History 4110    MacKay    Summer 2005

Week 2--Expansion

(Additional information on U.S. Land Takings)

May 24

Readings:

• PBS The West: episode 2
• Hine and Faragher: Chapter 5
• North America 1797 (362K) "A New Map of North America Shewing all the New Discoveries 1797," Engraved for Morses Gazetteer of America, from A Century of Population Growth, U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1909.
• U.S. Territorial Maps
• Federal lands 2000
• Navigate through the following Internet sites on the 1804-06 Lewis and Clark expedition into the Louisiana Purchase and to the Pacific.

Discovering Lewis and Clark:

PBS site to accompany the film about the expedition by Ken Burns

Activities:

• Discussion of readings
• Short Paper Topic #5:
How do you understand the significance of the Lewis and Clark expedition and why we are paying so much attention to it now?

You might look at a comment on all the hoopla from Slate magazine.

The legal basis for the United States purchase of the Louisiana Territory was the: power granted to the President to make treaties President’s power as Commander in Chief authority of Congress to declare war Senate’s duty to approve the appointment of ambassadors

May 25

Readings:

• Oxford: Chapter 5
• Heading West maps
• U.S. in 1832 (printed in Scotland)

Activities:

• Discussion topic: What are the tensions between concepts of democracy and protection of inalienable rights and the use of federal power to wrest land from other peoples?
• Short Paper Topic #6: Use one of the following land takings: Louisiana Purchase (1803), Ft. Laramie Treaty (1851) and the aftermath, Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) -- to discuss the tensions between concepts of democracy and protection of inalienable rights and the use of federal power to wrest land from other peoples?

May 26

Readings:

• Hine and Faragher: Chapter 6
• Exploration 1850s-
• PBS The West episode 3
• Peruse the PBS site on the U.S.- Mexican War. PBS
• Manifest Destiny

Activities:

• Discussion: readings, films, and concept of Manifest Destiny
  • Do you agree with the idea that the United States had a manifest destiny? Why or why not?
  • Who might be opposed to this idea of manifest Destiny in the 1840s?
  • Propose at least one alternative theory to justify U.S. annexation of territory and justify your assertions.
  • Does the idea of manifest destiny still exist today?