Political, Social And Economic Impact Of Westward Expansion

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America, home of the brave and land of the free. America became the superpower it is today because of the Westward expansion. Through Westward expansion the United States was able to gain more land, start new businesses, and create new jobs. This expansion brought drastic changes to the country. Political, social and economic impact were all brought upon the country during the westward expansion. Of those three major impacts, the political impact had the greatest footprint on the westward expansion. Before the topic of westward expansion is further touched upon the time period must be recognized. During the mid 1840’s settlers from the U.S began travelling west after the Louisiana purchase in 1803. Americans continued to travel westward …show more content…

The expansion of technology and the creation of new territories resulting into new governments in the west was also an important impact. In the painting “American Progress”by John Gast shows what appears to be lady liberty hovering over land moving west and marking land with telegraph wires while Native Americans are being pushed out into the darkness. This painting was made 7 years after the civil war and was a good image of the progress Americans made in only a little bit of time. The huge shift in population was a major social change but not as big as the land and territorial disputes, wars of cession, unbalance of slave states and free states that may of caused the Civil War. The economic impact was not as big as the social or political impact as it only was a small period of inflation after merchants charged unreasonable prices during the gold rush of 49. The Native Americans were practically ignored during the expansion and were basically pushed off and ignored. The treaties that were made before were completely broken and the only thing Americans wanted to do were convert them into Christians or straight up kill the Native

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