More handpicked essays just for you.
Analyze and evaluate the motivation and rationale behind Manifest Destiny expansion that began in the United States in the 1840s
American imperialism history
Rise of imperialism in the united states
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
The United States of America has never been anything but an empire. The first European settlers came to the land as a colony and even after gaining independence, did nothing but push west while murdering and displacing millions of natives. All that mattered was the country gaining and keeping power. The mindset of the American
Toward the end of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, the United States was becoming an increasingly powerful nation and world power. The country was competing with other nations also expanding. Their motives for expanding were to gain land and resources. While there was a slight departure from past expansionism, the United States mostly continued as it had been in the previous years. In order to accomplish expansionism, the United States needed to acquire foreign territories to increase their global presence.
Mahan, who was a pro-imperialist, to advise that the U.S expand as well. Imperialists, like Alfred, held the strong belief, that in order to obtain a powerful navy, the United States needed to procure ports all over the world. These leaders, also, believed these ports, would then, spur an increase in trade with other nations. Also, having many ports would ensure American ships, while sailing, safety all over the world. The U.S., having already expanded, by claiming Alaska and Hawaii as its possessions, as well as the belief that the Anglo-Saxons were the superior race and were responsible to spread Christianity and “civilization” to the world’s “inferior peoples” (The Americans Reconstruction To The 21st Century 344), caused many Americans to want to expand further.
The United States was not interested in having people with different cultures, languages, and religions where an older generation of moralists thought it violate a core principle of republicanism, while a younger generation believed that the United States had a role to uplift backward societies. When the foreign policy changed after 1890, the US became an imperialist nation. After the United States bought Alaska from Russia the US quickly decided to look into overseas. Their plan was to take over other foreign lands and slowly gain an empire, and soon become a world power. The two major causes for US expansion after 1890 were for economic benefits and military control overseas.
During the late eighteen hundreds a few decades after the civil war the United States had fallen into a great depression and was lacking resources and economical power. The need for economical growth was crucial. The united states needed to gain economical power so that we could trade with countries overseas and to show everyone how much power we really had. Social Darwinism started because countries were trying to gain more power this influenced the United States to try and gain more power than most other countries. But “All the united states wanted was for our neighboring countries to be stable, orderly and prosperous.
Americans used Social Darwinism to justify their false superiority in which the phrase “survival of the fittest” motivated them to believe that Anglo-Saxons were fittest. American imperialists thought that it was their responsibility to civilize these inferior races with things like spreading Christianity. The United States desired to be as powerful as the other European imperialists.
How do you think manifest destiny set the stage for American imperialism at the end of the century? – Manifest destiny set the stage for American imperialism because in believing that expansion of the United States was justified and inevitable, we believed that whatever we did to expand was justified. Even if it meant using force to take more land. What were the motivations for manifest destiny?
Imperialism was a controversial idea that a nation can extend its power outward through means of diplomatic or military force. This often results in a shift of power from one major force currently in control to another. The people of that nation under control conflict may also experience wars, rebellions, or cultural destruction. Looking at some of these events, we see some positives and negatives of imperialistic action taken by the United States, and how it affected the nations imperialized by the United States. For starters, let’s look at Hawaii’s annexation.
As America became a great power, it has continued its legacy of territorial expansionism through neo-imperialist policies. Aside from acquiring land and expanding American territory, the United States has established policies that have allowed direct and often indirect military and political control, economic exploitation, and the introduction of American ideals. The U.S. has justified this form of colonialism by claiming that it is for mutual economic pursuits, the spreading of democracy, and the establishment of stable governments in developing countries. Despite America’s noble causes, American imperialism has caused many repercussions. The United States should cease to be an imperialist power as it is economically damaging to countries under its rule, costly to America, violates the fundamental American principle of self-governance, and exacerbates social and political situations in countries America has tampered with.
Imperialism means that one country controls all political, economic, or cultural life in another country or region. Europe successfully did this in the Americas and established colonies in South Asia, Africa, and China. Although this would seem like a substantial amount of power, Europe did not gain much influence until later on. Once Europe recognized their own growing control, they embarked on what is now called the “New Imperialism”. Many components played into this seemingly rapid success, but one significant reason was that of the
United States Imperialism in the late 19th century was very selfish time. Many people in that time, debated about whether are not benefiting our country was the right way or the wrong way. The motiving factors that impacted our imperialism are economic, military, and cultural. These factors impacted the American Imperialism from 1890-194 by having control over weaker territories meeting our expanding needs.
To what extent was late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century United States expansionism a continuation of past United States expansionism and to what extent was it a departure? It was in the late 19th century that the United States entered an era of imperialism. Expansionism was very popular during this time period and the United States was not excluded from its rising trend. The country joined the other world powers in expanding their influential grip over the smaller and less developed nations of the world.
Before the 20th century the United States was an isolationist nation but around the late 19th century America decided to convert into an imperialist power. They had numerous reasons to shift into being an imperialist nation. America didn’t want to begin imperializing to settle and live in the nations they were taking over, they already had America for that reason, they wanted to adopt these nations for what they had to offer, which was many things. America saw an opportunity to improving their nation and took it. Even if there were many causes for America to imperialize, three of them stood out the most.
“Once we became an independent people it was as much a law of nature that this [control of all of North America] should become our pretension as that the Mississippi should flow to the sea” –John Quincy Adams (Henretta, p. 384). In the 1840s, Americans had a belief that God destined for them to expand their territory all the way westward to the Pacific Ocean. This idea was called Manifest Destiny. In the nineteenth century, Americans were recognized for coming together and building up one another for one cause: westward expansion.
And lastly the desire for a new frontier to settle in order to maintain America’s identity and prosperity. All three of the examples: economically, politically/military, and culturally can simply explain why and how America became an imperialist nation in the late
