| A | B |
|---|
| John Louis O'Sullivan | magazine editor in 1845 that declared that it was the manifest destiny of Americans to overspread the continent alloted by Providence |
| Manifest Destiny | idea popular in the United States during the 1800s that the country must expand its boundaries to the Pacific Ocean given by God |
| squatter | someone who settles on public land under government regulation with the hopes of acquiring the title to the land |
| Jethro Wood | patented an iron-bladed plow in 1819 |
| John Deere | engineered a plow in 1837 with sharp-edged steel blades that cut cleanly through the sod-this reduced by half the labor needed to prepare an acre for farming |
| Cyrus McCormick | patented a mechanical reaper in 1834 which allowed for the harvest of more grain with far less effort |
| John Sutter | a German immigrant that built a trading post and cattle ranch in the Sacramento Valley which became a stopping point for settlers reaching California |
| Kit Carson & Jim Bridger | mountain men that made their living by trapping beaver and selling the furs to traders-they gained a thorough knowledge of unsettled land and local Native Americans |
| overlander | someone who travels overland to the West by using guidebooks written by earlier emigrants |
| Donner Party | 1846 a group of 87 overlanders trapped by winter snows high in the Sierra Nevada mountains-41 died of starvation and the to survive resorted to cannibalism(humans eating humans) |
| Brigham Young | new leader of the Mormon Church that migrated West with his followers for religious freedom and away from persecution |
| Tejanos | Spanish-speaking inhabitants of southern Texas that had established settlements |
| empresario | a person who arranged for the settlement of Texas in the 1800s |
| National Colonization Act | Mexico gave 26 empresarios large land grants of Texas land and in exchange they promised to fill that land with a certain number of settlers and provide order |
| Washington-on-the-Brazos | founded by Stephen Austin in Texas and by the 1830s 1,500 American families immigrated there and took Mexican citizenship |
| Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna | President of Mexico in the 1830s and leader of the Mexican military |
| William B. Travis | commander at the Alamo which was a small force intent on delaying Santa Annal's troops |
| annexation | incorporating a territory within the domain of a country |
| John Tyler | President of US who hoped to bring Texas into the Union |
| James K. Polk | won election of 1844 by promising to annex Texas & Oregon territory, buy California from Mexico-keeping slave and free states balanced |
| "Fifty-four Forty or Fight | US claim on Oregon to the line of 54 degrees 40' north latitude against Britain |
| envoy | a person delegated to represent one country to another |
| Zachary Taylor | Polk ordered him to take his troops across the Nueces River into Mexico-Mexican troops attacked starting a war with Mexico |
| John C. Fremont | Amercian general that lead an uprising in northern California to gain independence from Mexico |
| Bear Flag Republic | an independent California free from Mexico in 1846 which lasted a few weeks until California became part of US |
| Winfield Scott | General that replaced Zachary Taylor in command of US forces against Mexico |
| Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo | ended war with Mexico, Mexico ceded 500,000 square miles to US, accepted Rio Grande River as southern border of Texas, US paid Mexico $15 million, and take on $3.25 million in Mexican debt |
| cede | to give up by treaty |
| Alamo | Spanish Catholic mission in San Antonio, Texas that was the site of a battle in 1836 in which Santa Anna's army stormed it after two weeks-this bought time for Houston to organize the army |
| Oregan Trail | trail carved out by mountain men in the 1840s that provided a east-to-west passage for settlers-this trail was the most popular |
| Treaty of Fort Laramie | the federal government negotiated this treaty with eight Native Amerian tribes in 1851 to ensure peace- to these eight tribes the government promised them their land forever |
| Mormon Trail | several thousand Mormons followed this trail West for religious freedom |
| Stephen Austin | the first and most successful empresario |
| Fredonia | an independent nation made up of American settlements in Texas that was declared free by the empresario Haden Edwards |
| Sam Houston | military leader of the Texan forces fighting against Mexico |
| Gonzales | first Texan victory against Mexico at this military post |
| Henry Clay | Whig senator that was a front-runner in the 1844 election |
| John Slidell | sent by President Polk to Mexico City to purchase California-Mexico's president refused to meet with him |
