Immigration, Expansion, and Sectional Conflict, 1840–1848
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Newcomers and Natives
Expectations and Realities
The Germans
The Irish
Anti-Catholicism, Nativism, and Labor Protest
Immigrant Politics
The West and Beyond
The Far West
Far Western Trade
Mexican Government in the Far West
Texas Revolution, 1836
American Settlements in California, New Mexico, and Oregon
The Overland Trails
The Politics of Expansion, 1840–1846
The Whig Ascendancy
Tyler and the Annexation of Texas
The Election of 1844
Manifest Destiny, 1845
Polk and Oregon
The Mexican-American War and Its Aftermath, 1846–1848
The Origins of the Mexican-American War
The Mexican-American War
The War’s Effects on Sectional Conflict
The Wilmot Proviso
The Election of 1848
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The California Gold Rush
CHAPTER THEMES
The decade of the 1840s saw the United States grow by several million immigrants. It also expanded geographically into Texas, New Mexico, California, and Oregon. Although European immigrants during these years included some who came for political or religious reasons, the great majority came to improve their economic conditions. Ireland and the German principalities supplied the largest numbers of these new Americans. Germans tended to settle in the Mississippi and Ohio valleys, many in the cities springing up in those regions. Irish immigrants increased dramatically after the great potato famine of 1845. They concentrated mostly in the urban areas of the East, where they provided a source of labor for building the canals and railroads that were connecting the nation’s cities. With the rise in immigration, nativism became a significant issue. Anti-Catholicism grew because native-born Protestant Americans feared cheap competition from desperately poor Irish workers. The Irish, in turn, fearing competition from free black labor, were hostile toward blacks and abolitionists.
Both the Irish and the Germans overwhelmingly identified with the Democratic Party. It introduced them to national issues, and it made a vigorous effort to convince the immigrants that national expansion was in their interest. Indeed, links with the Far West had to be maintained despite the barrier of the Great Plains and the Rockies. Trading outposts on the California coast were supplied around the Horn and welcomed by Mexican authorities. Similarly trading links were established through the Santa Fe Trail and with fur traders in the mountains. In the early years of independence Mexico welcomed contacts with the United States. But the tenuousness of Mexican control over far-flung regions like Texas and California carried the seeds of later conflict.
The Mexican government at first encouraged American colonization in Texas. Early indications of trouble caused Mexico to ban further immigration into Texas in 1830 and to forbid the introduction of more slaves from the United States. The effort was unsuccessful. In 1834 President Santa Anna, attempting to establish greater federal control over the Mexican states, was met by revolution and a Texas declaration of independence. Although he won a victory at the Alamo, Santa Anna was later forced to sign a treaty (never ratified) granting independence to Texas.
Attracted by the reputed richness of California and Oregon, settlers went west in great numbers by wagon train to the “Promised Land.” The Great Plains and the mountains were still perceived as inhospitable, and settlers hastened through them as quickly as possible.
Should the United States annex the independent Lone Star Republic? Settled by slaveholders, Texas would certainly become a slave state. Efforts to deal with the question were inconclusive until James K. Polk, a southern Democrat, announced boldly for “re-annexation” in 1844. By the mid-1840s Manifest Destiny had taken hold in the popular mind. Democrats came to see the acquisition of new territory as a logical complement to the party’s policies of low tariffs and opposition to central banking, policies that fostered the factory system. Democrats preferred to provide farmers with land and access to foreign markets. President Polk successfully finessed the British into accepting a compromise in Oregon at the forty-ninth parallel. From Mexico he wanted more. The Slidell mission to negotiate for Texas, New Mexico, and California proved a failure, but Mexico supplied a needed excuse for war by firing on American troops in the disputed land between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande. The Mexican army was far from being a pushover, but American superiority in artillery and leadership gave victory and half of Mexico to the United States. Artillery and firearms were not the only technological achievement of the age. The telegraph revolutionized communication, which in turn began to change politics, the news industry, the development of American identity, and international relations.
Many northerners believed that the issue of slavery could not be resolved merely by extending the 36°30’ line of the Missouri Compromise to the Pacific. Some opposed slavery on moral grounds. Others feared that an extension of slavery into California and New Mexico would deter settlement by
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Chapter 13: Immigration, Expansion, and Sectional Conflict, 1840–1848
free labor. In 1846 David Wilmot (Democrat, Pennsylvania) sponsored the Wilmot Proviso in Congress prohibiting slavery in any territory to be acquired from Mexico. Constitutional issues were at stake. Slaveholders argued that slaves as property could be carried into whatever territories their owners wished. (Thus, according to Calhoun, the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional.) On the other hand, northerners pointed out, the Constitution gives Congress the power to make regulations for the territories. The election of 1848 pitted Mexican War hero Zachary Taylor against Lewis Cass of Michigan, an advocate of popular sovereignty. The gold strike in California and the rush of people to the new territory put the question of slavery in the Mexican cession at the top of President Taylor’s agenda.
LECTURE SUGGESTIONS
One of the recurrent themes in the history of the United States is the degree to which immigration has altered not only the nature of the nation but the ways in which the nation thinks about itself. The issue of immigration is so important that it may deserve several lectures during the course of the year. While many immigrants came to the United States for religious and political freedom, most came for economic opportunity. A lecture on factors of “push” and “pull” during the middle third of the nineteenth century will help clarify and underline this vital matter. The lecture would do well to foreshadow the so-called new immigration at the century’s end and the “fourth wave” after 1965. Although the focus here is mid-nineteenth century, the longer perspective is valuable for enhanced understanding. See Franklin D. Scott, The Peopling of America: Perspectives on Immigration (1984), one of many valuable American Historical Association pamphlets, and also Roger Daniels, Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life (1990). An older but still excellent introduction to the subject of immigration is Maldwyn A. Jones, American Immigration (1960).
Closely related to a treatment of the push and pull factors in immigration is a closer analysis of American reactions to the arrival of foreigners. Their labor surely was welcome in the building of the nation but competition for employment was not. And significant differences in dress, deportment, religion, culture, and custom made both native-born Americans and earlier arrivals uncomfortable. A lecture dealing with American reactions to immigration will be instructive. A productive approach is to provide an overview and then concentrate on one or two different groups and/or one or two incidents. Here the focus might properly be on anti-Catholicism with an emphasis on the Bible riots, the Maria Monk affair, or the hostility toward the Irish and the Roman Catholic Church. Consult Kerby A. Miller, Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to America (1985); Lawrence J. McCaffery, The Irish Diaspora in America (1976); and Oscar Handlin, Boston’s Immigrants: A Study of Acculturation (revised edition; 1959). An older but still useful volume is Ray Allen Billington, The Protestant Crusade, 1800–1860: A Study of the Origins of American Nativism (1938).
In the vocabulary of the late twentieth century, aggression by one nation against another is viewed as inappropriate, unfair, and wrong. Perhaps for this reason the actions of the United States against the Republic of Mexico are often not clearly defined north of the border. But was the United States an aggressor? Or was the Mexican army itching for a fight? A lecture dealing with this topic in the context of Manifest Destiny may be very illuminating for students. See Otis Singletary’s brief account in The Mexican War (1960); K. Jack Bauer’s much fuller account in The Mexican War, 1846–1848 (1993); and Ramón Eduardo Ruiz, editor, The Mexican War: Was It Manifest Destiny? (1963). This volume in the American Problem Studies Series has excerpts from writings that offer a spectrum of differing interpretations of responsibility. See also Bernard DeVoto’s Years of Decision, 1846 (1943) for popular history in the best sense. What happened after the war may also throw some light on earlier U.S. intentions. See Richard Griswold del Castillo, The Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo: A Legacy of Conflict (1990), and David S. and Jeanne T. Heidler, The Mexican War (2006), which examines the war from both the Mexican and the American perspectives.
Chapter 13: Immigration, Expansion, and Sectional Conflict, 1840–1848
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A lecture filled with action and excitement can be created by focusing attention on the famous battle of the Alamo. Its fame lives on. Knowledge about it does not. One of the remarkable things about the Alamo is precisely that fame. Instructors may wish to explore public reaction and the use of the Alamo as a rallying point. See Holly Beachley Brear, Inherit the Alamo: Myth and Ritual at an American Shrine (1995), and Timothy M. Matovina, The Alamo Remembered: Tejano Accounts and Perspectives (1995). It may also be interesting to contrast one of the famous incidents on the Mexican side, the actions of the niños héroes at the battle of Chapultepec. See Robert W. Johannsen, To The Halls of the Montezumas: The Mexican War in the American Imagination (1985); Chapter 9, “The Historian’s War,” looks at the question of interpretation as well. And see Susan P. Schoelwer and Tom W. Glaser, Alamo Images: Changing Perceptions of a Texas Experience (1985). A useful account of the niños héroes in English from the Mexican perspective is more difficult to come by. Josefina Zoraida Vásquez and Lorenzo Meyer, The United States and Mexico (1985), contains an excellent bibliography. Consult Cecil Robinson, editor, The View from Chapultepec: Mexican Writers on the Mexican-American War (1989).
There is opportunity here for a “colorful character” lecture, one that will tell a good story and will also reveal important issues facing the nation: the life and times of Sam Houston. Refer in particular to Marquis James, The Raven: The Story of Sam Houston (1929), or the more recent biography by Marshall De Bruhl, Sword of San Jacinto: A Life of Sam Houston (1993). Moreover, Houston’s views on secession will later provide a lead-in, a connection with the crisis atmosphere at the end of the 1850s.
ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONAL SUGGESTIONS
1. Going to Oregon The members of the class are gathered at, let us say, Independence, Missouri, making preparations for the trek to the Willamette Valley. What will they need? How will they organize? Are roles differentiated by age, sex, or social class? Will an “expert,” a safari guide, be needed? Students prepare by reading Francis Parkman, The Oregon Trail (1872), and are assigned such roles as wagon driver, hunter, scout, cook, mother. Many roles will have several incumbents. Valuable information, including maps, may be found in Herman R. Friis, “The Image of the American West at Mid-Century (1840–1860),” in The Frontier Re-examined, edited by John Francis McDermott (1967). See also Kenneth L. Holmes, Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840
1890 (1983); Volume 1 covers 1840 to 1849 and has a section on the Donner party. Fine material can be found in John D. Unruh, Jr., The Plains Across: The Overland Emigrants and the TransMississippi West, 1840–60 (1979), and additional help can be obtained from Herbert Eaton, The Overland Trail to California in 1852 (1974), and W. J. Ghent, The Road to Oregon: A Chronicle of the Great Emigrant Trail (1929). Jacqueline Williams, Wagon Wheel Kitchens: Food on the Oregon Trail (1993), will be a help. Have the students each write a one-page summary of what they anticipate their duties to be. Ask some to define those duties in class, and invite the members of the class to comment.
2. The joint resolution that admitted Texas to the Union in 1845 was successful. A treaty requiring a two-thirds vote in the Senate probably would not have been. Have four students prepare to debate the admission of Texas in 1845, two on each side. Organize the remaining students in the class so that they represent different geographic regions, different social classes, different trades and occupations. Each student will prepare one or two questions, in writing, for the four debaters questions that fairly represent the views of his or her assigned “constituency.” The objective for the students will be to see the relationships between the political decision and the complexity of life roles. The text provides basic information, and the instructor will be ready to raise questions about congressional motivation where student alertness may falter.
3. James K. Polk’s policies in regard to Texas, New Mexico, California, and Oregon were bold. But were they wise? Give students a choice of three questions: Were the instructions given to John Slidell good policy? Was the demand for 54° 40’ a reasonable demand or a wise one? Was the positioning of
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Chapter 13: Immigration, Expansion, and Sectional Conflict, 1840–1848
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American troops south of the Nueces River a good decision? Have each student choose one of the three questions and prepare, in writing, a page of advice for President Polk. The instructor can orchestrate a discussion on the basis of these brief statements from students. In addition to considering the success of President Polk’s policies, students will learn more about dealing with problems of foresight and hindsight. For an additional ingredient, consider introducing some points from Gene M. Brack, Mexico Views Manifest Destiny (1976).
PRINT AND NONPRINT RESOURCES
The move to the Pacific Coast is central to the legend of America In connection with the Oregon Trail suggestion made earlier, you may wish to show a PBS video (from The American Experience series) that tells the story through quotations from survivors’ accounts, historical photographs, and comments from writers and historians: The Donner Party (90 minutes http://video.pbs.org/)
PBS Video also offers a thirty-minute film in the American Adventure Series under the title Manifest Destiny. It deals well with the matters of Oregon, Texas, and the Southwest and may be used effectively to introduce a closer analysis through lecture and discussion. Or it is helpful as a means of summing up.
The Oregon Trail is the subject of four videos, each 26-30 minutes, from Films for the Humanities and Sciences (http://ffh.films.com/). They are Beginnings, Across the Plains, Through the Rockies, and The Final Steps, each taking viewers through a portion of the journey with both present-day scenes and historical materials. A romantic, mythic approach to Manifest Destiny and the pioneer spirit, The Golden Land (57 minutes), is available from the same source. PBS also produced In Search of the Oregon Trail, two hours, fifty minutes, which “challenges the myths and relives the actual experience of the western migration.” Check www.worldcat.org for libraries holding this DVD. Another trail is treated in the PBS Trail of Hope: The Story of the Mormon Trail (1977, 117 minutes), narrated by Hal Holbrook, very positively inclined toward its subject, and including some very effective enactment with wagons and handcarts done without dialogue. Check www.amazon.com for availability. Utah: The Struggle for Statehood (DVD, 90 minutes), also from PBS, provides an account of the early years of the Mormon settlement.
Films for the Humanities and Sciences offers The Gold Rush (DVD, 51 minutes), a full account of the event and also of some of its long-term effects on American society.
Expansion at Mexico’s expense is visually portrayed in Martha A. Sandweiss et al., Eyewitness to War: Prints and Daguerreotypes of the Mexican War, 1846–1848 (1989), a richly illustrated, oversized volume. A full video treatment is available from PBS Video. The U.S.–Mexican War, 1846–1848 (1998, 2 DVDs) is offered in four segments totaling four hours. It draws on photographs, paintings, other archival materials, and comments by historians. The beginnings of the war between Texas and Mexico are treated in Battle of the Alamo (DVD, 47 minutes), produced by Discovery Communications, (www.discoverystore.com; check www.worldcat.org and www.imdb.com). It provides a balanced account of that important event. A fuller and more reverent account is available from Zenger Media (www.zengermedia.com): The Alamo (2 DVDs, 240 minutes). In addition, PBS’s The American Experience produced “Remember the Alamo” (2004, 60 minutes, DVD).
The American Heritage Media Collection offers an even broader sweep in Part 5, Expansion and Change, of The Making of the Nation. Part 5 goes from the Panic of 1837 through the Mexican War, the Compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and up to the election of Abraham Lincoln. (www.worldcat.org).
The immigrant experience is skillfully treated in Five Points, a thirty-minute overview from the American Social History Project. Conflicting perspectives of a native-born Protestant reformer and an immigrant Irish Catholic family in New York City’s Five Points slum are presented in a
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storytelling mode (www.ashp.cuny.edu) In addition, events in New York City from 1846 to 1862 are dramatized in Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York (2002, 167 minutes, DVD), based on the 1928 book by Herbert Asbury (www.imdb.com).
In 1834 Richard Henry Dana left his studies at Harvard College, signed on the brig Pilgrim as a seaman, and went around the Horn to California, where he engaged in the hides trade. He went ashore to work for several months and returned as a seaman aboard Alert. His account of the experience, Two Years Before the Mast (1840), provides fascinating reading and an insight into a world with which students will have had little experience. Dana returned to Harvard and finished at the top of his class. The novel was made into a movie with the same title in 1946 (98 minutes, www.imdb.com) There are numerous clips (of varying quality) available for free download from YouTube (www.YouTube.com).
Document Set 13–1
Manifest Destiny and Mission: The Mexican War and the Extension of Freedom
1. Expressions of American Destiny, 1839
2 Senator Benton Justifies White Supremacy, 1846
3. President Polk Takes the Nation to War, 1846
4 President Polk’s Message to Congress, 1846
5. Abraham Lincoln Calls Polk to Account, 1848
6. A Mexican View of the War, 1850
The Mexican War offers an opportunity for students to test T. E. Lawrence’s assertion that “the documents are liars.” It certainly illustrates the hazards of any attempt to “let the documents speak for themselves.” This chapter also encourages students to approach scholars’ accounts with a measure of skepticism. Analysis of the excerpt from the combined work of the Mexican scholars will force students to grapple with the problem of conflicting evidence.
Beyond this the most obvious question to be considered lies in the tangled web of historical causation. Chapter 13 provides background on American territorial expansion, including ideology, population movement, political maneuvering, economic goals, and social pressures. By examining the documents, students can engage in fruitful discussion of the Mexican War’s deeper roots.
Related to this topic is another analytical problem that will sharpen student consciousness of pastpresent linkage, including an awareness of continuity over time. The study of Manifest Destiny allows students to reach back to the Puritan sense of mission and to follow this theme through the birth of the American “empire” in the late nineteenth century. This discussion should emphasize the early origins of expansionism, the concept of divine ordination, racial Anglo-Saxonism, and the belief in a “destined use of the soil.”
Having explored the background, students may now attack the origins of the Mexican War in the immediate context of the dynamic 1840s. It will be useful to link the slavery controversy, the Democratic Party’s internal tensions, and the convergence of events between 1844 and 1848. The documents emphasize the Polk administration’s interest in California and the West Coast. Students should confront the implications of Slidell’s activities. As students examine the immediate context, they need to be aware of sequence as well as the developments of 1845–1846.
It may be useful to ask students to place themselves in Mexico City and to assign them responsibility for arguing the Mexican position on the war’s background. Still another approach would be to stage a Polk-Lincoln debate by class members. Student groups could also prepare position papers, employing arguments found in the evidence.
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Chapter 13: Immigration, Expansion, and Sectional Conflict, 1840–1848
The Mexican War again allows students to assess the influence of “great men” on the course of historical events. Polk’s diary and war message raise the question of the president’s role in the war decision. Students will ask whether military conflict was inevitable, and instructors can encourage the inquiry by insisting on a return to the documents for insight.
This chapter will help students identify and sort out long-term causes, long-held national assumptions, immediate context, the force of personality, and geopolitical factors in the war’s origins. Moreover, the topic offers an unparalleled opportunity to discuss thesis development, the use of evidence, and the explication of argument.
Recommended Readings for Document Set 13–1
Gene Black. Mexico Views Manifest Destiny, 1821–1846 (1975).
Norman Graebner. “The Mexican War: A Study of Causation.” Pacific Historical Review 59 (1980): 405–426.
Thomas R. Hietala. Manifest Design: Anxious Aggrandizement in Late Jacksonian America (1985).
Reginald Horsman. Race and Manifest Destiny: The Origins of American Racial Anglo-Saxonism (1981).
Robert W. Johnson. To the Halls of Montezuma: The Mexican War in the American Imagination (1985).
David M. Pletcher. The Diplomacy of Annexation: Texas, Oregon, and the Mexican War (1973).
Glenn W. Price. Origins of the War with Mexico: The Polk-Stockton Intrigue (1967).
John H. Schroeder. Mr. Polk’s War: American Opposition and Dissent, 1846–1848 (1971).
Anders Stephanson. Manifest Destiny: American Expansionism and the Empire of Right (1995).
David J. Weber. The Mexican Frontier, 1821–1846: The American Southwest Under Mexico (1982).
Document Set 13–2
The Clash of Cultures: Nativism in Antebellum America
1 Immigration Statistics by Country and Occupation Group
2 Samuel F. B. Morse Expresses Anti-Catholicism, 1835
3. A Fictitious Account of Life in a Convent, 1836
4 A Warning against the Native American Party, 1844
5. A Protest against Oppressive Capitalism, 1845
6 Daniel Webster Argues for Revision of the Naturalization Laws, 1844
In recent years a new wave of Hispanic, black, and Asian immigration into the United States has resulted in a major political controversy and produced legislative action to control the flow of “illegals.” In view of the current policy dispute, the documents on antebellum nativism provide a good opportunity to establish past-present linkage. Instructors might approach the topic by using a “backward from current problems” strategy, beginning with a discussion of recently passed immigration legislation. Students should examine reasons for resistance to the immigrants of our time. An examination of historical precedents for the resentment of outsiders will take students back to the evidence from the 1830s and 1840s. Comparative analysis of nineteenth- and twentieth-century
Sectional Conflict,
–1848
Chapter 13: Immigration, Expansion, and
1840
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positions should produce lively discussion. The result will be greater insight into the thought processes of nineteenth-century men and women, as well as better understanding of a modern dilemma.
Equally illuminating will be an examination of the “melting pot” concept. Instructors may wish to begin with a discussion of the term melting pot and the assimilationist assumptions that it reflects. The evidence from the documents, however, should raise questions about how great a unifying impact the American social environment really had. The disagreement evident in the documents can be a bridge to the present, if instructors choose to address the issue of modern ethnic consciousness and resiliency. In this connection instructors could introduce another provocative issue by questioning the extent of ethnic and religious tolerance in the American experience. After analyzing the persecution of Germans and Irish Catholics in the 1840s, students should ask whether victims of discrimination (and their heirs) become more tolerant of the persecuted over time. If experience did not always produce tolerance, how can the emergence of cultural pluralism be explained?
A variety of evidence, sometimes conflicting, has been presented in this chapter. One analytic technique would be to arrange the documents by category of argument religious, economic, and political. After grouping the evidence, students might be asked to defend one position orally or in writing. Instructors should also encourage an examination of authors’ underlying motives and cultural predispositions, which will require that students combine knowledge gained from text reading with their own analytical insight.
The evidence in this chapter is also adaptable to analysis through debate. Students may be divided into immigrant and nativist groups and asked to study the documents supporting their respective positions. Using a discussion format, each group could defend its position orally. Alternatively, group members could prepare a position paper to present to the “opposition” for review and criticism.
Recommended Readings for Document Set 13–2
Tyler Anbinder. Nativism and Slavery: The Northern Know-Nothings and the Politics of the 1850s (1992).
Ray A. Billington. The Protestant Crusade, 1800–1860: A Study in the Origins of Nativism (1938).
John Bodnar. The Transplanted: A History of Immigrants in America (1985).
David B. Davis. “Some Themes of Counter-Subversion: An Analysis of Anti-Masonic, Anti-Catholic, and Anti-Mormon Literature.” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 47 (1960): 204–224.
Jay P. Dolan. The Immigrant Church: New York’s Irish and German Catholics, 1815–1865 (1975).
Oscar Handlin. Boston’s Immigrants, 1790–1880: A Study in Acculturation (rev. ed., 1969).
Ira M. Leonard and Robert D. Parmet. American Nativism, 1830–1860 (1971).
Bruce Levine. The Spirit of 1848: German Immigrants, Labor Conflict, and the Coming of the Civil War (1992).
Kerby A. Miller. Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America (1985).
Stanley Nadel. Little Germany: Ethnicity, Religion, and Class in New York City, 1845–1880 (1990).
Document Set 13–3
The Overland Trail: Sharing the Burden
1. The Lure of the Northwest Spawns “Oregon Fever,” 1843
2 An Idealized Description of the Trek West, 1845
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Chapter 13: Immigration, Expansion, and Sectional Conflict, 1840–1848
3 Oregon Emigrants Provide for Civil Government on the Trail, 1844
4. A Pioneer Woman Copes with Personal Tragedy, 1847–1850
5 An Oregon Pioneer Records the Journey West to Start a New Life, 1853
6. Images of Life and Death on the Oregon Trail
An important theme in Chapter 13 is the rapid expansion of the United States in the 1840s. One of the important arguments for the acquisition of the entire Oregon territory was the substantial physical presence of Americans in the Pacific Northwest by the time it became the subject of major international dispute in 1846. This unit emphasizes the increase in Oregon’s American population as a result of the large-scale overland emigration of the mid-1840s.
The focus of Document Set 13–3 is the emigration experience itself and its impact on the individuals and families who relocated in pursuit of economic betterment. Because this mass movement was essentially a family undertaking, the documents have been chosen and arranged to highlight the changes in sex roles and gender relations that resulted from the challenges encountered during the westward migration. Instructors will therefore want to encourage discussion of the frontier’s impact on traditional assumptions about gender-based spheres of occupational and social activity.
To provide the necessary background, a lecture on the concept of “separate spheres” would be useful. Once students have considered the traditional value system and its origins, they will be able to explore the documents for evidence of the old assumptions inherent in the thinking of those planning or promoting emigration. Students might also be asked about the extent to which women initiated a family’s decision to relocate.
After discussion of the doctrine of separate spheres, it should become obvious that the reality of life on the overland trail was shattering for those who had accepted the social assumptions of the time. Instructors might want to encourage students to scan the two diaries for entries that suggest a breach in traditional sex roles and responsibilities.
A careful reading of the documents could also provide insight into female responses to the changes in role definition. A review of the source material may provide insight into emotional reactions and personal feelings about the abandonment of traditional ideas of womanhood. Students could be asked to determine the impact of the emigration experience on the ways in which women (and men) thought of themselves and of others.
Still another point raised by the documents involves the impact of the journey west on the sense of community. Students might be asked how emigrants were able to enforce social order on themselves in the absence of civil government or an established institutional structure. Emphasis might be placed on both the formal institutions and informal practices that evolved in response to the need for order. Perhaps the most significant issue to be addressed in discussing these documents would be the longterm implications of the temporary disruptions that occurred on the overland trail. For background on this problem, instructors may wish to consult the work of Julie Roy Jeffrey or John M. Faragher (see “Recommended Readings”), which discusses the interpretive question. Instructors and students will want to speculate on the permanence of the sex-role redefinitions that appear to have taken place under the pressure of frontier conditions. The critical question will be the values and attitudes expressed by men and women in the West once the frontier stage of development came to an end.
Recommended Readings for Document Set 13–3
Susan Armitage and Elizabeth Jameson, eds. The Women’s West (1987).
Ray Allen Billington. The Far Western Frontier, 1830–1860 (1956).
Malcolm Clark, Jr. Eden Seekers: The Settlement of Oregon, 1812–1862 (1981).
Chapter 13: Immigration, Expansion, and Sectional Conflict, 1840–1848
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John M. Faragher. Women and Men on the Oregon Trail (1979).
Julie Roy Jeffrey. Frontier Women: The Trans-Mississippi West, 1840–1890 (1979).
Polly Welts Kaufman. Women Teachers on the Frontier (1984).
Annette Kolodny. The Land Before Her: Fantasy and Experience of the American Frontiers, 1630–1860 (1985).
Sandra L. Myres. Westering Women and the Frontier Experience, 1800–1915 (1982).
John D. Unruh, Jr. The Plain Across: The Overland Emigrants and the Trans-Mississippi West, 1840–1860 (1979).
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Chapter 13: Immigration, Expansion, and Sectional Conflict, 1840–1848
