The American West

OR

An Introduction• Over the course of the following unit, we will look at

what makes the West a socially, culturally, and politically unique feature of American life.• We will begin with Lewis and Clark and work our way

toward the outbreak of the Civil War, looking both at landmark events in the development of the West, but also at the lives of ordinary settlers and citizens who chose to travel westward.• Additionally, we will focus on the impact Indian

Nations had on westward expansion and the experience of Indian nations prior to the outbreak of the Civil War.

First – • Study the following image, a painting called “American

Progress” by John Gast from 1872.• After studying the painting, write a first person

account as one of the people portrayed. The cowboys, the farmers, the railroad conductor, the fleeing Native Americans, or Lady Liberty herself. In your first person account, write about what you’re feeling, thinking, and seeing as you move westward. Next, how is progress portrayed? How is America portrayed? Finally, how is the West portrayed?• Share your writing with a partner.

Then – • Study the following painting, “Across the Continent –

Westward the Course of Empire Takes its Way” by Frances F. Palmer, 1869.• Again, assume the role of one of the people pictured.

What do they see, hear, feel, and think as they move westward? How is progress portrayed? How is America portrayed? How is the West portrayed?• Share your writing with a partner.

Finally – • Repeat the same course of action with the following

painting, the similarly titled, “Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way (Westward Ho)” by Emmanuel Gottlieb Leutze, 1861. The painting currently resides behind the western staircase of the House of Representatives in the nation’s capitol.• What is your person thinking, seeing, or feeling?• How is the West portrayed?

Reading from Wallace Stegner• The following reading is a 1960 letter

from Wallace Stegner to David Pesonen, a member of the Wildland Research Center.• Wallace Stegner is a famous American

novelist whose book Angle of Repose won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1972.• Stegner was a lifelong environmentalist

and champion of Western Wilderness.• As you read, make note of how Stegner

describes the wilderness, its place in American life, and the role it plays in society.

Oneonta Gorge, Mark Hatfield Wilderness. Credit: Michael Matti.

Jefferson Park. Wikimedia Commons.

Home guard on the Columbia River; Mt. Hood in the background. Courtesy of OSU Special Collections.

Mark O. Hatfield Wilderness• https://www.google.com/maps/place/Mark+O+Hatfield

+Wilderness/@45.596784,-121.854245,12z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x5495e5bf3ee46331:0x3e402dc3d0145cc0 •

from this point I beheld the grandest and most pleasing prospects which my eyes ever surveyed,

in my frount a boundless Ocean; . . . the Seas rageing with emence wave and brakeing with

great force from the rocks of Cape Disappointment as far as I coud See to the N. W. . . . the nitches and points of high land which forms

this Corse for a long ways aded to the inoumerable rocks of emence Sise out at a great distance from the Shore and against which the Seas brak with great force gives this Coast a

most romantic appearance.

Lewis and Clark

• The Lewis and Clark “Corps of Discovery Expedition” sets out in May, 1804, less than a year after the purchase of Louisiana in 1803. • Captain Meriwether Lewis

heads the expedition. Quickly calls on William Clark to be his co-captain.

Purpose of the Journey• Jefferson funds the mission for

three purpose:• Trade – Easiest passage to the

Northwest corner of the country.• Exploration – Map and detail the

newly acquired Louisiana Purchase.• Science – Record the flora, fauna,

and Native tribes of the area.• Claim – Set up a legal claim to the

land purchased from the French before British and Spanish incursion.

From Jefferson“The object of your mission is to explore the Missouri River, & such principle stream of it, as, by its course and communication with the

waters of the Pacific ocean, whether the Columbia, Oregon, Colorado or any other river may offer the most direct & practicable water

communication across this continent for the purpose of commerce.”

Who were they?

Meriwether Lewis• Born and raised in Virginia,

much like Jefferson.• Learned to hunt and gather at

an early age.• Participated in putting down

the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794 as a member of the Virginia militia.• Only 29 when Jefferson begins

to plan the Expedition

William Clark• Planter and slaveholder born in

Virginia• All three of his older brothers

served in the Virginia militia during the American revolution, but Clark was too young.• No formal education.• York, a member of the Corps of

Discovery, was Clark’s slave.• Clark was a talented mapmaker,

hunter, and organizer.

The Journey• The Expedition lasts from

May, 1804 to September, 1806.• There were 33 members

of the expedition.• Covered somewhere

between ten and fifteen miles per day.• During the winter of

1804-1805, they build and stay at Fort Mandan in North Dakota alongside the Mandan people.

The Journey (continued)• The Corps follows the Missouri to

its headwaters, passes over the Continental Divide at Lemhi Pass.• Expedition arrives at the Pacific

on November 7, 1805.• Expedition faces its second

winter on the north side of the Columbia River.• By November 24, the

Expedition moves to Astoria, Oregon and sets up camp.• Construct Fort Clatsop on the

south side of the Columbia River.

[T]he road took us to the most distant fountain of the waters of the mighty Missouri in surch of which we have spent so many toilsome days and wristless nights. thus far I had accomplished one of those great objects on which my mind has been unalterably fixed for many years, judge then of the pleasure I felt in all[a]ying my thirst with this pure and ice-cold water … here I halted a few minutes and rested myself. two miles below McNeal had exultingly stood with a foot on each side of this rivulet and thanked his god that he had lived to bestride the mighty & heretofore deemed endless Missouri. after refreshing ourselves we proceeded on to the top of the dividing ridge from which I discovered immence ranges of high mountains still to the West of us with their tops partially covered with snow. … here I first tasted the water of the great Columbia river.2

The Mountains at Lemhi Pass

Today

• Wrap up our discussion of Lewis and Clark• The coming crowd of

settlers• Jefferson’s Indian Policy

Jefferson and Indian Policy• Jefferson militarized the

Western border along the Mississippi River in order to aid the settlement of the West• Agrarian Republic

• Jefferson hoped to incorporate Indians in to the market economy in order to remove their self-sufficiency. • Indians + agriculture =

dependence on whites.

Two Policies of Jefferson

Assimilation• Teach Indians how to farm.• Introduce European clothing

and customs• Introduce Indians to European

religions and monotheism• Encourage commerce, trade,

and cooperation with US• Foster dependency on US

system of governance

Removal• If option 1 fails, then, remove• Move Indians from East to West• Allow them to continue their

“traditional” livelihoods despite being in a virtually unknown territory.• Results in traumatic

displacement and disenfranchisement – Native Americans inherently tied to their land.

Benjamin Clark and the Creek Indians

The Proclamation line of 1863 attempts to curb westward expansion and encounters with Indians. Fails once Jefferson purchases Louisiana and aggressively pursues the Agrarian Republic.

Jefferson Primary Sources• For the rest of the day, we’ll be looking at primary

sources from Thomas Jefferson discussing his plans for westward expansion and where the Indian Nations fit in to this plans.• As you read, answer (in complete sentences) the

following questions:• How would you describe Jefferson’s tone in the letter?• What are the strategies he forwards for the Indians?• How do his policies reflect the eventual goal of an “agrarian

republic?”

“To promote this disposition to exchange lands, which they have to spare and we want, for necessaries, which we have to spare and they want, we shall push our trading uses, and be glad to see the good and influential individuals among them run in debt, because we observe that when these debts get beyond what the individuals can pay, they become willing to lop them off by a cession of lands.... In this way our settlements will gradually circumscribe and approach the Indians, and they will in time either incorporate with us as citizens of the United States, or remove beyond the Mississippi. The former is certainly the termination of their history most happy for themselves; but, in the whole course of this, it is essential to cultivate their love. As to their fear, we presume that our strength and their weakness is now so visible that they must see we have only to shut our hand to crush them, and that all our liberalities to them proceed from motives of pure humanity only. Should any tribe be foolhardy enough to take up the hatchet at any time, the seizing the whole country of that tribe, and driving them across the Mississippi, as the only condition of peace, would be an example to others, and a furtherance of our final consolidation.” – Jefferson to William Henry Harrison

“You know, my friend, the benevolent plan we were pursuing here for the happiness of the aboriginal inhabitants in our vicinities. We spared nothing to keep them at peace with one another. To teach them agriculture and the rudiments of the most necessary arts, and to encourage industry by establishing among them separate property. In this way they would have been enabled to subsist and multiply on a moderate scale of landed possession. They would have mixed their blood with ours, and been amalgamated and identified with us within no distant period of time. On the commencement of our present war, we pressed on them the observance of peace and neutrality, but the interested and unprincipled policy of England has defeated all our labors for the salvation of these unfortunate people. They have seduced the greater part of the tribes within our neighborhood, to take up the hatchet against us, and the cruel massacres they have committed on the women and children of our frontiers taken by surprise, will oblige us now to pursue them to extermination, or drive them to new seats beyond our reach.” – Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, 1813.

Discussion• Jefferson believed that

the only way we could prevent the genocide of Native Americans was through removal of tribes west of the Mississippi. In your estimation, bearing in mind that he did not think we would settle the west for 1,000 years, was he right?

Tecumseh and Pushmataha

Tecumseh"Where today are the Pequot? Where are the Narragansett, theMochican, the Pocanet, and other powerful tribes of our people? They have vanished before the avarice and oppression of the white man, as snow before the summer sun ... Sleep not longer, O Choctaws and Chickasaws ... Will not the bones of our dead be plowed up, and their graves turned into plowed fields?"

Pushmataha• "These white Americans ... give us

fair exchange, their cloth, their guns, their tools, implements, and other things which the Choctaws need but do not make ... They doctored our sick; they clothed our suffering; they fed our hungry ... So in marked contrast with the experience of the Shawnees, it will be seen that the whites and Indians in this section are living on friendly and mutually beneficial terms."

Tecumseh Pushmataha

ReadingRead through each document provided – Jefferson’s address

to the Choctaw Nation, and Jefferson’s letter to William Henry Harrison. Once finished, turn to a partner and

compare the tone of Jefferson in each address. Following your discussion, compare and contrast the two speeches in

a paragraph.

Happy Friday!• Let’s start with discussing yesterday’s assignment.• Turn to a partner and compare/contrast the

two sources from Jefferson that we read.• Answer the following questions:

• What is his tone with the Choctaw?• What is his tone with WHH?• How does his policy come through in his

speech with the Choctaw?• How does this policy differ from what he tells

WHH?

Conclusion – Jefferson and the West•Why does it matter that we study Jefferson and his impact on the West?• He will be the first president

to address the issue of Westward expansion head on.• His policies of assimilation and

removal will shape future US policy.• Again, the duality of Jefferson

comes to the fore.

What did expansion look like?• Over the next two days we’ll look

at what expansion meant, in real terms, for the people and places of the United States.• You will be looking at a variety of

maps of the United States, and using those maps to answer questions about the course of US westward expansion.• Once finished, there is an article

about the Indian Removal Act and US-Indian relations and settlement through 1850. Read and respond.

Andrew Jackson• We’ll discuss Jackson – but for now, it

is only in the context of his western policies.• Jackson is significant in that he

embodied the frontier.• Born on the border of the Carolinas• Raised, lived, and died in Tennessee.• A lifelong Democratic-Republican

(Just Democrat after 1828.)• Elected to Presidency in 1828 by a

swell of populism.

Election of Andrew JacksonNo one who was at Washington at the time of General Jackson's inauguration is likely to forget that period to the day of his death. To us, who had witnessed the quiet and orderly period of the Adams administration, it seemed as if half the nation had rushed at once into the capital. It was like the inundation of the northern barbarians into Rome, save that the tumultuous tide came in from a different point of the compass. The West and the South seemed to have precipitated themselves upon the North and overwhelmed it. On that memorable occasion you might tell a 'Jackson man' almost as far as you could see him. Their every motion seemed to cry out 'Victory!'• – Arthur J. Stansbury, Jacksonian

contemporary

Jackson and Native Populations

• Jackson believed in the continued westward expansion of the US – and saw removal of Indian tribes as the only means to secure such expansion.• Jackson believed that Indians

should be forced to exchange eastern lands for western lands.• Indian removal would be driven

by land speculation and room for settlement by American farmers.

The “Five Civilized Tribes” of the East.

Indian Removal Act• Jackson sees United States as just

that – a Union of States.• Opposes the idea of tribes as

foreign nations (meaning federal gov. is only body that could negotiate) and therefore believes that only states can establish treaties with tribes.• In order to settle this

incompatibility, Indians would have to be resettled West of the Mississippi on federal lands in order to negotiate with federal gov.

The Vanishing Indian• Humanity has often wept over the fate of the aborigines of this

country and philanthropy has long been busily employed in devising means to avert it, but its progress has never for a moment been arrested, and one by one have many powerful tribes disappeared from the earth. … But true philanthropy reconciles the mind to these vicissitudes as it does to the extinction of one generation to make room for another … Philanthropy could not wish to see this continent restored to the condition in which it was found by our forefathers. What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms, embellished with all the improvements which art can devise or industry execute, occupied by more than 12,000,000 happy people, and filled with all the blessings of liberty, civilization, and religion?

Indian Removal Act (continued)

• Dealt primarily with tribes living East of the Mississippi – most notably, the “Five Civilized Tribes.”• The Act stated that the President

had the authorization to negotiate land exchange treaties with tribes.• Jackson would interpret this to mean

that he could forcibly remove Indians from their homeland.• By 1830, Cherokees begin moving

West. This will become known as the Trail of Tears.