Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
The impacts of the westward Expansion
Ap us history westward expansion
Westward expansion (USII.4a
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Manifest Destiny is a unique, yet mysterious fundamental series of events in American history. No other country’s history contains such an eventful history as the United States. Amy Greenberg’s book, Manifest Destiny and American Territorial Expansion, provides documented evidence that settlers believed they were destined for expansion throughout the continent. In other words, many religious settlers believed that it was a call from God for the United States to expand west. On the other hand, people believed that Manifest Destiny vindicated the war against Mexico.
America’s urgency and continuous interest to expand Westward helped drive the idea of “Manifest Destiny” within the budding nation. Within the early 1800s Americans believed that it was right and justified to expand west and claim the unorganized area to the west. Manifest Destiny helped to drive the young and evolving nation of America by creating changes within its political system, its societal ideologies, and its ever-expanding economy. In the late 1700s to early 1800s politics was mainly influenced by the realm of the wealthier, upper class; politicians would attempt to grab the attention and endorsement of men who owned large amounts of land and money.
Manifest Destiny was the American belief that expansion in North America was justified and a responsibility(Rohrbough and Nash, 217). Many Southerners and Westerners supported the war and the possibilities of expanding west. Two years later, the U.S. army pushed down to Mexico City and forced the Mexican government to surrender. They signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and ceded 40 percent of its territory, including present day California and Texas. This only fueled America’s desire to acquire more land and fulfill Manifest Destiny(Rohrbough and Nash, 218).
Manifest Destiny was a big stepping point in America. When American settlers wanted more land, they decided to take Natives land, so they could expand their own land. This caused them to retaliate causing the Civil War. This made the Native Americans and Americans relationship to be worse. It made the Native American population decrease drastically.
After America declared independence, we had our sights on expanding our land, and we all believed Manifest Destiny. After getting Louisiana from france, the next big part of land was Texas, owned by Mexico. Mexico wanted people to live in Texas because most of their people lived down south in Mexico, so they gave a deal, you can get free land in Texas if you follow three simple rules. You have to be loyal to Mexico, live on the land for ten years, become Catholic, and no slavery. After a while a ton of americans came and there was ten thousand americans, while only two thousand Mexican residents in Texas.
During the late 19th century, many sensed that America was destined to expand from coast to coast. This belief that many Americans had was termed Manifest Destiny. Religion had a significant factor to the faith of expansion, as many stressed that America had divine providence. God was said had the power and was the reasoning behind the growth of the country. Others on the other hand, emphasized that America’s history made it inevitable to spread its borders throughout North America.
In this set of materials, both the reading and the listening passages are talking about Manifest Destiny, which is vital political issue in 1844. While the reading mentioning about the history of the Oregon Territory as becoming a part of James Polk’s platform, the listening adds new points to the points made by the reading by talking about voters to this changement. To start with, according to the author, America speedily enlarged its territory by admission of Texas to its Union as the 28th state. However, the lecturer argues that the voters were not eligible to vote for it.
In the 19th Century, there were strong supporters of the ideology of Manifest Destiny. Manifest Destiny was basically the belief of expansion by settlers expanding all over America because god supposedly destined the Americans for expansions by their resources. This resulted for the Americans to find a modern mode of transportation that would make traveling from the east to the west coast easier. This resulted in a mega construction known as the Transcontinental Railroad. The railroad not only helps with transportation but with trading.
In the 19th century, America was growing more rapidly than it had in the past. Cities were multiplying in size wealthy places and the slums. From the popularity of cities to rural areas the need for land was high. Only so many people grasping for land meant someone had to go either the Natives or the Americans had to to do what they could with their own land. A philosophy of Manifest Destiny was brought forth but with a catch that expansionism could be seen as imperialism instead.
By the end of the 1840s, the United States expanded its territories from Texas west to California and the Pacific northwest (Shi and Tindall 415). The southerners wanted the new western states to advance pro-southern representation in congress to guarantee that slavery wouldn’t be jeopardized by northern abolitionists (Shi and Tindall 416). What spurred the migration westward was the continuing population explosion in the United States for desired land (Shi and Tindall 420). On March 1, 1845, President Tyler signed a resolution adding Texas to the Union. Later on under his term, California became a part of American territory (Shi and Tindall 420-421).
After the American Revolution and declaring its independence, America has been aspired to the ideas of liberty, humanity, equality, and property rights. In the 1840s, the United States added greatly to its territory, gaining lands stretching all the way to the Pacific Ocean. President James K. Polk, who was elected in 1844 on the pledge to annex vast territories in the West, delivered on his major campaign compromise. The term Manifest Destiny was a wide belief that the American settlers were destined to expand from coast to coast.
During this time in American history America had the growing feeling of Manifest Destiny. This was the desire to expand westward. This westward movement brought many Americans into Mexican territory. At this time Mexico controlled California and most of the southern portions of the western territories. Mexico 's problem was that even though they possessed these territories they did not have a population and large enough Military force to control them.
Manifest Destiny was the term used by John O’Sullivan to describe America’s desire to expand West due to reasons including both the vast amount of unclaimed land and the opportunities Americans wanted to explore. During this time, Americans believed that it was their God-given right to expand West, and therefore they were entitled to push away any groups that were in their way. Due to the mindset that the Americans could do as they pleased with the groups of people who got in their way, Manifest Destiny affected many groups of people, including the American Indians and Slaves, and continued to build up the preexisting tension between the North and South. One of the groups of people affected greatly by Manifest Destiny were the Native Americans. Manifest Destiny affected the American Indians by spreading foreign diseases to them as they moved Westward, through the Native American territory.
We’ve entered an age of massive expansion. It was an exciting, but also very unpredictable time. Americans swarmed west and as they did, new states regularly came into the Union. They quite literally believed that they were fulfilling the will of God in the process. A popular theory at the time was that it was the “Manifest Destiny” of the United States to one day overspread the entire North American Continent, and bring the blessings of liberty to all its peoples.
“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.