American History: Beginnings to 1877: 6. The Age of Jackson and Westward Expansion, Lessons 6–7

He and other missionaries set up a string of 21 missions along the California coast.

Each became self-sufficient, or able to produce enough for their needs.

A new culture also developed among some workers on the ranches—the culture of the vaqueros. Vaqueros were the Indian and Mexican cowhands who tended to the cattle and other animals.

In return for they land, the Mexican government specified that Austin and the original American settlers must become Mexican citizens and worship in the Roman Catholic Church.

A dictator is ruler with absolute power and authority.

On February 23, 1836, Mexican troops began the siege of the Alamo, In a siege, enemy forces try to capture a city by surrounding and often bombarding it.

In the United States, people were divided over whether to annex, or add on, Texas to the Union. The arguments reflected sectional divisions in the country. White southerners generally favored the idea.

In the 1840s, an editor named John L. O'Sullivan created the term Manifest Destiny. The term meant that the United States had the right to spread across the continent.

The rebels declared California an independent republic on June 14, 1846. They nicknamed their new nation the Bear Flag Republic.

The Mexican-American War officially ended in 1848 when Mexico and the United States signed the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo.

The treaty required Mexico to cede, or give up, all of California and New Mexico to the United States. These lands were called the Mexican Cession.

More than 80,000 people made the journey to California in 1849. They became known as forty-niners, a nickname created in reference to the year they arrived.

Not surprisingly, as the population grew, people quarreled over water allocation.

Californians realized that they needed a strong government to stop such lawlessness. Consequently, in November of 1849, they drafted a state constitution and then asked to be admitted to the Union.