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Introduction of westward expansion
Introduction of westward expansion
Westward expansion and manifest destiny essay
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Westward Expansion Westward Expansion after the Civil War affected the Native American’s tremendously. There were many reasons that the Native Americans expanded towards the west. The Native American’s moved west because they were promised some land. Majority of the people was afraid of dying from tuberculosis. For others the Westward Expansion was a great way to have a fresh start of life. The cost of living was extremely cheap in the West compared to what they were paying in the east, some of the Native American’s moved to the west was to advance in everyday life. The movement of the Westward Expansion started with the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. The Louisiana Purchase was land that was purchased by Thomas Jefferson. The land that was purchased from Napoleon had doubled the size of America. Thomas Jefferson was our third president. Thomas Jefferson paid fifteen million dollars to France. The states that are covered under the Louisiana Purchase are parts of Louisiana, …show more content…
Manifest Destiny helped with the western settlement. It was believed that the United States were granted by God the right to settle the rest of North America. Our people were under the impression that it was God’s will to have America stretched from coast to coast. When the people moved westward it would have a huge impact on the increasing of population. We tried taking the Indian’s land, and we were under the impression that just to enter and move them out of the way. We tried making the Indian’s move west, but they weren’t too happy about that. During the time that the Indian’s was refusing we were trying to killing their main source of food supply which was their buffalo’s. The buffalos meant a lot to the Indians because it helped with their shelter and warmth. I believe that Manifest Destiny was a very bad way of trying to make the Indians leave their
The term “Manifest Destiny” was never actually used until 1845, but the idea was always implied from the Doctrine of Discovery. Without understanding the Doctrine, it is impossible to understand the reasons and fundamentals behind why Manifest Destiny began.This Doctrine was a set of ten steps and rules that European nations followed in order to avoid conflict over land holdings, created in the early 1400s. The first few steps give the discovering country full rights to buy the land from the native peoples. This is important, since it gave the discovering country the power of preemption. Conquered Indian peoples lose sovereign powers and the rights to free trade and diplomatic relations, and the land they occupy is said to be vacant. Religion played a massive role in the regulations of the Doctrine, since “non-Christian people were not deemed to have the same rights to land, sovereignty, and self determination as Christians”(Miller 4). These rules were all meant to favor the ethnocentric, with full understanding of the repercussions on those who lived in the places being conquered.
Manifest Destiny was the motivating force behind the rapid expansion of America into the West. This ideal was highly sponsored by posters, newspapers, and various other methods of communication. Propaganda is and is still an incredibly common way to spread an idea to the masses. Though Manifest Destiny was not an official government policy, it led to the passing of the Homestead Act. The Homestead Act gave applicants freehold titles of undeveloped land outside of the original thirteen colonies.
First, the Manifest Destiny included extremely inexpensive land for sale in the west. In some cases it was free since it was government land, and they passed things like the Homestead Act to encourage westward settlements. With so many people taking part in horizontal mobility by moving west, it gave the economy a chance to expand commerce. We would do this by building ports and increasing trade with countries in the Pacific. The economy also got a kick when there were gold or silver rushes in the west.
In 1845, a fellow named John C. Calhoun coined the term "Manifest Destiny." The term Manifest Destiny was a slogan for westward expansion during the 1840's. In the west there was plenty of land, national security, the spread of democracy, urbanization, but there was also poverty out west. People moved out west in search for a new life such as a new beginning. Moving out west, settlers from the east were taking a risk of a lot of things. The climate was different and there were more cultures that lived out west because of how much land was available.
Westward expansion was the greatest method to achieve the grouping of the natural resources found and use them as needed. To gain access to the western part of the country the white settlers had to pass through the Native Americans. While pushing westward the white culture clashed with the plain indians and their culture. As a result of this clash bloody battles surged and the white settlers were victorious and the government restricted the Native American lands to small portions. The government supported assimilation, which was the plan to unite the Native American culture with the white one.
America was expanding at such a rapid pace that those who were in America before us had no time to anticipate what was happening. This change in lifestyle affected not only Americans but everyone who lived in the land. Changing traditions, the get rich quick idea and other things were the leading causes of westward expansion. But whatever happened to those who were caught in the middle, those who were here before us?
The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 started the Westward Expansion. There were many benefits from the purchase for the US that the French didn’t realize before they sold it. The purchase gave the US access to the Mississippi river which allowed for expansion of river trade to the North and South from the center of the US. The port city of New Orleans was bought by the US and its prosperity benefited the US greatly. The US sent Louis and Clark west to investigate the purchase. They were secretly told to lay claim on any and all land they come across. It was evident, after days of being lost and unable to communicate with natives, that they need an interpreter. Sacagawea, who spoke 5 tribal languages as well as French, was the answer to a safe and successful journey. Her presence signified that they were not a war party because they had a woman with them. During this time women didn’t travel in war parties. Her bearing a child further signified a peaceful trade party. Historians believe that without Sacagawea, Louis and Clark never would have been able to explore the West in the manor they did.
“By 1840 almost 7 million Americans had migrated westward in hopes of securing land and being prosperous” (Westward Expansion Facts. Westward Expansion Facts. N.p., n.d Web. 16 Sept. 2016). This movement is called Western Expansion. The movement brought new beginnings and hope to many northerners and southerners. Western expansion not only affected the lives of many Americans, but the Natives living on the land. Throughout the 1860s to 1890s, the movement West altered the lives of Native Americans forever. Settlers deconstructed the Native Americans land in the mindset to grow their economy. Americans attacked and killed large amounts of Natives for no reasonable reason. Also, in hopes to Americanize the natives, they taught and imposed their
The United States, as a young nation, had the desire to expand westward and become a true continental United States that stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Various factors, strategic and economic, contributed to the desire to expand westward. According to John O’Sullivan, as cited by Hestedt in Manifest Destiny 2004; "the U.S. had manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence to the free development of our yearly multiplying millions" (¶2). As Americans ventured westward to settle the frontier, their inherent superior beliefs, culture and the principles of democracy accompanied them. America’s ruthless ambition to fulfill its manifest destiny had a profound impact on the nation’s economy, social systems and foreign and domestic policies; westward expansion was a tumultuous period in American History that included periods of conflict with the Native Americans and Hispanics and increased in sectionalism that created the backdrop for the Civil War.
The expansion of the west happened in a lot of places west of the Mississippi. One of the most important setting was the Louisiana Purchase which was bought in 1803, the 828,000 square miles of land nearly doubled the size of the U...
In There Is No true History in Westward Expansion, the author Robert Morgan writes about historical events that have shaped America into what it is today. Land became a huge resource which lead Westward Expansion into becoming a major historical event. In Morgan’s book, he makes two very accurate claims. The first claim is that history is not made up of just a few heroes and villains; his second claim is that average citizens were responsible for Westward Expansion.
Manifest Destiny is a phrase used to express the belief that the United States had a mission to expand its borders, thereby spreading its form of democracy and freedom. Originally a political catchphrase of the nineteenth-century, Manifest Destiny eventually became a standard historical term, often used as a synonym for the territorial expansion of the United States across North America towards the Pacific Ocean. The United States government believed that the Native Americans were a problem that was hindering Manifest Destiny from being fulfilled (or at the very least, used the idea of Manifest Destiny to gain land and resources the Indians possessed), and would do everything in their power to exterminate the “Indian Problem.” The U.S. government, along with the majority of the U.S. population, eradicated this problem through lies, forced removal, and murder. This eradication nearly wiped out a race of people, whose only crime was mere existence in a land they had lived on, respected, and cherished for hundreds of years. The U.S. government had three main ways of solving the “Indian Problem”. They would remove them, kill them, or segregate them from the “civilized” white man by placing the Indian on reservations. The Indians soon learned that the U.S. government could not be trusted, and fought fiercely against the harsh injustices that were being administered. Tragically, the Indians would eventually have their spirits broken, living out their meager existence in the terrible homes called reservations.
The Americans during the early 1800's were very manipulative and were willing to do anything in order to accomplish their goals. Westward expansion was very important to the United States, claiming more land to the west was a symbol of power and the more power the United States had the more intimidating they were to neighboring countries. The only thing standing in the way of the Americans westward expansion were the natives that called that land home. In the beginning of westward expansion the Americans wanted to create a friendship with the native Americans and establish trust. So they decided to discreetly take advantage of the Indians by creating treaties that claimed to offer amazing opportunities as long as the Indians aggreged to relinquish their land to the Americans. For example in the document entitled, A Treaty between the United States of America, and the Kaskaskia Tribe of Indians. (August 13, 1803) it states, "The annuity
The Westward Expansion had a really big impact and very much antagonized the relationship between the Northern and the Southern states during the time of 1800s through the 1860s. Both states had very different lifestyles which made them tremendously different from each other. The North was very industrial based, while the South was very agricultural based and farmed a lot. Over time they each side developed their own identity and felt that their life was way better than the others. The Southern states were a very big fan of slavery while the Northern states were not. As the expansion were to happen, this would result in the stopping of expansion of slavery as well. This is why the southern states peeved about westward expansion
At the time Andrew Jackson was president, there was a fast growing population and a desire for more land. Because of this, expansion was inevitable. To the west, many native Indian tribes were settled. Andrew Jackson spent a good deal of his presidency dealing with the removal of the Indians in western land. Throughout the 1800’s, westward expansion harmed the natives, was an invasion of their land, which led to war and tension between the natives and America, specifically the Cherokee Nation.