Manifest Destiny Thesis

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Manifest Destiny has influenced US policy towards Latin America in many ways. It built the foundation of our modern views of Latin America and continues to draw a wedge between the two countries. Manifest destiny called on the United States expand over the entire continent for the simple fact that the racial characteristics of it gave the US a natural superiority that justifies expansion. They mostly just wanted land and the policy was made so that US had a sort of “first dibs” on all Latin American countries. The United States wanted to control over large tracts of land American territory.
A historical example of this is the purchase of Florida from Spain in the 1820s and the Ostend Manifesto. These both had motives to gain land from Latin America and the manifest destiny made it so that any Latin American land could be rightfully bought by the US. America felt obligated to the land of Latin America. US policy was influenced by Manifest Destiny because since that policy was created all policies relating to Latin America have a certain moral and cultural superiority as well as support for …show more content…

Polk further than his belief in Manifest Destiny to such a point that he had a dispute with Mexico that causes the US to gain Texas, California, New Mexico, Arizona and parts of Nevada. Keep in mind that he felt this was just because of the manifest destiny and that this land was rightfully owned by the United States of America. Furthermore, Andrew Jackson's land policy said that the expansion of the US power into Latin America is logical and necessary according to Manifest Destiny. His land policies even went as far as saying that that Latin America should be a part of the US anyway. This caused many disagreements between the US and Mexico, and even grounds for a war. They didn't like the idea of losing their land because of a privilege the US that they had and it was worth fighting

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