 In 1845 a magazine editor named John Louis O’Sullivan declared that it was the

“manifest destiny” of Americans “to overspread the continent allotted by

Providence.” Many Americans believed in this concept of Manifest Destiny—the
idea that God had bestowed the entire continent to the Americans and wanted
them to settle the western lands.
 Early pioneers became known as squatters because they settled on lands they did
not own. The federal government intended to survey the land and then sell large
parcels to real estate companies, but squatters wanted to buy the land they
occupied directly from the federal government.
 Bowing to public pressure, Congress passed the Preemption Act of 1830. This law
protected squatters by guaranteeing them the right to claim land before it was
surveyed and the right to buy up to 160 acres at the government’s minimum price
of $1.25 per acre.
 A few decades earlier, farmers had only wooden plows to break up the grass cover
and roots of Midwestern sod. Plowing became easier after 1819, when Jethro Wood
patented an iron-bladed plow, and also in 1837, when John Deere engineered a
plow with steel blades. Midwestern agriculture also received a boost from the
mechanical reaper, which Cyrus McCormick patented in 1834. For centuries
farmers had cut grain by hand, using a sickle or a scythe— exhausting and time-
consuming work. With a McCormick reaper pulled by horses or mules, farmers
could harvest far more grain with far less effort.
 In 1818 Britain and the United States had agreed to occupy the land jointly. In the
1830s, American missionaries began arriving in Oregon to convert Native
Americans. These missionaries spread the word about Oregon and persuaded
others to come to the lush Willamette Valley.
 Emigrants made the journey in groups of covered wagons called wagon trains.
Before starting out, they assembled outside a frontier town. Early wagon trains
hired mountain men to guide them. Later, most of the travelers—known
as overlanders—used guidebooks to find their own way.
 Although travelers feared attacks by Native Americans, these were rare. By one
estimate, 362 emigrants died due to Native American attacks between 1840 and
1860, while emigrants killed 462 Native Americans in the same period. Native
Americans often gave emigrants food and helpful information about routes, edible
plants, and sources of water. Overlanders also renewed their provisions by trading
other goods with Native Americans, sometimes using horses as currency.
 Unlike those bound for the West in search of land, the Mormons followed a deeply
rooted American tradition—the quest for religious freedom. The Mormons,
however, had to seek that freedom by leaving the Eastern states, instead of coming
to them.
 In 1844 a mob murdered the Mormon leader Joseph Smith. Two years later, the
church’s new leader, Brigham Young, took his people west to escape further
persecution. Several thousand Mormons forged their way along a path that became
known as the Mormon Trail. It served as a valuable route into the western United
States. In 1847 the Mormons stopped at the Great Salt Lake in what is now Utah.
Undeterred by the wildness of the area, they claimed the land they called
“Deseret.”
 In 1821, after more than a decade of fighting, Mexico won its independence from
Spain. During the decades that followed, Mexico experienced great turmoil and
political chaos. As the young Mexican republic struggled to establish a stable
national government, it neglected its northern borderlands, which included
California, New Mexico, and Texas.
 Secularization of the missions had a tremendous impact on life in California
because it freed up land for cattle ranching, which became the mainstay of the
economy. Rancheros, or ranchers, owned sprawling tracts of land. These
predominantly white “Spanish Dons” and their families constituted less than 10
percent of California’s population but dominated California society.

 Beneath these elites was a class of mestizos (persons of mixed European and
Native American ancestry). Some of this middle class worked as vaqueros
(cowboys), but many were skilled craftspeople.
 As in California, Mexican independence brought little immediate change to New
Mexico (which included present-day Arizona). Although New Mexico had a larger
Hispanic population (approximately 44,000 in 1827), it remained largely rural.
Sheep ranching thrived in New Mexico’s dry climate. Large ranches were
established south of Santa Fe in the Rio Grande Valley. Throughout the region, corn,
peppers, and potatoes were staple crops. The local Pueblo people had raised corn
for centuries.
 After Mexican independence in 1821, American influence in the borderlands grew.
A few Americans settled in California before Mexican independence, and
immigration increased afterward. Trade with the United States increased
significantly once Mexico was no longer part of Spain’s empire. Traders from the
United States, Russia, and other countries arrived in California ports to exchange
manufactured goods for sea otter and seal skins and the hides and tallow derived
from cattle.
 In 1839, hoping to attract more settlers, Juan Bautista Alvarado, the governor of
California, granted 50,000 acres in the Sacramento Valley to John Sutter. There,
Sutter built a trading post and cattle ranch. “Sutter’s Fort” was often the first
stopping point for Americans reaching California. As more Americans arrived, the
differences between California and southern Mexico increased. This fueled
political tensions between frontier leaders and the Mexican national government.
The American population, however, was still relatively small. Only about 700
Americans lived in California in 1845.
 In July 1821, Stephen F. Austin set off from Louisiana for Texas. He went to carry out
the plan his father, Moses Austin, had made with the Spanish government to bring
300 American families to settle in Texas. Moses died before he could fulfill his part
of the agreement. On his deathbed, he asked Stephen to take his place in Texas.
 When Austin settled in Texas, it was not a wild and empty land. Spanish-speaking
Tejanos had established settlements in the southern portion of the region, and the
land to the north was the territory of the Apache, Comanche, and other Native
American groups. In 1824 Texas was joined with Coahuila to become part of the
Mexican state of Coahuila y Texas.
 Under the National Colonization Act, Mexico gave empresarios, a Spanish word
meaning “agents” or “contractors,” large grants of Texas land. In exchange, the
empresarios promised to fill the land with a certain number of settlers and govern
the colonies they established. Stephen Austin was the most successful empresario.
By the mid-1830s, Austin had persuaded some 1,500 American families to
immigrate.
 Americans in Texas initially accepted Mexican citizenship, but many did not accept
Mexican customs or Roman Catholicism. Many Mexicans, in turn, distrusted the
settlers because of their American lifestyle and rejection of Mexican ways.
 In 1826 Benjamin Edwards, brother of empresario Haden Edwards, led a rebellion
against Mexican authority. He declared that American settlements in Texas now
constituted the independent nation of Fredonia. He gained few followers, however.
When threatened by Mexican troops and militia from Stephen Austin’s colony, the
rebels dispersed.
 Although most settlers ignored Edwards’s call for revolution, the Mexican
government feared it signaled an American plot to acquire Texas. In 1830 Mexico
closed its borders to further immigration by Americans and banned the
importation of enslaved labor as well. Mexico also taxed goods imported from
foreign countries, hoping to discourage trade with the United States. These laws
infuriated the settlers. Without immigration their settlements could not grow.
 With tensions simmering, Texas settlers met at conventions in the Texas town of San
Felipe in 1832 and 1833. At the first, Stephen Austin was chosen the convention’s
president. This convention asked Mexico to reopen Texas to American immigrants
and to ease taxes on imports. The second convention sought to make Texas a
separate state from Coahuila, and it agreed on a constitution. Austin was sent to
negotiate with the Mexican government.
 In the fall of 1833, negotiations stalled. Austin sent a letter to Tejano leaders
suggesting that Texas start peacefully organizing its own state government. Then he
visited Mexican president Antonio López de Santa Anna and convinced him to
agree to several demands. On his way home, Austin was arrested. Mexican officials
had intercepted his letter to the Tejanos. Suspected of trying to incite a rebellion,
Austin was imprisoned in Mexico City, without trial. Soon afterward, President Santa
Anna declared himself dictator. Austin was released from prison in July 1835.
Seeing that further negotiation with Santa Anna was pointless, Austin urged Texans
to organize an army.
 On March 2, 1836, Texas declared its independence from Mexico. Shortly
thereafter, the Texans drafted a new constitution that drew heavily from the U.S.
Constitution and specifically protected slavery.
 Few of the Texas rebels had any military training and at first had no leader. Finally,
a former governor of Tennessee and proven military leader named Sam Houston
took command. In the meantime, Santa Anna organized a force of several thousand
to put down the rebellion.
 When Mexican forces arrived at San Antonio in February 1836, they found more
than 180 Texas rebels holed up in an abandoned Catholic mission called the
Alamo. Under the command of Lieutenant Colonel William B. Travis, the small force
in the Alamo sought to delay Santa Anna and give Houston’s army more time to
prepare.
 The call for reinforcements almost went unanswered. About 33 settlers, most from
Gonzales, decided to join the fight and made it into the Alamo. The Texans held off
Santa Anna’s besieging army for 13 days. It was during the standoff that the new
Texas government formally declared independence. On March 6, 1836, Santa
Anna’s army stormed the Alamo. The Texans fought off their attackers for several
hours before being overrun. The defenders of the Alamo had bought Houston’s
army nearly two extra weeks to organize.
 With the Texan army in disarray, Sam Houston desperately needed more time to
recruit fresh volunteers and to train the soldiers who remained. Rather than fight,
he chose to retreat, heading east toward Louisiana.

 Houston was biding his time. Up against a larger, more disciplined army, he
decided to wait for Santa Anna to make a mistake. It came on April 21, when both
armies were encamped along the San Jacinto River near what is now the city of
Houston. Santa Anna no longer saw the Texan army as a threat. Confident that
Houston would wait until the next day to launch an attack, Santa Anna allowed his
men to sleep in the afternoon.
 Eager for a fight, Houston’s soldiers convinced the officers to launch an afternoon
assault. Shielded from sight by a hill, Houston’s troops crept up on Santa Anna’s
sleeping soldiers and charged. Yelling “Remember the Alamo” and “Remember
Goliad,” Houston’s men attacked the Mexican soldiers with guns, knives, and clubs.
Hundreds were killed, and more than 700 of Santa Anna’s troops were taken
prisoner. The Texans suffered only 9 killed and 34 wounded.
 Among the captured men was Santa Anna himself. Houston forced him to order his
army out of Texas and sign a treaty recognizing the independence of the Republic
of Texas. The Mexican Congress refused to accept the treaty but was unwilling to
launch another military campaign. Texas had won the war.
 The dispute over Texas between the United States and Mexico began in 1803, when
the United States claimed Texas as part of the Louisiana Purchase. The Adams-Onís
Treaty of 1819 ended that claim, but the idea of acquiring Mexican territory still
had strong popular support.
 The presidential election of 1844 pitted Whig senator Henry Clay against Democrat
James K. Polk, a former member of Congress and governor of Tennessee. Polk
promised to annex not only Texas but also the contested Oregon Territory. In
addition, he vowed to buy California from Mexico. This appealed to Northerners
and Southerners because it expanded the country while maintaining the delicate
balance between free and slave states.
 Polk took a strong stance on what came to be known as the Oregon Question.
Despite British claims to Oregon, which had been established in the Convention of
1818, Polk and the Democrats held that the United States had a “clear and
unquestionable” right to all of the Oregon Country, including part of the region
north of the 49th parallel that is today British Columbia. Their rallying cry, “Fifty-
four Forty or Fight,” declared that the United States should control all of Oregon
below the line of 54°40’ north latitude.
 Despite such slogans, few Americans wanted to fight the British to gain control of
Oregon. In June 1846, the two nations negotiated the Oregon Treaty. In this
agreement, the United States received all of Oregon south of 49° north latitude and
west of the Rocky Mountains, except for the southern tip of Vancouver Island. In
exchange, the British were guaranteed navigation rights on the Columbia River.
 Even before Polk took office, outgoing president Tyler pushed an annexation
resolution through Congress in February 1845, and Texas joined the Union that
year. As predicted, Mexico was outraged and broke diplomatic relations with the U.
S. government. Matters worsened when the two countries disputed the location of
Texas’s southwestern border. Mexico said it was at the Nueces River. Texans, and
then the United States, claimed the Rio Grande, about 150 miles (240 km) farther
west and south, as the boundary, covering more territory than the Mexican claim.
 Polk’s intentions in California added to the growing strife with Mexico. In
November 1845, he sent John Slidell as a special envoy , or representative, to
Mexico City to try to purchase the territory. Mexico’s president, José Joaquín
Herrera, refused to meet with Slidell
 In early May, several days before Polk signed the declaration of war, Taylor’s troops
defeated Mexican forces, first at Palo Alto and then at Resaca de la Palma. Taylor
then moved south, defeating Mexican forces at Matamoros. By late September, he
had marched about 200 miles (322 km) west from the coast of the Gulf of Mexico
and captured Monterrey.

 In the meantime, Colonel Stephen W. Kearny led troops from Fort Leavenworth,
west of Missouri, toward Santa Fe. The march through the dry countryside was
brutal, but when Kearny’s men reached the city in August, the Mexican force there
had already fled. With Santa Fe secured, Kearny led a small U.S. force into
California.
 Before Kearny arrived, and even before war with Mexico was officially declared,
settlers in northern California led by American general John C. Frémont had begun
an uprising. The official Mexican presence in the territory had never been strong,
and the settlers had little trouble overcoming it. On June 14, 1846, they declared
California independent of Mexico and renamed the region the Bear Flag Republic.
A few weeks later, the Bear Flag Republic came to an end when American naval
forces arrived and took possession of California for the United States.
 Polk placed General Winfield Scott in command of this campaign. In March 1847,
Scott’s force landed near Veracruz, which his forces took 20 days later. Having
taken control of this strategic port, the American troops then headed for Mexico
City, fighting vicious and bloody battles with Mexican forces along the way. For two
days they stormed Chapultepec Castle, which guarded the city, and finally entered
Mexico City on September 14. American forces were in control of the capital and
went on to establish a formal occupation of Mexico.
 After the fall of Mexico City, Mexico’s leaders could no longer hold out. On
February 2, 1848, Mexican leaders signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. In the
agreement, Mexico ceded, or gave up, some 500,000 square miles of territory to
the United States. This land is now the states of California, Utah, and Nevada as well
as parts of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Wyoming. Mexico also accepted
the Rio Grande as the southern border of Texas. In exchange, the United States
paid Mexico $15 million and agreed to take over $3.25 million in debts Mexico
owed to American citizens.