A Historian's Field Notes: From New Orleans to Palo Alto

Field Notebook of Dr. Imani Brooks: Four Sites of Expansion

1June 3. New Orleans, the Cabildo. Stood in the upstairs hall of the Cabildo, the old government building beside Jackson Square. A label says that here, on December 20, 1803, the French flag was lowered and the American flag raised as Louisiana passed to the United States. The U.S. paid France about $15 million, and the country roughly doubled in size. The next spring, Lewis and Clark's Corps of Discovery set out to explore the new land. A second label reads: "France sold its claim to this land. The Osage, Caddo, Lakota and many other nations already lived on it."

2June 6. Nanih Waiya, Winston County, Mississippi. Walked around Nanih Waiya, a large earthen mound covered in grass. Many Choctaw people call it the Mother Mound, the place where their people began. In January 1830 Mississippi passed a law ending the Choctaw government and placing Choctaw people under state law. That May, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act. In September 1830 Choctaw leaders signed the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, giving up more than 10 million acres in Mississippi for land in Indian Territory. From 1831 to 1833 the Choctaw became the first nation removed under the act, and historians estimate that thousands died on the way west. I copied a line from a public letter by Choctaw chief George W. Harkins, 1832 (adapted): "We chose to suffer and be free, rather than live under laws in which our voice could not be heard." A few thousand Choctaw stayed in Mississippi. In 2008 the state returned Nanih Waiya to their descendants, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians.

3June 9. Tuskahoma, Oklahoma. Reached the red-brick Choctaw Capitol, built in 1884 in what was then Indian Territory. After removal, the Choctaw rebuilt their nation in the West with a written constitution, courts, a council and schools. The building is now a museum. Today the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma is one of the largest tribal nations in the United States. I watched families set up tents on the capitol grounds for the nation's yearly Labor Day festival.

4June 13. Palo Alto Battlefield, Brownsville, Texas. Texas broke away from Mexico in 1836 and became an independent republic. In 1845 Congress voted to annex Texas, and Texans agreed to join the Union. By then many Americans believed their nation was meant to spread across the continent, a belief one writer called manifest destiny. Mexico had never accepted Texas independence, and the two nations disagreed about the border: the United States claimed the Rio Grande, while Mexico said Texas ended at the Nueces River, farther north. President James K. Polk sent troops into the land between the rivers. On this prairie on May 8, 1846, U.S. and Mexican armies fought one of the first battles of the U.S.-Mexican War. Exhibits here tell the story from both sides. Some Americans opposed the war, and in Congress, Abraham Lincoln asked President Polk to name the exact spot where the war had begun. In the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), Mexico gave up a huge region in the West, and tens of thousands of Mexicans living there became part of the United States.