Thoreau and larger events: Mexican American War and James Polk

"The Mexican-American War of 1846 to 1848 marked the first U.S. armed conflict chiefly fought on foreign soil. It pitted a politically divided and militarily unprepared Mexico against the expansionist-minded administration of U.S. President James K. Polk, who believed the United States had a “Manifest Destiny” to spread across the continent to the Pacific Ocean. A border skirmish along the Rio Grande that started off the fighting was followed by a series of U.S. victories. When the dust cleared, Mexico had lost about one-third of its territory, including nearly all of present-day California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico." (History Channel)

Polk (1795-1849) was the 11th president of the United States of America. He was born in North Carolina. Wikipedia: "A property owner who used slave labor, he kept a plantation in Mississippi and increased his slave ownership during his presidency. Polk's policy of territorial expansion saw the nation reach the Pacific coast and almost all its contiguous borders. He made the U.S. a nation poised to become a world power, but with divisions between free and slave states gravely exacerbated, setting the stage for the Civil War." 

He had urinary stones as a child, and the operation to remove them might have left him sterile. He was a Tar Heel and went to UNC. He became a lawyer in Nashville Tennessee. He moved back home to Columbia Tennessee, and prospered in part because of the Panic of 1819. Global markets adjusted to the Napoleonic Wars and excessive speculation. He joined the state legislature, and he married Sarah Childress. "Following her husband's death in 1849, Sarah had a 42-year widowhood, the longest of any First Lady." And, "Rawley noted that Sarah Polk's grace, intelligence and charming conversation helped compensate for her husband's often austere manner."

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) ended the war, and increased the land of America substantially. USA marched into Mexico City and defeated them there. It's hard to believe that actually happened.

The victory in the Mexican-American War led to the Gold Rush in California in 1849. 300k people rushed to California when gold was discovered in Coloma California, between Lake Tahoe and Sacramento. 

I have to say, it's weird to think of Thoreau leaving Walden and then there being a Gold Rush, those things seem to be from different eras. And yet the Civil War hasn't even happened. I find it so weird that I'm interested in history later in life, I found it quite tedious when I was younger.