The Enduring Vision (vol. 5)Chapter 12 Outline

 Introduction:

After the murder of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young led the main body of Mormons from Illinois to a new homeland in the Great Salt Lake valley. In part, Youngs aim was to flee persecution by Gentiles (non-Mormons). Reasons for Mormons to head west: (1) Deseret lay outside the United States; and Smith's murder had led many Mormons to conclude that they could no longer live along the Gentiles. 2)Gentiles were also on the move west; the very remoteness and aridity of Deseret made it unlikely that ny permanent settlement of Gentiles would take place. Mormons earned money in their new city by trade with Gentile wayfarers in less than a thousand days into James K. Polk's presidency, the US had increased its land area by at least 50 percent. Most immigrants gravitated to the expansionist Democratic party, and the immigrant vote help to tip the vote to Polk, an ardent expansionist. Democrats saw expansion as a way to reduce strife between the sections.

Oregon would go to the North, Texas the South and California to everyone. II. Newcomers and Natives A. Expectations and Realities A desire for religious freedom drew some emigrants to the United States. Their hope was fed by a continuous stream of travelers' accounts and letters from relatives describing America as a utopia for poor people. But many emigrants faced difficulties. Many spent savings on tickets to boats that were delayed for months and many others were sold meaningless tickets. They encountered six weeks or longer on the sea, packed almost as tightly as what slaves encountered, and travelling on cargo ships.

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When they landed, they soon found that farming in American farms was very solated, unlike in Europe where social and cultural lives revolved around communities. The Irish, who usually arrived in New England, found little land or capital for farming, and crowded into urban areas. Likewise, Germans, who arrived in New Orleans, found little opportunity with slave labor, and moved upriver and into urban areas where there was a community. By 1860. these two groups formed more than 60 percent of the population of several major cities. B. The Germans In 1860, Germany was not a national-state but, a collection of small kingdoms.

German immigrants came from a wide range of social classes and occupations. For all their differences, a common language kept them together, and German neighborhoods developed and prospered, much to the enw of Anglo-Americans who disdained their clannishness. In response, Germans became even more clannish. C. The Irish Between 181 5 and 1860, the Irish immigration into the United States passed through starving as many as a million people to death. To escape this, 1. 8 million Irish people migrated to the US between 1845 and 1854. Overwhelmingly poor and Catholic, the Irish usually entered the workforce near or at the bottom.

Irish men dug cellars and lived in them, or made canal and railroad beds. Women became domestic servants and entered the workforce at an early age. Irish usually married late, which makes natural the large number of single Irish women in America. Yet some struggled up the social ladder, becoming foremen and supervisors. Others rose into the middle class by opening grocery and liquor stores. The two groups both brought conflict. The poorer Irish competed directly with free blacks, stirring up negative emotions towards blacks and abolitionists.

Meanwhile, the middle class clashed with native- born white workers. D. Anti-Catholicism, Nativism and Labor Protest The hostility of native-born whites towards the Irish often took the form of anti- Catholicism. Even from Puritan times, there were high anti-catholic sentiments. Catholics made doctrine the province of pope and bishops. Conspiracies were rife. Future telegraph inventor, Samuel Morse, warned in 1835 that despotic Europe goverNew Mexicoent were flooding US with Catholic immigrants to destroy republican institutions.

A protestant mob turned to ash a convent suspected to contain torture chambers the same year, while Lyman Beecher warned Protestants that Catholic immigrants to the West was a conspiracy to dominate the region. Maria Monks The Awful Disclosure of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery in Montreal brought back anti-Catholic feelings. The Order of the Star-pgled Banner would evolve into the 'Know Nothing', or the American Party and would become a major political force in the 1850's. Protestants feared for their Jobs and feared that Catholic immigrants were a threat to their Jobs, in reaction many Protestants Joined nativist societies.

E. Labor Protest and Immigrant Politics America cherished the notion that a nation with abundant land would never give way toa permanent class of wage slaves. Another of laborers' response to wage cuts in he panic was supporting land reforms. Land reformers argued that labor for wages ended any hope of economic independence. Labor unions appealed to workers who did not see eye to eye with land reformers. In an important decision, the Supreme Court ruled in Commonwealth vs. Hunt, that labor unions were not illegal monopolies that restrained trade.

Many immigrants quickly became politically active as they found labor organizations could help them find employment and lodging. Immigrants usually supported the Democratic party for they felt that Jackson gave a non- aristocratic feel. In addition, Whigs supported anti slavery which would create more competition for immigrants By the same token, the Democratic party persuaded immigrants that national issues such as banking and tariffs were vital to them. In the 1840s, Democrats tried to convince immigrants that national expansion likewise advanced their interests.

II. The West and Beyond A. The Far West Obstructed by The Great Plains, many Americans began moving past the Rocky Mountains to the Far West. The Adams-Onis (Transcontinental) Treaty had left Spain in undisputed possession of Texas as well as California and the New Mexico territory. In 1821, Mexico gained independence and took over all Spanish North American Oregon Country. Collectively, the territories Texas, New Mexico, California, and Oregon was an extremely vast land, but during the 1820s, these lands were viewed by US, I-JK, and Mexico as a remote frontier. B.

Far Western Frontier The earliest American and British on the West Coast were fur traders who had reached California by sailing around South America. In the otherwise undeveloped CA economy, hides were called "California bank notes. " The trade in CA caused little friction with Mexico because Mexico produced virtually no manufactured goods. Hipic people born in California (called Californios) were as eager to buy as the traders were to sell”so eager that they sometimes rowed out to the vessels laden with goods, thus sparing the traders the trip ashore. Trading links also developed in the 1820s between St.

Louis and Santa Fe along the Santa Fe Trail. The Panic of 1819 left many midwest Americans with a lot of unsold goods. They loaded wagons with goods and rumbled westward along the trail. To a far greater extent than Spain, Mexico welcomed this, as more than half the goods entering through Santa Fe trickled into internal Mexico. So popular was this trade that the Mexican silver peso traders brought back became the principal medium of exchange in Missouri. C. The American Settlement of Texas to 1835 During the 1820s, Americans began to settle the eastern part of Mexican state, Coahuila-Texas.

Meanwhile, with Mexico's independence came the end of Spanish missions, and many Natives returned to nomadic ways. In 1824, the Mexican govt. , wanting protection from Natives by American settlement, began bestowing generous land grants on agents known as empresarios. Initially, most Americans, like the empresario Stephen F. Austin, were content to live in Texas as naturalized Mexican citizens. But trouble brewed quickly as American settlers brought slaves. Mexico closed American immigration in 1830, but Americans continued to flood in with their slaves, and in 1834, Austin secured repeal of the 1830 prohibition.

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