U.S. History 8 th Grade

1. U.S. History 8th Grade February 20, 2014

2. Targets • Assess the War of 1812 in terms of cause-effect • Assess the overall outcome of America’s diplomatic assertiveness • We will also learn about: Convention of 1818, Adams-OnisTreaty, Texas annexation, Mexican American War/Mexican Cession, California Gold Rush, Compromise of 1850, Kansas Nebraska Act, Gadsden Purchase

3. War of 1812 • http://www.history.com/news/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-the-war-of-1812 (interesting facts) • http://www.history.com/topics/war-of-1812 (causes) • http://www.britannica.com/presidents/article-77720 (effects)

4. Convention of 1818 • The Convention of 1818 (Convention of Commerce), 20 October 1818, described the boundary between British North America and the US as a line from the farthest northwest point of Lake of the Woods "north or south, as the case may be" to the 49th parallel and thence west along the parallel to the "Stony" [Rocky] Mountains. The area west of the Rocky Mts was to be "free and open" to either Britain or the US for the next 10 years. In 1827 this period was indefinitely extended, but it was ultimately terminated by the 1846 OREGON TREATY. • http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/convention-of-1818/

5. Adams-Onis Treaty • Also called the Transcontinental Treaty of 1819, the Adams-Onis Treaty was one of the critical events that defined the U.S.-Mexico border. The border between the then-Spanish lands and American territory was a source of heated international debate. In Europe, Spain was in the midst of serious internal problems and its colonies out west were on the brink of revolution. • Facing the grim fact that he must negotiate with the United States or possibly lose Florida without any compensation, Spanish foreign minister Onis signed a treaty with Secretary of State John Quincy Adams. Similar to the Louisiana Purchase statutes, the United States agreed to pay its citizens’ claims against Spain up to $5 Million. The treaty drew a definite border between Spanish land and the Louisiana Territory. • In the provisions, the United States ceded to Spain its claims to Texas west of the Sabine River. Spain retained possession not only of Texas, but also California and the vast region of New Mexico. At the time, these two territories included all of present-day California and New Mexico along with modern Nevada, Utah, Arizona and sections of Wyoming and Colorado. • The treaty -- which was not ratified by the United States and the new republic of Mexico until 1831 -- also mandated that Spain relinquish its claims to the country of Oregon north of the 42 degrees parallel (the northern border of California). Later, in 1824, Russia would also abandon its claim to Oregon south of 54’40,’ (the southern border of Alaska.

6. Texas annexation • Six months after the congress of the Republic of Texas accepts U.S. annexation of the territory, Texas is admitted into the United States as the 28th state. • After gaining independence from Spain in the 1820s, Mexico welcomed foreign settlers to sparsely populated Texas, and a large group of Americans led by Stephen F. Austin settled along the Brazos River. The Americans soon outnumbered the resident Mexicans, and by the 1830s attempts by the Mexican government to regulate these semi-autonomous American communities led to rebellion. In March 1836, in the midst of armed conflict with the Mexican government, Texas declared its independence from Mexico. • The Texas volunteers initially suffered defeat against the forces of Mexican General Santa Anna--the Alamo fell and Sam Houston's troops were forced into an eastward retreat. However, in late April, Houston's troops surprised a Mexican force at San Jacinto, and Santa Anna was captured, bringing an end to Mexico's efforts to subdue Texas. • The citizens of the independent Republic of Texas elected Sam Houston president but also endorsed the entrance of Texas into the Union. The likelihood of Texas joining the Union as a slave state delayed any formal action by the U.S. Congress for more than a decade. In 1844, Congress finally agreed to annex the territory of Texas. On December 29, 1845, Texas entered the United States as a slave state, broadening the irrepressible differences in the United States over the issue of slavery and setting off the Mexican-American War.

7. Mexican American War/Mexican Cession • http://www.brainpop.com/socialstudies/ushistory/mexicanamericanwar/ • http://www.history.com/topics/mexican-american-war • http://www.pbs.org/kera/usmexicanwar/index_flash.html (many videos)

8. California Gold Rush • http://www.history.com/topics/gold-rush-of-1849 • http://ceres.ca.gov/ceres/calweb/geology/goldrush.html

9. Compromise of 1850 • Divisions over slavery in territory gained in the Mexican-American (1846-48). War were resolved in the Compromise of 1850. It consisted of laws admitting California as a free state, creating Utah and New Mexico territories with the question of slavery in each to be determined by popular sovereignty, settling a Texas-New Mexico boundary dispute in the former’s favor, ending the slave trade in Washington, D.C., and making it easier for southerners to recover fugitive slaves. • http://www.history.com/topics/compromise-of-1850

10. Kansas Nebraska Act • The Kansas-Nebrask Act was an 1854 bill that mandated “popular sovereignty”–allowing settlers of a territory to decide whether slavery would be allowed within a new state’s borders. Proposed by Stephen A. Douglas–Abraham Lincoln’s opponent in the influential Lincoln-Douglas debates–the bill overturned the Missouri Compromise’s use of latitude as the boundary between slave and free territory. The conflicts that arose between pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers in the aftermath of the act’s passage led to the period of violence known as Bleeding Kansas, and helped paved the way for the American Civil War (1861-65). • http://www.history.com/topics/kansas-nebraska-act

11. Gadsden Purchase • James Gadsden, the U.S. minister to Mexico, and General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, the president of Mexico, sign the Gadsden Purchase in Mexico City. The treaty settled the dispute over the location of the Mexican border west of El Paso, Texas, and established the final boundaries of the southern United States. For the price of $15 million, later reduced to $10 million, the United States acquired approximately 30,000 square miles of land in what is now southern New Mexico and Arizona. • Jefferson Davis, the U.S. secretary of war under President Franklin Pierce, had sent Gadsden to negotiate with Santa Anna for the land, which was deemed by a group of political and industrial leaders to be a highly strategic location for the construction of the southern transcontinental railroad. In 1861, the "big four" leaders of western railroad construction--Collis P. Huntington, Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker--established the Southern Pacific branch of the Central Pacific Railroad. • http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/southern-us-border-established