1775-1783: American War of Independence

The American Revolution or War of Independence against British colonial lordship started in 1775 when the Thirteen Colonies began to fight for their political independence from London. Fighting began at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, in April 1775. In June the colonies’ Continental Congress created a Continental Army under General George Washington.

Despite several defeats, and the loss of New York (former New Amsterdam) in September 1776, Washington hung on, and at Christmas 1776, by successfully crossing Delaware, won several battles. The campaign culminated at Saratoga in 1777. The final triumph was assured with the signing of a Franco-American alliance in 1778 that was joined by Spain in 1779.

Reinforced by French troops followed by direct naval support, George Washington succeeded in forcing the British troops to surrender at Yorktown on October 19, 1781. The resulting Treaty of Versailles in 1783 recognized the Great Lakes in the north and the Mississippi in the west as the State borders of the newly-born USA. By 1783, the original Thirteen Colonies had established themselves as the new United States with enlarged territory up to the Mississippi River including Indian Reserves.

Westward imperial expansion

In 1783, the new Republic of the United American States was small and weak with a population of a little more than three million inhabitants. Half of its territory was held by hostile neighbours. The westward expansion of the USA was sustained by its vast abundance of physical (natural) resources. Just as the great Western European powers turned their imperial gaze toward Africa and Asia, the US looked westward towards the Pacific. The westward annexation policy of Washington after 1783 conquered and destroyed the culture of native inhabitants of North America.

In 1783 the USA was composed of an area of some 800,000 sqm, mostly rich arable land between the Atlantic coast and the Mississippi River. That huge territory was soon enlarged by other lands, even larger and more fertile – the first phase from 1803 to 1819. The Louisiana Purchase from France in 1803 (during the Napoleonic Wars) of some 827,000 sqm was a mighty windfall that dropped into the hands of an astonished President Thomas Jefferson. The western part of Spanish Florida was occupied by force and annexed in 1812 during James Madison’s presidency, followed by the annexation of East Florida in 1819 (some 60,000 sqm) by purchase but with the threat of force by the administration of President James Monroe.

The second phase of territorial acquisitions covered the years 1845-1853 in contiguous areas. The Texas Republic (390,000 sqm) was annexed in 1845. Negotiations for the territory of Oregon Country (285,000 sqm) ended with a compromise in 1846. The vast Mexican Cession (529,000 sqm) was annexed in 1848 after the war with Mexico and finally, there was the Gadsen Purchase in 1853, bought from Mexico to control a promising railroad route (30,000 sqm).           

Annexation of Texas in 1845

The historical importance of the annexation of Texas, the conquest of California (its northern portion as Baja California left to Mexico), and the inclusion of the Southwest into the US from Mexico is in the fact that all three events finally completed the US domain in the (Wild) West. During several years in the 1840s, the US expanded its borders over some of North America’s richest and most scenic territories.

Many scholars saw this wresting of lands from Mexico as immoral aggression. Some of them thought that the southern states of the USA wanted the territory of Texas for bigger pens to cram Afro-American (Blacks) slaves in. Others believe that a natural and inevitable process (of Lebensraum) brought Texas into the federal system of the US; hence the phrase “manifest destiny”.

Texas was a part of the Mexican Republic before the mid-1830s, a southern neighbour of the USA. It was as large as Germany, with but a few ranchers and hunters. It attracted many Americans (inhabitants of the USA) followed by some British citizens. Stephen F. Austin established the first Anglo-American settlement in 1821. Free lands westward from Louisiana were easily accessible to the people from the American South and, therefore, became principal bait for settlers.

The Mexican government was corrupt, inefficient, and authoritarian. The settlers in Texas revolted in 1835 against the Mexican authorities and after many battles succeeded in winning independence. The most striking episode of this time was the capture by the Mexican army of the Alamo, a fort in San Antonio, where every American defender was killed.

A newly established Texan Republic attracted many fresh American settlers which caused a prosperous economic development. Their political goal was not independence but the inclusion of Texas into the USA as a new state. The government of the USA for a time refused to consider any proposal for annexing Texas so as not to spoil relations with Mexico, but gradually changed its mind.

First, it was thought that it was a duty to expand firstly settlers and then State borders over the unpeopled and undeveloped West. Second, many felt that the Texans were kindred people whose natural place was the US. Third, many feared that Great Britain might launch a military intervention in Texas in order to establish a protectorate over the land so that Washington could not annex it. Fourth, pocket motives were at work as well as the Northerners wished to sell farm products and manufactured goods in Texas; ship owners saw that their vessels could make profitable voyages to Galveston (coastal town and port of Southeast Texas); Yankee mill owners wanted to have cheap Texas cotton to spin. Finally, many Southerners wanted to migrate and settle in Texas but were not willing to leave the US flag. Ultimately, in the national election of 1844, a majority of the voters expressed keenness to see Texas as a part of the US, and early the next year the republic was annexed.

1846-1848: Mexican-American War

After the annexation of Texas, many US citizens were keen to gain control of California, which had a population of only up to 12,000 people. The Californians did not have their own currency, army, or political experience. They had more Spanish blood than the Mexican masses and regarded themselves as both physically and intellectually superior. It was only formally dependent upon the Mexican Republic.

Americans believed that the Californians would have thrown off the Mexican authority altogether had it not been for their family jealousies and an old feud between the northern and southern portions of California. Mexico did not provide courts, police, regular postal service, or schools. The links and communications between California and the Mexican capital, Mexico City, were irregular, rare, and even uncertain. Over time, the number of American settlers in California grew, as did their aggressiveness.

Ships under the US flag had long traded on the coast of California. The US emigrants had started to cross the mountains for California in the early 1830s to make money from cattle, wine, and wheat. California up to 1846 had 12,000 foreign inhabitants, mostly US citizens. Many of them thought that California could join the US by using no force. It would have happened if the Mexican War had not taken place. The remote cause of the war was the increasing distrust between the two neighboring states, but its direct cause was a dispute over the borderland of Texas.

The US administration fought a short and brilliant war. One US army under Zachary Taylor was sent to North Mexico and occupied the fortified city of Monterey. The same army defeated a large Mexican military detachment in the battle of Buena Vista, while another US army under Winfield Scott (hero of the 1812 War) landed at Vera Cruz in the Gulf of Mexico and pushed westward over the mountains. Scott’s army after hard fighting occupied Mexico City and put the US flag over “the halls of the Montezumas” which ended the war in America’s favour.

Territorial acquisitions in 1848

According to the Mexican-American Peace Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the US was given California along with the vast area between it and Texas (New Mexico), which included the present states of Utah and Nevada (altogether the US gained some 918,000 sqm). America also gained a “treasure house” as after the treaty was ratified gold was discovered in the hills of California which became known as the Golden State.

The mountains of California filled with new settlers and camps. San Francisco overnight became a little metropolis, full of vice, luxury, and energy. California was converted very quickly from a sleepy even romantic community of Spanish-American ranchers into a hustling community of Anglo-Saxons. Californian inhabitants were growing in numbers so fast that in 1850 it became a new state within the US.    

The acquisition of the vast territory from Louisiana to the Pacific Ocean (Texas, New Mexico, and California), forced Washington to deal with new challenges and problems as the Caribbean area, the Pacific area, an isthmian canal, and the issue of slavery, which threatened to expand into the whole area of the Wild West.

Before 1776, Americans were not keen to settle the interior (westward from the Appalachian Mt.) which they called the “back-country”. But after 1803, the “back-country” was renamed “frontier” and the line of settlement advanced westward with great speed. Before the end of the American Revolution in 1783 that line was still largely east of the Appalachian Mt. but by 1819 the “frontier” crossed the Mississippi River and by 1848 reached the Pacific coast. In this way, the “natural borders” of the US (from ocean to ocean) were finally established.