Impact Of Push And Pull Factors On White Americans

Sophia Huddleston
Mr. Asher
US History 10
31 January 2023
How Push and Pull Factors Affected America
America is like a magnet; while it attracts and pulls things towards it, it equally pushes things away. Since the 17th century, America has attracted a diverse population and has brought a variety of settlers. But as time passed, those earlier settlers were not happy with other diversity groups settling in the same land. The concept of Manifest Destiny had a big impact on how America would end up, and it also shaped the perspective white Americans had on other racial ethnicities. Although it was an early concept in the 1800s, it still had an effect on the 20th century on future generations. The pulling of European colonists, resulting in the

While white settlers were pulled to various regions of America, they pushed other racial groups, forcing them out of their homes and land. The westward expansion was one of the crucial events that changed Native American lives for generations to come. Native people had all of this land, and it was not just one tribe of people; there were a variety of indigenous groups that covered America, but since it was the white American’s right to head west, all of that land previously belonging to Native Americans was stolen from them. Document 10 has a map showing western America, and the land Native Americans had lost over the time of 1850 to 1890. They started out with the entire region, but by the end of the 19th century, they had tiny square miles of land, that barely make up an entire state. After the Civil War in the 1860s, there were Indian policies put in place to exterminate Native Americans and remove them from their homelands. The idea to “kill the Indian, save the man” was a common ideal that was believed during this time. The racial discrepancies established between white versus Indian, led to the killing of indigenous Americans, and relocation to reservations. These reservations were the significantly smaller pieces of land Native Americans were allowed to have. The reservations are a result of forceful migration which only occurred because of the choehold Manifest Destiny had on white Americans. As America had progressed as a nation, more and more people wanted to come to the states in pursuit of freedom and liberty. But early Americans were not happy about this, and more racial injustice occured because of immigration. In 1903, the Judge Magazine, published a political cartoon showing Uncle Sam shielding “American Ideas and Institutions” from “Riff raff immigration”. There is a distinct separation between Uncle Sam