Territorial and Economic Expansion Essay

Submitted By kitsree
Words: 687
Pages: 3

Territorial and Economic
Expansion

Expansion of Markets
Market revolution – ppl started to buy and sell goods rather than to make them
► Led to growth of capitalism (private business and ppl control the means of production) ► After 1840, industrialization rapidly spread fm N. Eng. to the other states in the No. E
► Textile industry aided by inventions such as:






▪ Sewing machine (?) by
Elias Howe (1846)
▪ Foot treadle by I. M.
Singer (1851)
▪ Led to ready-to-wear clothing New industries – shoes, firearms, tools, items to be used by RR
South still overwhelmingly dependent on agriculture
▪ Am. So. was the world’s largest producer of cotton
▪ Little industrialization in
So.

Impt. Inventions
1839 – Charles Goodyear – vulcanized rubber; used 1st in shoes, later tires
► 1837 – Samuel F. B. Morse – telegraph; improved communication, linked country
► 1837 – John Deere – steel plow; led to faster plowing and use of horses, not oxen
► 1831 – Cyrus McCormick – mechanical reaper; able to harvest much quicker


Transportation
By 1830s, steamboats were regularly operating on W. rivers, resulting in lower shipping costs
► Canal boom continued with the success of the Erie Canal; would remain impt. until the
1860s as a means of transporting goods
► RRs, although more expensive than canals, b/g to emerge due to factors such as:








Speed
Could operate in winter
Could go inland
By 1860s would eclipse all other means of transportation B/c of its investment in canals and RRs the
No. E. (esp. NYC) b/c the center of Am. commerce Manifest Destiny
Away, away with all these cobweb tissues of rights of discovery, exploration, settlement…[The American claim] is by right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty
John L. O’Sullivan

Settlement to the MS
Increasing # of Ams. moving into Old NW region made conflict w/ NA/s inevitable
► Consigned by treaty to areas outside main lines of white advances most tribes forced
W. of MS
► Last stand was in 1831-32 when a confederated faction of Sauk and Fox under
Chief Black Hawk refused to abandon lands


Federal troops/IL militia pursued Black Hawk’s band and drove them back to river where most were killed trying to cross to W. bank
► US used defeat of Black
Hawk as example to induce other NAs of Old
NW to cede 190M acres for $70M


Trails West


Why did ppl move W.?
▪ Hard economic times in the E
▪ Land
▪ Tales of beauty and wealth esp. in CA and OR

Most settlers started in N.