6 - Expansionist Vistas

Summary

Antebellum American expansionism encompassed nearly the entire globe, influencing the course of continental expansionism by introducing global concerns into North American territorial questions. The original American interest in the Oregon Country occurred from west to east, informed by Oregon's potential role in trans-Pacific commerce. California represented an emerging expansionist vista for Americans. By the mid-1840s and notwithstanding the distinctly dubious claims held to both places, California, like Oregon, seemed destined under the will of Heaven to become a part of the United States. A major part of the extensive borderlands between the United States and Hispanic America, Texas constituted a thinly populated area of indeterminate boundaries with tenuous ties to the capital in faraway Mexico City. Thrust upon the biggest stage in American politics, Polk entered the presidency with one of the clearest agendas in American history. Polk first focused on acquiring Oregon, threatening the British with war if an agreement satisfactory to U.S. aspirations could not be worked out.