Chapter 13: The Contested West 1815-1860
VOCABULARY: Empresario; Tejanos; Hispanics;
Assimilation; Secession; Annexation; "Ethnic Cleansing"
Nightly
Readings
Pgs.
315‐323
Pgs.
323‐332
Pgs.
332‐342
ID's
Frontier Thesis
Frederick Jackson Turner
Daniel Boone
Davy Crocket
Empresario System
Mexican Independence from Spain 1821
Texas, Lone Star Republic 1836
Annexation of Texas 1845
Sam Houston
Homestead Act of 1862
Manifest Destiny
"54-40 or Fight"
Oregon
Democratic Convention of 1844
Stephen Polk
Henry Clay
QUESTIONS
1. What did the "West" or the "Frontier" symbolize during the early and mid 19th
century? What did the historian Frederick Jackson Turner's thesis say about the role of
the frontier in shaping American culture?
2. How and why was Texas settled? How did Mexican and American intentions clash
and what was the outcome?
3. What did Americans mea by "Manifest Destiny?" What is revealed by the concept and
what impact did it have on the nation's expansion?
4. How did American ideas about slavery help to shape settlements in the West?