.

In plain language

This week covers the twelve years from 1836 to 1848, when the United States grew from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean. Texas broke away from Mexico and joined the United States, Britain and the United States split the Oregon country, and a war with Mexico ended in a treaty that moved the border hundreds of miles south. People who cheered this growth used the phrase manifest destiny (the belief that the country was meant to spread across the continent). The land was not empty: it was home to Mexican communities and to many Native nations. You will read two dated documents, a declaration and a treaty, and ask each time who wrote it, what it promised, and what it leaves out.

Why you already care about this

Picture a family in a river town in northern New Mexico in 1848. The parents were born in Mexico, and so were their children. Their house, their fields, and their church have not moved an inch. But a treaty signed far away has drawn a new border around them.

Now the family must choose. They can stay, or they can move south into what is still Mexico. If they stay, they must decide which country's citizens to be. You may know a version of this: a family whose neighborhood changed hands, a town renamed, or a rule rewritten while people stayed put. The questions underneath are this week's questions. Who drew the line? Who was asked? And what did the paper promise the people who lived inside it?

In 1836 delegates in Texas declared independence from Mexico. In 1848 the United States and Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. You will read both documents, one pinned passage at a time, and follow the growth between them.

By the end of this chapter you will be able to:

explain manifest destiny as a phrase people used to justify expansion, not a law;
describe the Oregon Trail and what it meant for the Cayuse Nation;
source and close-read the Texas Declaration of Independence, naming what it leaves out;
explain slavery's place in Texas from a source that corroborates the declaration;
explain how Texas was annexed and how Oregon was divided;
explain the causes and conduct of the U.S.-Mexican War and name those who opposed it;
source the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and date it from its own text;
explain why Article VIII did not make Mexicans in the ceded lands immigrants;
name the consequences of expansion for Native nations, and how the new land reopened the slavery question;
order the week's years and sort a claim that shows from one that goes beyond.

Hook to keep: the border moved; the people stayed.

Carry this sentence with you: a phrase that justifies a policy is not the policy.

Where we are

Already covered: Week 1 built the four moves of sourcing, contextualization, close reading, and corroboration. Week 5 read the Declaration of Independence (1776), and Week 6 read the Constitution (1787). Week 9 followed the Louisiana Purchase (1803), the Missouri Compromise (1820), and the removal of Native nations from the Southeast. Week 10 followed the reform movements of the same decades.
This week: manifest destiny, the Texas Revolution, annexation and Oregon, the U.S.-Mexican War, and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, with what expansion meant for Mexicans, Native nations, and slavery.
How they connect: Week 9 showed a country buying land from France without the Native nations living on it. This week the country takes land from Mexico by war, and the same question returns: who lived there, and were they asked?
Where we're going next: Week 12 opens a new unit on slavery and the sectional crisis, and the land won this week is where that crisis begins.

Week 5 gave you a declaration's shape: a statement of when people may throw off a government, then a list of grievances. Hold that shape, because the Texas delegates used it in 1836. Week 9 gave you the territories set's Missouri Compromise row and the words treaty of cession and dispossession. You will need all three again. This week also describes war and the deaths of many Native people. The course is built to be supportive of hard material; take one section at a time.

1. Name a phrase: manifest destiny and the trail west

Think of a slogan on a campaign button. It does not pass a law or sign a treaty. It gives people a reason to cheer for something they already want. Keep that button in mind for this section.

In 1845 an editor named John L. O'Sullivan used the phrase manifest destiny for the belief that the United States was destined to spread across the continent. Manifest destiny is a phrase people used in the 1840s to justify expansion. It was never a law or an official policy. No Congress passed it, and no treaty contains it. This course teaches it as a phrase that people used, not as the course's own way of seeing the past.

The phrase sat on top of a real movement. Westward expansion is the growth of the United States across North America by purchase, treaty, annexation, settlement, and war, onto lands where Native nations and Mexican communities already lived. In the 1840s families loaded wagons and crossed to the Oregon country on the Oregon Trail, the overland route from the Missouri River to Oregon.

The trail crossed other people's homelands. The National Park Service writes that each year brought more emigrants on the trail who wanted Native land. The Cayuse Nation is a Native nation of the Columbia Plateau whose homeland lay on that route. The park service tells the Cayuse story today in partnership with the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation.

Worked example — two editorials, one question. Imagine a newspaper office in 1846 with two editorials on the desk. You sort them with one question: is this a reason or a rule?

Editorial one says the country is destined to reach the Pacific and must take Oregon. That is a reason someone gives for expansion.
Editorial two says families have the right to settle land no one is using. That is another reason, and it leaves out the nations who live there.
Now ask what neither editorial is: a law. Neither one was passed by Congress, and neither appears in any treaty.

In words: manifest destiny gave people a reason to cheer for expansion; laws, treaties, and armies did the expanding.

Misconception check. Students often think manifest destiny was a law or an official government policy. That is tempting, because the phrase is famous and sounds official. But it was an editor's phrase that supporters repeated, and no Congress ever enacted it. The cure is to ask, for any big phrase, who said it and whether any law or treaty contains it.

Pause and choose one. (a) Write two sentences on how a slogan can make a choice feel like fate. (b) Write two sentences on what the Oregon Trail looked like from a Cayuse village beside it.

2. Read the Texas declaration: grievances and a silence

Imagine a group of tenants who write a letter to their landlord listing every broken promise: no repairs, no hearing, no say. The letter is honest about what angers them. It may still leave out the thing the tenants themselves are doing that the landlord objects to.

Texas in the 1830s was a province of Mexico. Mexico's colonization laws had invited settlers from the United States into Texas, and the declaration itself says so. Some of the settlers brought enslaved people with them. Slavery was illegal under Mexican law, the Texas State Library and Archives Commission explains, but Mexican officials never stopped American slaveholders from bringing enslaved people into Texas.

The Texas Revolution was the armed revolt of 1835 and 1836 in which settlers and some Tejanos in Texas broke away from Mexico under Santa Anna's government. Tejanos are Mexican Texans, the Spanish-speaking people whose families had lived in Texas under Spain and Mexico. The document at the center of the revolt is the Texas Declaration of Independence.

Worked example — the four moves on the Texas declaration. You take the moves in order.

Sourcing: the delegates of the people of Texas made it, in general convention at the town of Washington, now called Washington-on-the-Brazos. It is a declaration, dated 1836 in its own text, and the Avalon Project keeps it. The State Library says George Childress chaired the drafting committee and is generally accepted as its author, and that 59 delegates approved it.
Sourcing, continued: among the signers were J. Antonio Navarro and Lorenzo de Zavala. Navarro, born in San Antonio, was one of the Tejanos, so the document was not signed only by newcomers from the United States.
Contextualization: the declaration itself says that Santa Anna had overturned Mexico's federal constitution and that his army was advancing into Texas.
Close reading: the declaration lists grievances against Santa Anna's government, among them trial by jury, public schooling, religion, and arms. The pinned fragment calls jury trial "the right of trial by jury, that palladium of civil liberty". A palladium is a safeguard.
Close reading, continued: name what is missing. The word "slave" does not appear in Avalon's text. The declaration also describes Native peoples and the Mexican people in the language of its time; the course paraphrases those passages only to read the document and never adopts that language.
Corroboration: the State Library writes that about 5,000 enslaved African Americans lived in Texas in 1836, and that the Constitution of the Republic of Texas protected slavery.

The reading in one plain sentence: the declaration shows the grievances its delegates named against Santa Anna's government in 1836; its silence about slavery is not evidence that slavery was absent from Texas.

The Republic of Texas is the independent country Texas formed in 1836, whose constitution protected slavery. Week 5's Declaration of Independence opened the same way, with a statement of when a people may abolish a government. The Texas delegates borrowed that shape. They did not borrow its claim that all men are created equal.

Misconception check. Students often think a document that never mentions slavery had nothing to do with slavery. That is tempting, because close reading starts with what the words say. But close reading also asks what the words leave out, and the State Library's record shows thousands of enslaved people in Texas and a constitution that protected slavery. The cure is corroboration: check a silence against another source.

Honesty note: the figure of about 5,000 enslaved people is the State Library's figure for 1836, written as that body gives it. The course keys the year 1836, not the figure.

3. Add a state and split a territory: annexation and Oregon

Picture two neighbors arguing over a fence line. One wants to buy the yard next door; the other owner refuses to sell. Meanwhile a third neighbor, far down the street, shares a garden with you, and you both want the whole plot.

The Office of the Historian, the State Department's history office, writes that Texas won independence in 1836. The President of the United States recognized it but held back from annexation, because Mexico threatened war. Annexation is one country adding another territory to itself.

The State Library explains why annexation came back to the center of American politics. Britain had offered Texas a loan that would let it free its enslaved people, and Southern planters feared a free Texas under British influence.

Worked example — two routes to annexation. You follow the Office of the Historian's account step by step.

1844: a treaty of annexation went to the Senate. Week 6's Constitution requires two-thirds of the Senate to approve a treaty. The treaty failed.
1845: Congress used a joint resolution instead, a measure passed by simple majorities in both houses. It passed.
That December, Texas was admitted as a state, and slavery came into the Union with it.

In words: when the two-thirds route failed, supporters switched to a route that needed only majorities.

Oregon was the shared garden. The same office writes that the United States and Britain had shared the Oregon country. Some Americans demanded the whole territory, north to 54 degrees 40 minutes. The Oregon question was that dispute over who would govern Oregon. The Oregon Treaty of 1846 settled it by dividing Oregon at the 49th parallel.

Misconception check. Students often think Texas joined the United States the moment it won independence. That is tempting, because the two events are often told together. But Texas was an independent republic for years, and a treaty to annex it failed before a joint resolution passed. The cure is to put the steps in order and ask what each one needed.

Pause and choose one. (a) Write two sentences on why the route Congress chose mattered as much as the result. (b) Write two sentences on what changed for the Cayuse Nation when Britain and the United States divided Oregon without it.

4. Follow a contested war: the U.S.-Mexican War

Picture a town newspaper in 1846 with two letters on the same page. One reader calls the war a defense of American soil. The other asks whether the soil was American at all. Both letters are about the same strip of land.

The U.S.-Mexican War was the war between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848. It began over the Texas border. Texas claimed the Rio Grande as its border; Mexico held that the border was the Nueces River, farther north. The land between the two rivers is the Nueces Strip.

Worked example — the steps to war. You follow the National Park Service's account in order.

President James K. Polk ordered General Zachary Taylor's army into the disputed Nueces Strip. The park service writes that Mexico and many Americans held that this land was never part of Texas.
American guns and ships then blockaded the Mexican city of Matamoros.
Mexican forces crossed the river to break the blockade, and they fired on a small American force.
Polk told Congress that Mexico had invaded American soil, and Congress declared war in 1846.

In words: the war began on land that both sides claimed, and the President described it to Congress as an invasion.

The war's violence belongs in the record, stated plainly. The park service writes that sexual assault, looting, and killings of civilians and surrendered Mexican soldiers were common as American forces advanced. U.S. forces captured Mexico City within 16 months.

Misconception check. Students often think expansion was uncontested at the time, as if everyone cheered. That is tempting, because maps show the result and not the argument. But Abraham Lincoln, then a congressman, demanded proof that the war began on American soil. Henry David Thoreau went to jail rather than pay taxes that supported the war. The cure is to look for the people who said no.

Caveat: contextualization explains why the war happened; it never excuses what soldiers did to Mexican civilians.

5. Read the treaty of peace: Guadalupe Hidalgo

Think about the papers that change hands when a house is sold. The deed names the seller, the buyer, the price, and the boundary lines. It may also promise something to the people renting the upstairs rooms. Whether that promise is kept is another story.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is the treaty of peace that ended the U.S.-Mexican War. A treaty of peace is a treaty that ends a war and sets the terms that follow, such as new borders and payments. It is the week's Primary Source Workshop document.

Worked example — the four moves on the treaty. You take the moves in order.

Sourcing: the United States and the United Mexican States made it. It is a treaty of peace, signed at the city of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and its closing line dates it 2 February 1848. The Avalon Project keeps the text, and the National Archives keeps the exchange copy, the signed copy, in Spanish and English, that one government handed the other to show it had ratified.
Contextualization: Mexico City had fallen. Nicholas Trist negotiated the treaty after Polk had recalled him.
Close reading, the land and the money: Article XII paid Mexico 15,000,000 dollars. Both the Office of the Historian and the National Archives say Mexico ceded about 525,000 square miles, 55 percent of its territory. That land is the Mexican Cession.
Close reading, the people: Article VIII let Mexicans living in the ceded lands stay or move to Mexico with their property. Its pinned fragment says they "shall be free to continue where they now reside, or to remove at any time to the Mexican Republic". The same article let them choose, within one year, to keep Mexican citizenship or take that of the United States.
Close reading, what changed: the Senate struck out Article X, which had protected Mexican land grants.
Corroboration: the Office of the Historian and the National Archives agree on the area ceded, but they give different Senate vote counts for the treaty. Corroboration can show a disagreement as well as an agreement, and the course keys neither count.

The reading in one plain sentence: the treaty shows what two governments promised about the ceded lands and the Mexicans living there in 1848; it is evidence of those promises, not of whether they were kept, and not of what any Native nation agreed.

Worked example — dating the treaty from its own text. Avalon's page heading is long. It also lists the Senate's advice, the President's ratification, the exchange of ratifications at Querétaro, and the proclamation, all later steps that same year. The closing line of the text dates the signing itself at Guadalupe Hidalgo. You date the treaty from that line, as Week 5 taught with the Treaty of Paris.

Misconception check. Students often think the treaty made the Mexicans already living in the ceded lands into immigrants. That is tempting, because they became residents of the United States. But they did not move; the border moved over them. Article VIII treats them as people already established there, free to stay. The cure is the hook: the border moved, and the people stayed.

Pause and choose one. (a) Write two sentences on what it would mean to have one year to choose your citizenship. (b) Write two sentences on why striking out Article X mattered to families who held land grants.

6. Name the consequences for Native nations

This section describes disease, violence, and the deaths of many Native people. Read it at your own pace.

Picture a meeting in which two neighbors sign an agreement about a third neighbor's land. The third neighbor is not in the room. The agreement mentions that neighbor only once, as a problem to be managed.

No Native nation signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Article XI speaks of the Native peoples of the ceded lands only as tribes whose raids into Mexico the United States promised to restrain. The course paraphrases that article rather than quoting it, because its words use the language of its time.

Worked example — two places, two records. You read what two federal sources record.

California: the National Library of Medicine writes that Miwok, Maidu, and Nisenan people helped dig the millrace at Sutter's Mill, where gold was found in 1848. That find set off the California Gold Rush.
California, continued: the miners who followed brought diseases that killed thousands of Native people, and miners attacked Native villages across California and Oregon.
Oregon: the National Park Service writes that a group of Cayuse people attacked the Whitman mission in 1847, after epidemics had brought widespread death. The park service writes that the government then used the attack as an excuse to set up reservations.

Demographers' estimates of how many Native people died are revised over time. This course teaches the loss in words and asks you to memorize no figure.

These nations are nations today. The Miwok, Maidu, and Nisenan are Native peoples of California's valleys and foothills. The Cayuse, Umatilla, and Walla Walla peoples govern themselves today as the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation.

Misconception check. Students often think a treaty between two countries settled the future of everyone on the land. That is tempting, because the treaty drew the border so precisely. But no Native nation was a party to it, and Article XI treated Native peoples as a problem to restrain. The cure is to ask who signed, and who was only written about.

7. Reopen the slavery question: the Wilmot Proviso

Think of a house rule written for one room. Then the family buys the lot next door and builds a new wing. The old rule never mentioned the new wing, so the argument starts again.

You read the territories set's Missouri Compromise row in Week 9. It barred slavery north of 36 degrees 30 minutes only in the rest of the Louisiana Purchase. The land taken from Mexico was not part of the Louisiana Purchase, so the line said nothing about it.

Worked example — reading a rule's reach. You ask what the old rule covered.

The Missouri Compromise (1820) covered the rest of the Louisiana Purchase.
The Mexican Cession (1848) lay outside the Louisiana Purchase.
So the line of 36 degrees 30 minutes did not decide slavery in the Mexican Cession. The question was open again.

In 1846, while the war was still being fought, Congressman David Wilmot proposed the Wilmot Proviso, a rider that would bar slavery from any territory acquired in the war. The Office of the Historian writes that Southern senators blocked it and that the fight over slavery's expansion went on until 1865.

Misconception check. Students often think the Missouri Compromise line already settled slavery in all the western land. That is tempting, because the line runs across the map. But the line covered only the rest of the Louisiana Purchase, and the Mexican Cession lay outside it. The cure is to ask which land a rule covers before you ask what it says.

Stop here: how Congress handled the new territories in 1850 is next week's subject.

8. Order the week's years and sort two claims

Picture two folders on a shelf, one marked 1836 and one marked 1848. Two older folders sit beside them, from Week 5 and Week 9. Before you open any of them, put them in order.

Worked example — ordering the years and measuring the gaps. You use years from the course chronology.

Order: 1836 (the Texas Declaration of Independence) comes before 1848 (the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo).
Gap: 1848 − 1836 = 12 years from the Texas declaration to the treaty.
From Week 9: the Louisiana Purchase Treaty (1803) to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) is 1848 − 1803 = 45 years.
From Week 5: the Declaration of Independence (1776) to the Texas Declaration of Independence (1836) is 1836 − 1776 = 60 years.

Worked example — fragments to documents. You match each pinned fragment to its document.

"the right of trial by jury, that palladium of civil liberty" comes from D24, the Texas declaration, 1836.
"shall be free to continue where they now reside, or to remove at any time to the Mexican Republic" comes from D25, the treaty, 1848.
Count: one fragment from each document, 1 + 1 = 2 fragments.
What D24 leaves out: the word "slave" appears 0 times in Avalon's text of the Texas declaration.

Worked example — sorting two claims. These two claims are illustrative, written for this chapter.

The first claim: the Texas declaration lists the failure to secure trial by jury among its grievances. That shows what the source says.
The second claim: the Texas Revolution was fought only over trial by jury. That goes beyond the source, which names many grievances and stays silent on slavery.
Count: one of each, 1 + 1 = 2 claims sorted.

In words: in 12 years the country gained Texas, Oregon, and the Mexican Cession. A document shows what its authors claimed; it does not prove that the claim was the whole story.

Misconception check. Students often think a grievance named in a declaration was the whole cause of a revolt. That is tempting, because the grievance is printed in black and white. But a declaration is a case its authors made in public, and corroboration shows what it left out. The cure is to ask whether a claim describes the source or the world.

Key terms

Manifest destiny — a phrase the editor John L. O'Sullivan used in 1845 for the belief that the United States was destined to spread across the continent; supporters used it to justify expansion, and it was never a law or an official policy. (first used: 1. Name a phrase: manifest destiny and the trail west)
Westward expansion — the growth of the United States across North America in the first half of the nineteenth century, by purchase, treaty, annexation, settlement, and war, onto lands where Native nations and Mexican communities already lived. (first used: 1. Name a phrase: manifest destiny and the trail west)
Oregon Trail — the overland wagon route that carried emigrant families from the Missouri River to the Oregon country in the 1840s, across the homelands of Native nations such as the Cayuse. (first used: 1. Name a phrase: manifest destiny and the trail west)
Cayuse Nation — a Native nation of the Columbia Plateau whose homeland lay on the Oregon Trail; the Cayuse, Umatilla, and Walla Walla peoples govern themselves today as the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. (first used: 1. Name a phrase: manifest destiny and the trail west)
Texas Revolution — the armed revolt of 1835 and 1836 in which settlers and some Tejanos in the Mexican province of Texas broke away from Mexico under Santa Anna's government and formed the Republic of Texas. (first used: 2. Read the Texas declaration: grievances and a silence)
Tejanos — Mexican Texans, the Spanish-speaking people of Texas whose families lived there under Spain and Mexico, some of whom took part in the Texas Revolution. (first used: 2. Read the Texas declaration: grievances and a silence)
Texas Declaration of Independence — the declaration that the delegates of the people of Texas adopted in convention at Washington-on-the-Brazos in 1836, listing grievances against Santa Anna's government and declaring Texas independent of Mexico. (first used: 2. Read the Texas declaration: grievances and a silence)
Republic of Texas — the independent country that Texas formed after breaking away from Mexico in 1836, whose constitution protected slavery, until it joined the United States in 1845. (first used: 2. Read the Texas declaration: grievances and a silence)
Annexation — the act of one country adding another territory to itself, as the United States added the Republic of Texas in 1845. (first used: 3. Add a state and split a territory: annexation and Oregon)
Joint resolution — a measure passed by simple majorities in both houses of Congress, the route Congress used to annex Texas after a treaty of annexation failed to win two-thirds of the Senate. (first used: 3. Add a state and split a territory: annexation and Oregon)
Oregon question — the dispute between the United States and Britain over who would govern the Oregon country, which the two had shared, settled by the Oregon Treaty of 1846. (first used: 3. Add a state and split a territory: annexation and Oregon)
Oregon Treaty — the treaty of 1846 in which the United States and Britain divided the Oregon country at the 49th parallel. (first used: 3. Add a state and split a territory: annexation and Oregon)
U.S.-Mexican War — the war between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848, which began over the disputed Texas border and ended with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. (first used: 4. Follow a contested war: the U.S.-Mexican War)
Nueces Strip — the land between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande that both Texas and Mexico claimed, where the fighting that began the U.S.-Mexican War broke out. (first used: 4. Follow a contested war: the U.S.-Mexican War)
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo — the treaty of peace between the United States and the United Mexican States signed at Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, which ended the U.S.-Mexican War and transferred Mexico's northern territories to the United States. (first used: 5. Read the treaty of peace: Guadalupe Hidalgo)
Treaty of peace — a treaty that ends a war between nations and sets the terms that follow it, such as new borders and payments. (first used: 5. Read the treaty of peace: Guadalupe Hidalgo)
Exchange copy — the signed copy of a treaty that one government hands to the other to show it has ratified the treaty, such as the Spanish and English copy of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that the National Archives keeps. (first used: 5. Read the treaty of peace: Guadalupe Hidalgo)
Mexican Cession — the territory Mexico gave up to the United States in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which the National Archives describes as 55 percent of Mexico's territory. (first used: 5. Read the treaty of peace: Guadalupe Hidalgo)
Article VIII — the article of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that let Mexicans living in the ceded lands stay or move to Mexico with their property and gave them one year to choose Mexican or United States citizenship. (first used: 5. Read the treaty of peace: Guadalupe Hidalgo)
Article X — the article of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that would have protected Mexican land grants in the ceded lands; the Senate struck it out before ratifying the treaty. (first used: 5. Read the treaty of peace: Guadalupe Hidalgo)
Article XI — the article of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in which the United States promised to restrain raids into Mexico by Native peoples of the ceded lands, which it described only as tribes and never as parties to the treaty. (first used: 6. Name the consequences for Native nations)
California Gold Rush — the rush of miners to California after gold was found at Sutter's Mill in 1848, which brought disease and violence to Native peoples such as the Miwok, Maidu, and Nisenan. (first used: 6. Name the consequences for Native nations)
Wilmot Proviso — the rider Congressman David Wilmot proposed in 1846 to bar slavery from any territory the United States acquired in the war with Mexico; Southern senators blocked it. (first used: 7. Reopen the slavery question: the Wilmot Proviso)

Summary

Manifest destiny was a phrase people used to justify expansion; it was never a law.
The Oregon Trail crossed the homelands of Native nations, the Cayuse among them.
The Texas declaration (1836) named many grievances and never used the word slave.
Slavery was illegal under Mexican law, yet thousands of enslaved people lived in Texas, and the Republic's constitution protected slavery.
Texas was annexed by joint resolution in 1845; Oregon was divided at the 49th parallel in 1846.
The U.S.-Mexican War began on disputed land, was opposed at home, and brought violence against Mexican civilians.
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) moved the border; Article VIII let the Mexicans living there stay.
No Native nation signed the treaty, and the Gold Rush brought disease and violence to California's Native peoples.
The Wilmot Proviso showed that the new land had reopened the question of slavery.

Check your understanding

Work these before looking at the answers — they are ungraded, and the answers (with reasoning) are at the bottom of the page.

An illustrative mining town opens a post office in 1851, a school in 1859, and a courthouse in 1872. How many years passed from the post office to the school, and from the school to the courthouse?
An illustrative town council's flyer says the town is destined to become the biggest in the valley. A resident asks whether the flyer is a town law. What do you tell the resident, and why?
An illustrative company's letter to its workers lists five complaints about the state's new rules and never mentions the company's own unpaid wages. A classmate says the letter proves the company paid everyone. Rewrite the claim so it says only what the letter shows.
An illustrative county line is redrawn, and a farm that was in County North is now in County South. The farm family never moved. Did the family move to County South? Explain in two sentences.

Answers (worked reasoning — read after attempting)

Post office to school: 1859 − 1851 = 8 years. School to courthouse: 1872 − 1859 = 13 years. Name which two dates you measure between, as you did with the Texas declaration and the treaty.
Tell the resident that the flyer is a reason, not a rule. A slogan can give people a reason to cheer for growth, but only a vote of the council makes a law, which is the same test you apply to manifest destiny.
Write it as: the letter lists five complaints and does not mention wages. That describes the source; whether the company paid its workers needs other evidence, the way the Texas declaration's silence about slavery needed the State Library's record.
No. The line moved and the family stayed where it was, so it is a family whose county changed, not a family that moved; that is the same reading Article VIII gives the Mexicans already established in the ceded lands.

Next up in this module: the Readings & Resources page, the lecture tutorial, the practice set, and the quiz. Next week the land won from Mexico becomes the ground where the rule of slavery in the territories breaks down, as the sectional crisis begins.

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