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Insight about Manifest Destiny
Insight about Manifest Destiny
Insight about Manifest Destiny
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Insight about Manifest Destiny
Insight about Manifest Destiny
Insight about Manifest Destiny
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.
One also sees how each author, in their own ways (with more or less emphasis), describe both the economic motivations, as well as the cultural motivations, which drove the westward expansion. In a sense, their very words become pictures of the kind of socio-economic pressures shared by many Americans to expand westward, as well as the Manifest-Destiny fever in many of those same Americans, hungry for land, desirous for expansion, driven by the ideal of spreading their own culture’s ways into other lands (sometimes onto their indigenous inhabitants). But in the end, they all perceive westward expansion as being, somehow, the only option for early Americans to find the good life; no doubt because of the economic and cultural influences on their thinking.
The Westward Expansion consisted of almost 7 million Americans migrating west, hoping to get land and be wealthy. It is often called Manifest Destiny, because many people believed settlers was intended to expand the west. Because so many people thought this way it was also thought the U.S was physically separated from Europe. This migration of people included people from Spain, France, Mexico, and other countries. The Western Expansion had a part in the foreign policies in the expansion towards the pacific and the way the U.S treated their relationship with other
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).
There the march of settlement and exploitation continued, propelled by a lust for land and a passion for profit. Between 1870 and 1900, Americans settled more land in the West than had been occupied by all Americans up to 1870. Conflicts over land ownership, religion, and culture, combined with broken promises by the U.S. government, moved the Indian
Exam Paper 1 In what ways did the American West of the late nineteenth century represent a contrast to the East? In what ways did the two regions resemble each other?
All throughout history, America did not have much care for other people when they sought out land. Americans would gladly risk their reputation and even war for the gift of gaining land. The Native Americans were a prime example of this, as Americans had massacred and chased them away from their homeland solely for the purpose of expansion. Manifest Destiny had advocated and influenced this action, saying that they were predestined by God to expand from coast to coast. This belief in America’s right to land continued.
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.
People were drawn to the West because it was scene as the last resort to make a living when all else failed in the East. Communication with friends and family who had moved west led these pioneers to believe the journey would be easy and the reward for getting west would be best. And the greatly available land was the strongest pulling factor to people interested in adventuring west. Migration was a personal choice that depended on several key factors, “Age of the head of household; economic status; personal attitudes; and projected costs and benefits of the resettlement.” Most historians agree that the majority of the people who migrated west were middle class and mostly immigrants to the US.
In addition to railroads, Congress passed numerous acts and laws to encourage people to move west. One of the first acts was the Homestead Act of 1862. Which “gave 160 acres of land to anyone who would pay a $10 registration fee and pledge to live on it and cultivate it for five year” (Divine, Breen, Fredrickson, and Williams 502). Passing this law forged a “mass migration of land-hungry Europeans” (Divine, Breen, Fredrickson, and Williams 502), amazed that a country would relinquish millions of acres for free. Between 1862 and 1900, close to 600,000 families made their way west from free homesteads.
The Great Migration was a time of change it was a time where African-Americans had the chance for a nice life. During this time people of color were moving to the northern half of the USA, in order to get a new start. During this they had to leave the only life they knew in hopes for something better in a different place. To begin with, after World War 1 began in 1914 industries lacked the laborers in their urban cities.
In the 1840s, America was no different from a growing child – it was getting bigger, smarter, and needed more things to achieve its full potential. But how do you get bigger and better? You need to do everything in your power to fight for it. To reach the west coast and create a full America, this so-called belief was known as 'Manifest Destiny'. America was almost there, with the East coast filled up, and the Continental Railroad near completion.
The contribution presented to my generation by America is the gift of freedom. Even though freedom may seem as if it is free many veterans lost their lives to ensure we had freedom. There are other gifts from America to my generation such as edification and technology. The rewards of freedom were able to be received because of countless veterans sacrificed their lives so we could live in a free country.
The land that most people believe to be rightfully theirs, and theirs alone is an incorrect assumption. The land they live on was once home to many indigenous people and their descendants still live there to this day. The indigenous people consisted of the Corn People, the Olmeca, the Maya, the Tolteca, the Tarasco, who were also known as the Purepecha, and the Azteca. Each indigenous tribe had their own way of life with their own developments. Quite often the developments were very advanced for their time periods.
A major continuity over time will always be shown in the world, even if an event took place years ago. In this standard many dates and time periods were stated. Wars broke out, new presidents took the stand, and a handful of laws were brought into place but were changed as time moved on. Even though these events were dated so long ago, they played a major role in the shaping of our nation. With the past events that occurred, these events are still practiced and used today.