Title: Week 5 Overview and Inquiry
Course: The American West: Power, Place, and Memory > Section: Week 5 · September 21–25, 2026: Manifest Destiny, War, Slavery, and Gold

WEEK 5 · INQUIRY MODULE

Week 5: Manifest Destiny, War, Slavery, and Gold

Was U.S. continental expansion a national project, a sectional crisis, an imperial war—or all three?

Dates: September 21–25, 2026

Focus

- Texas, the U.S.–Mexico War, and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
- Slavery’s western reach
- California conquest and the Gold Rush

Before class

1. Read: American Yawp, chapter 12.
2. Open and inspect the linked primary-source collection(s). Record one source, one context question, and one limitation.
3. Scholarship lens: Kevin Waite, West of Slavery (2021), selected excerpt.

Primary-source portals

- Library of Congress: Westward Expansion—Encounters at a Cultural Crossroads
- National Archives: Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

Tuesday/Thursday meeting plan

Date | Status | Plan
Tuesday, September 22 | Class | Manifest Destiny, Texas, the U.S.–Mexico War, and conquest.
Thursday, September 24 | Class | Slavery’s western reach, gold, property, and a corroboration controversy.

Source Reasoning Lab 1 due Friday, September 25.

After class

Deliverable: Source Reasoning Lab 1 and Reading & Reasoning Check 3.

- I can answer the weekly inquiry with a contestable claim.
- I can name at least two pieces of evidence and explain their limits.
- I can identify an interpretation that my evidence supports, complicates, or challenges.