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Manifest Destiny Book Review

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The Manifest Destiny was the idea that it was America’s destiny or fate to expand from coast to coast. As stated in the Anthology of American Literature, “the doctrine asserted that the new nation was spiritually supreme and its expansion was the will of God” (McMichael 686). This justification lead to westward expansion and created a new national moral. As explained in Anthology of American Literature, cultural hegemony is the domination of one race or class over another. McMicheal explains, “the federal government allowed the State of Georgia to claim Cherokee land largely because of greed and the 1829 discovery of gold on that land was in clear violation federal government promises to the Cherokee” (686). The removal of the Cherokee people …show more content…

“The mass migration of the Cherokee from Georgia in the winter of 1838-1839, during which thousands of Cherokee starved and died” (McMichael 686). This excursion became known as the Trail of Tears. These movements furthered the idea of cultural hegemony. McMichael goes on and lists government movements that aided cultural hegemony, such as the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the Trail of Tears, the Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Law (McMichael 686-687). These acts, laws, and movements furthered the U.S. white population’s advancement over other peoples. In 1833 the American Anti-Slavery Society was established. The group was a national alliance of abolitionist groups and The Compromise of 1850 was a settlement signed to avoid conflict between the North and South, like a civil war. Within the Compromise of 1850 was the Fugitive Slaw Law, which meant that any person in a free state who assists a runaway slave is violating the law and, therefore, will be punished along with the escaped slave (McMichael 287). Seven years downstream, the supreme court ruled, “that African Americans were not citizens and so could not expect the protection of the courts” (McMichael 287). This became known word wide as the Dred Scott Decision and is taught in today’s history classes as

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