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Unlock This CourseIn February 1848 the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo gave California to the USA. Just days before, on 24 January 1848, a carpenter called James Marshall had spotted gold in a stream at Sutter's Mill, on the land of the settler John Sutter. At first the news spread slowly. In December 1848 President Polk confirmed the discovery in a message to Congress, and the rush began.
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About 80,000 forty-niners reached the goldfields within a year, and by 1853 the number had grown to around 250,000. They came from every part of the USA and from Mexico, Chile, Europe, Australia and, soon afterwards, China. There were three main routes. Some crossed the continent by wagon on the California Trail. Some sailed all the way round South America. Others sailed to Panama, crossed the narrow land and took a ship north.
The effects were fast. Mining camps sprang up almost overnight, and San Francisco turned from a small settlement into a busy port. Merchants and shopkeepers often made more money than the miners, by selling them food and tools. Because so many people arrived at once, California had enough settlers to run itself far sooner than other western lands.
Before the rush, about 150,000 Native Americans lived in California. By 1870 only about 30,000 remained. Newcomers brought diseases such as smallpox and measles, took over rivers and hunting grounds, and often attacked Native villages. A California law of 1850 let settlers take Native people, including children, as bound labourers.
The treaty promised Mexicans in California the rights of citizens and the protection of their property. In practice they were pushed aside. The Foreign Miners' Tax of 1850 was aimed mainly at Mexican miners, and a law of 1851 made landowners prove their land titles in court. This was slow and costly, and many Californios lost land.
California grew so quickly that waiting to be made a territory made little sense. In autumn 1849 delegates met at Monterey, wrote a state constitution that banned slavery, and asked to join the Union as a free state. This was explosive. Both sides held 15 states in 1849, so a 16th free state would give the North a majority in the Senate for the first time. Southerners feared losing their power to protect slavery. How Congress dealt with the request is the story of The Compromise of 1850.
It brought the far west into the Union in months, devastated California's Native population, and revived the argument over slavery in the new lands.
Change and continuity: the nation more than doubled in size. What stayed the same was that every gain, from Louisiana to California, raised the same problem of slavery.
Do not write that the Gold Rush started the war with Mexico: the war came first, and California was won in 1848. Do not describe only the miners' fortunes. The exam rewards explaining effects, such as what happened to Native Americans and to the balance between free and slave states.
How far was westward expansion responsible for deepening the divisions between North and South in the years 1803-49? [16 marks]
You may use the following in your answer:
You must also use information of your own.
Westward expansion was the main reason North and South drifted apart in these years, though not the only one.
It began in 1803, when the Louisiana Purchase doubled the nation's size and raised the question of whether slavery would spread there. By 1819 the question came to a head. Missouri asked to join as a slave state, and the North and South each held 11 states. After a bitter argument, the Missouri Compromise of 1820 admitted Maine as free and Missouri as slave, and banned slavery north of the 36°30′ line. It settled the matter for now, but Jefferson called the quarrel a 'fire bell in the night', showing how deeply expansion divided the sections.
Expansion again pushed them apart in the 1840s. The annexation of Texas in 1845 and the war with Mexico added huge lands. In 1846 Congressman David Wilmot proposed banning slavery in any land won from Mexico. The House passed it, but the Senate rejected it, a clear split between North and South. Then the Gold Rush brought a flood of settlers to California, which in 1849 asked to join as a free state. With 15 states each, this threatened the balance of power in the Senate, and Southerners felt under threat.
Other factors also divided the sections. The growth of the abolition movement, such as William Lloyd Garrison's newspaper The Liberator, begun in 1831, made many Southerners feel under attack. The North was also developing factories and cities, while the South relied on cotton and enslaved labour, so the two had different interests even without new land.
However, these other factors mattered mostly because of expansion. Abolitionist anger became political only when the question was whether slavery could spread, and the economic differences became a crisis only when new states threatened the balance in Congress. Each new gain of land, from Louisiana to California, forced a fight over slavery. Expansion was therefore the main cause of division, because it turned a long-standing disagreement into a series of crises.
What lifts this to the top level: it covers three aspects, weighs expansion against other factors, and reaches a judgement justified by a criterion (whether the divisions became crises).
In a 16-mark 'how far' question, cover the whole date range in order, use at least one point that is not in the bullets, and finish with a judgement that names why one factor matters most.