During
the 1840’s, American eyes were looking west to the land that stretched to the
Pacific Ocean. It was at this time that a new concept began to resonate in the
hearts of Americans calling them spread out across the land. Many felt that it
was Providence urging them forward to claim their inheritance. Their proclaimed
right to that end would be coined, “manifest destiny.” This spirit was the
driving force that propelled Washington politicians and their politics to push
United States borders into Mexican and English territories. Though it is
apparent that the United States’ eleventh president, James K. Polk, was
perfectly fine with acquiring all western territory through bloody conflicts if
necessary, Great Britain opted for peaceful treaty, while Mexico was lured into
war.
American
explorers had traveled west early in United States history, such as the Lewis
and Clark’ Corps of Discovery exhibition in 1804 after the nation acquired the
Louisiana territory; settlers started moving west not long afterwards. After
Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821, it opened up its borders of
Texas to American settlers in 1824.[1]
In 1839, the “Peoria Party” entered Oregon territory, becoming the first American
settlers in that region.[2]
Religious persecutions of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
(a.k.a. Mormons) in Missouri and Illinois also drove thousands of their members
into the Great Salt Lake Valley in 1846. The “fulfillment of our manifest
destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence” was in motion.[3]
Until
the mass immigration of American settlers into the Oregon territory, the border
dispute between Great Britain and the United States was nominal; however, as
the American presence in that region increased, so did the urgency to resolve
the vague boundary lines. Washington called for the “dividing line [to] fall on
the latitude of 54°40ʹ north.”[4]
This declaration led to the United States’ slogan of “Fifty-four forty or fight!”
that fueled Polk’s comments on Oregon in his inaugural address on March 4,
1845:[5]
Nor will it become in a less degree my duty to
assert and maintain by all Constitutional means the right of the United States
to that portion of our territory which lies beyond the Rocky Mountains. Our
title to the country of the Oregon is "clear and unquestionable," and
already are our people preparing to perfect that title by occupying it with
their wives and children....The world beholds the peaceful triumphs of the industry
of our emigrants. To us belongs the duty of protecting them adequately wherever
they may be upon our soil. The jurisdiction of our laws and the benefits of our
republican institutions should be extended over them in the distant regions
which they have selected for their homes.[6]
Great
Britain did not seek an armed conflict to settle the border dispute, but rather
entered into negotiations with the United States. Both nations were able to
agree upon a compromise through the Oregon Treaty on June 12, 1846, placing the
United States and British border along the forty-ninth parallel, “with the
exception of Vancouver Island” falling under the jurisdiction of
British-controlled Canada.[7]
This treaty settled the border dispute and solidified United States control of
coastline along the Pacific coast.
Coastal
control in the borders of the Oregon territory was not good enough for the
growing United States and the ideals of manifest destiny. According to Michael
F. Holt, professor of American history at the University of Virginia, Polk and
his party supporters “sought the Mexican province of California and its ports
on the Pacific coast, from which Americans could carry on trade with Asia.”[8]
When Mexico refused to sell California to United States, Polk opted to provoke
a war between the two countries, where victory would cede at least control of
California through the annexation of Texas.[9]
American
settlers flooded into Texas after Mexico opened its borders to them in 1824;
and by 1836, American settlers gained their independence and formed their own
republic in 1836. After they had “elected a President and a new Congress,” the
people of Texas expressed their voice at the polls “almost unanimously in the
affirmative” for “annexation to the United States of North America.”[10]
Polk capitalized on Texas’ desires “to come into our Union, to form a part of
our Confederacy and enjoy with us the blessings of liberty secured and
guaranteed by our Constitution.”[11]
In his inaugural address, Polk stressed that Texas was originally part of the
United States and “was unwisely ceded away to a foreign power.”[12]
In order to draw Mexico into a war with the United States, he used the disputed
border of Texas and Mexico between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande as a
means to get Mexico to throw the first punch.[13]
On
January 13, 1846, Polk sent in the army under the command of General Zachary
Taylor “forward to the Rio Grande” to provoke the Mexicans into a fight.[14]
By April 6, it was reported that American guns were in place “within good range
for demolishing the town [Matamoras].”[15]
Nine days later, General Tylor reported to the War Department that “no hostile
movement had then been made by the Mexicans.”[16]
War officially commenced after a deployment of dragoons dispatched by General
Tyler engaged with the Mexicans; Taylor wrote: “I regret to report that a party
of dragoons, sent out by me on the 24th instant to watch the course of the
river above on this bank, became engaged with a very large force of the enemy,
and after a short affair, in which some sixteen were killed and wounded, appear
to have been surrounded and compelled to surrender….Hostilities may now be considered
as commenced.”[17]
Even
though tensions between the United States and Great Britain were still high
since the Revolutionary War and War of 1812 (and would last up through the
Civil War), Americans did in fact have rightful claims to the territory of
Oregon through the Louisiana Purchase. Both parties were able to compromise the
border dispute peacefully through treaty. However, even though American
migration into Mexican territory was tolerated and allowed by the Mexican
government at first, American’s ideology of manifest destiny and political
agendas created the hostilities that inevitably led to war between the two
nations. The New-York daily tribune
said it well in 1846 on the situation:
“The Star of Empire is culminating Southward. Our ‘clear and
unquestionable’ territory in the West has been tamely surrendered, while
Southern soil, not our own, is purchased at an enormous cost of money, tears
and blood.”[18]
[1] Peter
Marshall, David Manuel, and Anna Wilson Fishel, From Sea to Shining Sea for Young Readers (Discovering God's Plan for
America), (Ada: Revell, 2011), 378.
[2] Writers'
Program (Or.), Oregon: End of the Trail,
(Portland: Oregon State Board of Control, 1940), 44.
[3] The United States Democratic Review, Volume
17, July and August, 1845, (New York: J.L. O'Sullivan & O.C. Gardiner,
1846), 5.
[4] James
A. Crutchfield, It Happened in Washington,
(Guilford: Morris Book Publishing, LLC, 2008), 38.
[5] Ibid,
39.
[6] James
K. Polk, “Inaugural Address of James Knox Polk,” The Avalon Project, March 4, 1845, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/polk.asp.
[7] Crutchfield,
It Happened in Washington, 40.
[8]
Michael F. Holt, The Fate of Their
Country, (New York: Hill and Wang, 2004), 16.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Vermont Telegraph, December 21, 1836.
Accessed June 8, 2015.
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83025661/1836-12-21/ed-1/seq-3/.
[11]
Polk, “Inaugural Address of James Knox Polk.”
[12]
Ibid.
[13]
Holt, The Fate of Their Country, 16.
[14] Loring
Moody, A history of the Mexican War, or,
Facts for the people: showing the Relation of the United States Government to
Slavery, (Boston: Bela Marsh, 1848), 52.
[15]
Ibid.
[16]
Ibid.
[17]
Ibid, 53.
[18] New-York daily tribune, August 8, 1846.
Accessed June 8, 2015, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030213/1846-08-08/ed-1/seq-2/.
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