James K Polk and Expansionist Policies in the California Gold Rush

Throughout the 1840's Polk pushed for the annexation of Texas, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the establishment of the Oregon Territory. President Jefferson expanded U.S. territory because of the Louisiana Purchase and followed the Proclamation of Neutrality, steering away from conflicts with other nations. The Louisiana Purchase, negotiated by Jefferson, opened up many new economic opportunities for the United States. New Orleans was part of the territory, and as a result the Mississippi River was opened up for trade.

James K. Polk lived up to his campaign promises, adding Oregon south of the forty-ninth parallel to the United Sates in 1846 and gaining Mexico's northern provinces of California and New Mexico. He was “the manifest destiny" president. Polk appointed John Slidell of Louisiana as minister to Mexico, and instructed him to offer up to 30 million dollars to settle the disputed claims and purchase California and New Mexico. When the Mexican government refused even to receive Slidell, an angry Polk ordered General Taylor and his forces south to the Rio Grande, into the territory that Mexicans considered their soil.

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The disputed over this territory led to Polk sending out a war message to Congress, ultimately causing congress to declare war on Mexico starting the Mexican-American War. Many people believed this war was a plot by Southerners to expand slavery. Many Northerners asked why Polk had been willing to settle for only a part of Oregon but was so eager to pursue a war for slave territory. Being that Polk himself was from Tennesse, a slave state, it would be understandable why he wouldn't want admission of another free state to the union.

This showed the increase in sectionalism that resulted from expansion. In 1846 Polk sent General Taylor south into northeastern Mexico and Colonel Stephen Kearny to New Mexico and California. Taylor captured northern Mexico cities but Mexico refused to negotiate. Finally in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848, Mexico ceded its northern provinces of California and New Mexico and accepted the Rio Grande as the boundary of Texas.

Polk was unhappy with this and wanted further expansion. This is different from Thomas Jefferson because although he was the first president to try to expand westward at the frontier, he believed in the Proclamation of Neutrality and didn't want to enter war with any nation. Jefferson successfully acquired the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803 and sent the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1803–1806) on a mapping and scientific exploration up the Missouri River to the Pacific. He also sent other expeditions to find the headwaters of the Red, Arkansas, and Mississippi rivers and to gather scientific data and information on Native Americans. In seeking to establish, what he called "an empire for liberty," Jefferson influenced the country's policies toward Native Americans and the extension of slavery into the West. However, Jefferson remained more peaceful, acting with Washington's statements from his inaugural address in mind.

The American presence in California in the early 1840's at first consisted of a few traders and settlers who intermarried with Californios, however the Gold Rush of 1849 increased the amount of outsiders in the United States. The first to penetrate the isolation of Spanish California were not the Americans but Russians. Spanish officials in Mexico insisted on isolation, forbidding the colonists to trade with other nations. Evading Spanish regulations, Californios conducted a small illegal trade in cattle hides with American merchant ships and a much larger trade with the Russian American Fur Company in Alaska. A mutually beneficial barter of California food for iron tools and woven cloth from Russia was established in 1806. When Mexico became independent in 1821, California trade was open to ships of all nations. Polk and other expansionists wanted the magnificent harbors in San Diego and San Francisco as the basis for Pacific trade with Asia.

As people ached to make their fortune, people from all parts of the world traveled to the United States and with the increase of Chinese miners, there was a threat of economic competition. A special tax was imposed on foreign miners in 1852 slowing Chinese immigration. The Gold Rush had dramatic affects on California, causing a boom in population, a thriving agriculture, and a corporate mining industry. If Polk had not pushed for these expansionist policies, Californa would not have become part of the U.S. territory and we would never achieve the positive effects of the California Gold Rush. It allowed for the US to have a larger population, more land for agriculture, more land for development of railroads and big business. These policies strengthened the U.S. over time, also getting rid of some foreign influence in U.S. actions, showing that as a nation, we were becoming more advanced politically, economically, and technologically.