Slavery & the West

TIMELINE1836 Lone Star Republic of Texas1846-1848 Mexican War1849 California Gold Rush1850 Compromise of 18501854 Kansas-Nebraska Act1856 Charles Sumner & John Brown1857 Dred Scott Decision1859 Harper’s Ferry1861 secession begins

I pity poor Mexico. With a soil and climate scarsely equaled in the world she has more poor and starving subjects who are willing and able to work than any country in the world. The rich keep the poor down with a hardness of heart that is incredible. Walk through the streets of Mexico for one day and you will see hundreds of begars, but you will never see them ask alms of their own people, it is always the of Americans that they expect to receive.

(US Grant, 1848)

Now, after reiterated menaces, Mexico has passed the boundary of the United States and invaded our territory and shed American blood on American soil!

Upper California is one of the finest countries in the world. … It is only necessary that it should be in the possession of an active, industrious, and energetic people. (Von Roenne, 1842)

When caught young, [they] are most easily domesticated. They submit to flagallation with more humility than negroes. … The only thing we lack here is good Government. … What we want most here is more people. If we had fifty families here from Missouri, we could do exactly as we please without any fear of being troubled. (Marsh, 1830’s)

Walker, California Vaqueros (1875)

Walker (1856)

Carl Nebel, “Battle of Buena Vista”

Carl Nebel, “Battle of Vera Cruz”

part and parcel of an atrocious plot to exclude from a vast unoccupied region immigrants from the Old World and free laborers from our own states, and convert it into a dreary region of despotism, inhabited by masters and slaves.

the first step to the conquest of all Mexico, of the West India islands, of a maritime, colonizing, slave-tainted monarchy, and of extinguished freedom (JQ Adams)

one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger nation on a weaker nation (Grant)

Thus the war commenced, and the President after having produced it, appealed to Congress. A bill was proposed to raise 50,000 volunteers, and in order to commit all who should vote for it, a preamble was inserted falsely attributing the commencement of the war to the act of Mexico. (Lincoln)

There is such a thing as a destiny for this American race … because we, the people of the United States, have spread, are spreading, and should spread, and go on to spread … and this our destiny has now become so manifest that it cannot fail but by our own folly. (O’Sullivan)

The people here are all in a state of delirium. Military ardor pervades all ranks. Nothing is talked of but the Halls of Montezuma.

The joyful news is told in every quarter with enthusiastic delight.

The houses are mostly decorated with arabesques and offer an added attraction when the balconies are visited by their lovely denizens. The huge plaza is an imposing sight, with its colossal city hall six hundred feet long and its huge cathedral adorned with very high towers. (Zeh in Mexico)

Charles Nahl, Fandango

Carl Nebel, 1836

The Yankees are a wonderful people. If they emigrated to hell itself, they would somehow manage to change the climate.

William Mount, “California News”, 1850

No time in the history of our country has presented such temptations to desert. The struggle between right and six dollars a month, and wrong and $75 a day is rather a severe one.

A frenzy seized my soul; piles of gold rose up before me at every step; thousands of slaves bowed to my beck and call; myriads of fair virgins contended for my love. In short, I had a violent attack of gold fever.

Charles Nahl, 18501857: Every fortnight two crowds of passengers rushed across the Isthmus, one from New York, the other from San Francisco. …

Scurvy is caused by the use of salt provisions, and nothing else — and every mine in California, is more or less disposed to it. It is cured by the use of vegetables, fresh meat, vinegar, &c. It draws up the cords of the legs and swells the limbs — the gums rot away, and if bad, you have great difficulty in eating.

Charles Nahl

Charles Nahl

The millions that might be shipped from the four quarters of the globe … [may] till the soil and make roads, or do any other work that may suit them; but the gold-mines were preserved by nature for Americans only.

Everyone is busy preparing fires of buffalo chips to cook the evening meal, pitching tents and otherwise preparing for the night … All able to bear arms in the party have been formed into three companies, and each of these into four watches. Every third night it is the duty of one of these companies to keep watch and ward over the camp.

Bruff, North Platte River, 1849

George Caleb Bingham

Emanuel Leutze

I have no squeamish sensitiveness upon the subject of slavery, no morbid sympathy for the slave. I plead the cause and rights of white freemen. I would preserve to free white labor a fair country, a rich inheritance, where the sons of toil of my own race and color can live without the disgrace which association with negro slavery brings upon free labor. (The Wilmot Proviso, 1846)

If you, who represent the stronger portion, cannot agree to settle on the broad principles of justice and duty, say so, and let the states we both represent agree to separate and part in peace. If you are unwilling we should part in peace, tell us so, and we shall know what to do. When you reduce the question to submission or resistance, if you remain silent, you will compel us to infer by your acts what you intend. In that case, California will become the test question. If you admit her, under all the difficulties that oppose her admission, you compel us to infer that you intend to exclude us from the whole of the acquired territories of the west, with the intention of destroying irretrievably the equilibrium between the two sections. (John C. Calhoun’s “Southern Address,” 1850)

the Seventh of March speech: “I wish to speak today not as a Massachusetts man nor as a northern man, but as an American. I speak today for the preservation of the Union.”

Washington’s coffin

I could travel from Boston to Chicago by the light of my own effigy.

All along the Western Reserve of Ohio I could find my effigy upon every tree we passed.

Chicago: I have never witnessed such excitement in my life … if any arrests are ever made here, terrible scenes will ensue, and much blood-shed.

Of all we loved and honored, nought

Save power remains –

A fallen angel’s pride of thought,

Still strong in chains.

All else is gone; from those great eyes

The soul has fled:

When faith is lost, when honor dies,

The man is dead.

Violence reigns in the streets of Washington; violence has now found its way into the senate chamber. Violence lies in wait all over the navigable rivers and all the railways of Missouri to obstruct those who pass from the free states into Kansas. Violence overhangs the frontiers of that territory like a storm cloud charged with hail and lightening. Violence has carried election after election in that territory. In short, violence is the order of the day. The north is to be pushed to the wall and this plot will succeed if the people of the free states are as apathetic as the slave-holders are insolent.