Connecting California : agents of U.S. imperial expansion, 1783-1848
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- This dissertation investigates how California became part of the United States. It traces the long story of U.S. imperial expansion into Alta California from the inception of the United States in 1783 to the close of the U.S.-Mexican War in 1848. A cartographic, political, and military history, the dissertation tracks the imperial project of connecting California to the United States conducted by U.S. statesmen over multiple presidential administrations and field agent surveyors, diplomats, and military officials. U.S. field agents employed three main strategies to acquire California----mapping, diplomacy, and use of force----which eventually overlapped and sometimes worked at cross purposes. "Connecting California" offers three key findings. First, the imperial race for control of North America did not end with the American Revolution but rather continued with the United States as a new imperial power. Second, U.S. expansion was slow, uneven, and driven by agents on the ground who had governmental authority but lacked clear and timely directions for how to execute their goals. These U.S. agents traveled west by land and by sea in order to build out U.S. cartographic and diplomatic infrastructure that would facilitate U.S. commercial expansion through Pacific ports. Third, although U.S. statesmen modified their views of California between 1783 and 1848, U.S. leaders intended to prevent European empires, specifically Britain, from controlling California for geostrategic reasons. San Francisco Bay offered a rare deep-water port on the Pacific Coast that could facilitate the expansion of U.S. commerce into the Pacific Ocean. By controlling Alta California, U.S. leaders intended to cut Britain out as the middleman in the China and India trades and establish a base on the Pacific Coast for the U.S. Navy ships protecting American merchants and American whaling vessels in the Pacific Ocean. Despite the repeated, scholarly emphasis on the ideology of manifest destiny to explain U.S. imperialism, settlement for an expanding population that overcrowded Eastern cities was not the driving force of U.S. expansion into Alta California. Rather, U.S. control of California----specifically California ports including San Francisco Bay----was a means for securing Pacific trade and rivaling Britain in global commerce.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2022; ©2022 |
| Publication date | 2022; 2022 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Hull, Charlotte Sanger |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Gienapp, Jonathan, 1983- |
| Thesis advisor | Gienapp, Jonathan, 1983- |
| Thesis advisor | Chang, Gordon H |
| Thesis advisor | Olivarius, Kathryn Meyer McAllister, 1989- |
| Degree committee member | Chang, Gordon H |
| Degree committee member | Olivarius, Kathryn Meyer McAllister, 1989- |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of History |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Charlotte Sanger Hull. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of History. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2022. |
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/xr655wy8865 |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2022 by Charlotte Sanger Hull
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