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Unlock This CourseBy the 1840s many Americans believed their country was meant to spread across the whole continent. In 1845 a magazine editor, John L. O'Sullivan, put this belief into a phrase. He wrote of "our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions." The phrase caught on quickly.
Key terms:
Manifest Destiny was an idea, not a law. It made expansion sound natural and right. It also ignored the people already living in the West, including Native American nations. Different groups used it for different reasons: farmers wanted land, politicians wanted a bigger nation, and many Americans thought their way of life should spread.
In the 1840s no single country controlled the Oregon Country. Both the USA and Britain claimed it. In 1818 they agreed to share it, so both could settle and trade there. This is called joint occupation. The agreement was later renewed with no end date, so either side could end it. Britain's main interest was the fur trade, run by the Hudson's Bay Company, which had a trading post at Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River.
From the early 1840s American families began to travel to Oregon. The journey began at towns on the Missouri River, such as Independence, and ended in the Willamette Valley, in Oregon.
Many settlers were farmers looking for cheap, fertile land and a fresh start after hard times. Stories of the Willamette Valley's rich soil and mild weather spread through newspapers and letters. The belief in Manifest Destiny made the move feel like a patriotic duty as well as a chance to get ahead.
Families travelled in covered wagons pulled by oxen, grouped into wagon trains for safety. They left in spring, when the grass was high enough to feed the animals, and the trip took around four to six months. The dangers were disease, accidents, river crossings and shortages of food and water.
In 1843 around a thousand people made the journey in one large party. Thousands more followed in the years after. The settlers made the American claim to Oregon much stronger, because Americans now lived there in large numbers. They also took land from Native American peoples who already lived there.
Britain wanted to keep the land north of the Columbia River, where the Hudson's Bay Company traded. The two countries argued over where to draw a border. In 1844 James K. Polk won the presidency as an expansionist. Some Americans demanded all of Oregon, up to latitude 54°40′ N, with the slogan "Fifty-four forty or fight!" Polk offered a border at the 49th parallel, which Britain first refused. For a time, war between the USA and Britain seemed possible.
Both sides decided a deal was better than a war. Britain's fur trade in the area was declining, and thousands of Americans had settled south of the Columbia. The USA was also already at war with Mexico (the subject of the next lesson, on Texas) and did not want a second conflict. In June 1846 the two countries signed the Oregon Treaty:
The USA now reached the Pacific Ocean. No war was fought, and the border has stayed there ever since.
The Oregon Treaty shows both change and continuity in westward expansion. Expansion continued: the USA again grew by treaty with a European power, as it had with Louisiana in 1803. But the method changed. Louisiana was bought in one go from France for $15 million. Oregon was settled by ordinary Americans first, and the government then negotiated a border with Britain, with no payment.
This is a Paper 2 Section B (a) question. You need two ways, and each one must compare BOTH sides, using specific facts about each. One way alone cannot score more than half marks.
Explain TWO ways in which the way the USA gained Oregon in 1846 was different from the way it gained Louisiana in 1803. [6 marks]
(In 1803 the USA bought the Louisiana territory from France, with Thomas Jefferson as President.)
One difference is how the land was obtained. In 1803 the USA bought Louisiana from France in a treaty, paying $15 million for it. In 1846 the USA paid nothing for Oregon. Instead it made a treaty with Britain that divided the Oregon Country along the 49th parallel.
A second difference is the role of ordinary settlers. In 1803 the government acted first, buying the land before large numbers of Americans lived there. In the 1840s thousands of Americans had already travelled the Oregon Trail to the Willamette Valley, and their presence strengthened the American claim before the treaty was signed.
What lifts it to the top level: two different differences, each with a precise fact about 1803 and about 1846.
Use a sentence for each side: "In 1803 ... whereas in 1846 ...". That keeps both periods in the answer, which is what Level 3 needs.