Samantha Diaz

Mr. Woolsey
AP US History
Period 7

Chapter 12 Half Pagers

1. From 1823 to 1845, Texas grew from a sparsely settled region of northern
Mexico to an independent republic to a state in the American Union. Discuss
the reasons for and the major events of this transformation.
The major reasons and events that resulted in the migration into Texas and the
territory eventually becoming a state was due to the American idea of Manifest Destiny
and the lack of political strength held in Texas offices. After Sam Houstons victory at
San Jacinto, Texas gained its independence. The new republic started off shakily,
financially unstable, unrecognized by its enemy, rejected by its friends. Although Texans
immediately sought admission to the Union, their bid failed. For the next few years, the
Lone Star Republic led a precarious existence. Diplomatic maneuvering in European
capitals for financial aid and recognition was only moderately successful. Financial ties
with the United States increased, however, as trade grew and many Americans became
invested in Texas bonds and lands. Although the North opposed the annexation of Texas,
a slave state that upset the balance of slave and anti-slavery states, Democrats such as
Douglas argued that it would spread the benefits of American civilization. His argument,
classic example of Manifest Destiny, put the question into a national context of
expanding American freedom. Nine years after its revolution, Texas finally joined the
Union.
2. What led so many Americans to sell most of their possessions and embark on
an unknown future thousands of miles away in Oregon or California during
the 1840s?
The chance for a new, successful life was offered for those who left their homes and
sold all of their possessions to move into the Oregon or California territories. Many
believed that frontier life would offer rich opportunities. The kinds of opportunities
emigrants expected varied widely. Thousands sought riches in the form of gold. Others
anticipated making their fortune as merchants, shopkeepers, and peddlers. Some intended
to speculate in land, acquiring large blocks of public lands and then selling them later to
settlers at a handsome profit. Most migrants dreamed of bettering their life by cultivating
the land. Federal and state land policies made the acquisition of land increasingly
alluring. Preemption acts during the 1830s and 1840s gave squatters the right to settle
public lands before the government offered them for sale and then allowed them to
purchase these lands at the minimum price once they came on the market. Some
emigrants hoped the West would restore them to health. Settlers from the Mississippi
valley wished to escape the regions debilitating malarial fevers. Others pursued religious
or cultural missions in the west. Missionary couples like David and Catherine Blaire were
determined to bring Protestantism and education west.

3. Contrast the different lives and tasks faced by pioneers on the agricultural,
mining, and urban frontiers in the West of the 1840s and 1850s.
When emigrants reached their destinations, their feelings ranged from acute
disappointment to buoyant enthusiasm; although they shared the same hopes of a
prosperous life, pioneers and mine workers faced different tasks based on their choice of
lifestyle. Pioneers faced the urgent task of establishing their homesteads. First, the family
had to locate a suitable claim. Clearing the land and constructing a crude shelter
followed. Only then could crops be planted. When they planted their crops, farmers
unknowingly introduced weeds whose seeds were mixed in with plant seeds from home.
Over time, the weeds could become much more than a nuisance to be pulled out of the
ground. Because emigrants brought so few possessions west, the work of getting started
was even more difficult than it would have been in the East. These same emigrant
families found themselves alone on their claims after months of intense closeness with
other travelers. As rural communities grew, settlers worked to establish schools, churches,
and clubs. Setting up a common school system was more difficult and less urgent in the
eyes of many frontier communities than beginning political life. Similarly, various
obstacles hindered organized religion. When confirmed believers gathered in their own
churches, they often discovered to their dismay that the congregation was too small to
sustain the new church financially. The chronic shortage of cash on the frontier retarded
the growth of both schools and churches. In contrast to the agricultural settlements, where
early residents were isolated and the community gradually expanded, the discovery of
gold or silver spurred rapid, if usually short lived, growth. The gold seekers were
primarily unmarried, predominantly male, and heterogeneous. Miners were not trying to
re-create eastern communities but to get rich. Married men, convinced of the raucous
character of the mining communities, hesitated to bring wives and families west.
4. Describe the culture and political organization of the Plains Indians. Discuss
how and why their relationship with white Americans changed from the
1840s to 1851.
During the 1840s, white Americans, for the first time, came into extensive contact
with the powerful Plain tribes, whose cultured differed from that of the more familiar
eastern Woodlands tribes. Although differences existed, the Plains tribes shared important
similarities. Most had adopted a nomadic way of life after the introduction of Spanish
horses in the sixteenth century increased their seasonal mobility from 50 to 5000 miles.
Horses allowed Indian braves to hunt the buffalo with such success that tribes came to
depend on the breasts for food, clothing, fuel, teepee dwellings, and trading purposes.
Mobility also increased tribal contact and conflict. War played a central part in the lives
of the Plain tribes. But tribal warfare was not like the warfare of the white men. Indians
sought not to exterminate their enemies or to claim territory but rather to steal horses and
to prove individual prowess. Moreover, because individual tribes were loosely organized,
chiefs had only limited authority. In the early 1840s, relations between Indians and whites
were peaceable. The grasses that nourished the buffalo also sustained the Indians own
ponies and the animals that supported horse traders like the Cheyenne. Whites, however,
put their stock to graze on the grass that these animals needed. As the great herds of

buffalo began to shrink, Native Americans began to battle one another for hunting
grounds and food. The powerful Sioux swooped down into the hunting grounds of their
enemies and mounted destructive raids against the Pawnee and other small tribes. The
Sioux requested compensation for white damages. When the president denied their
request, they tried to extract taxes from those passing over their lands. Emigrants were
outraged, however, little was done to relieve the suffering of the tribes bearing the brunt
of Sioux aggression, the dismay of the Sioux at the white invasion or the fears of the
emigrants themselves.