Manifest Destiny

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The Settlement of the West

During the last half of the nineteenth century the federal government snatched land from the Indians with one hand and gave huge allotments of land to the railroads with the other . Pushing the Indians into little reservations and then later into individual properties, the Federal government freed up land that Americans in the East wanted. Meanwhile railroad lines started to crisscross the nation, cutting travel time significantly. The governments Indian policies and the railroad overbuilding encouraged and enabled Americans to rush to the West.

Manifest destiny was the founding idea behind most of the governments’ Indian policies. Manifest destiny was the belief that the United States had a “God-given”