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Why Was America Become An Empire Essay

1475 Words6 Pages

America emerged as an empire, and continues to be one, for a plethora of reasons. For this prompt, I have been asked to identify three reasons. I shall attempt to be succinct, although I anticipate overlap. My reasons are not chronological; all contribute at various levels are various times of the USA’s development. I shall explore America’s emergence as an empire chronologically, identifying the three reasons as they play their roles during the appropriate time periods. These reasons are: Success and luck in war, putting human rights second, and taking quick action to secure resources. One may debate the merit of discussing human rights violations before the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and their spread as a concept, but we cannot …show more content…

The Native Americans suffered from the American concept of manifest destiny. Manifest destiny was the idea that the West was waiting for eager Americans to come and tame it, as was not only our right, but our duty, our destiny. It was no doubt an arrogant concept, but an effective one. Throughout the 1800s, Native Americans were slaughtered, dispelled, coerced, or tricked out of their land, and relocated. Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act in 1830 was one of the first major dominos to fall in a long series of systematic violations. The Act was essentially a landgrab, forcing multiple Native American tribes out of their homelands in the East so that Americans could farm the land. This legislation eventually led to tribes either fighting, and dying, or relocating. The relocation was a long and inhospitable journey, leading to many deaths. This journey is now known as the Trail of Tears. It is important to note that there was opposition to the removal; Davy Crockett was among those who fought against the legislation. Even men who took part in the relocation had reservations. The following quote came from a Georgian soldier who participated in the Civil War, and compared that experience with Native relocation: "I fought through the Civil war and have seen men shot to pieces and slaughtered by thousands, but the Cherokee removal was the cruelest work I ever knew"

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1888 Words | 8 Pages

In the year 1830, Andrew Jackson and congress passed the Indian Removal Act with little opposition within the government. The result was the death of thousands of Native Americans as well as skirmishes between Native Americans and the United States Military. The end result of the Indian Removal Act was the Trail of Tears, which was the path that the Native Americans took to move west. While taking this path, the Native Americans placed a marker for every person that died, because of the lack of food and harsh conditions, creating a trail of markers for the dead, hence the name Trail of Tears. In Document A, the text states,” He imposed a cruel policy of Indian removal, forcing tribes of the Southeast across a brutal march to the Oklahoma territory.”

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684 Words | 3 Pages

Furthermore, Natives occupied only a small portion of the territory as evident by the concentration of migrants in the southern most area (Doc 7). Naturally, this transition wasn’t seamless as some tribes refused to leave their sacred homeland. The Cherokees were a prominent opposer, having been forcibly removed and subjected to the infamous Trail of Tears in 1838. Despite being known as the tribe most assimilated to American society, the Cherokees were still forced to leave their ancestral home. Jackson and other politicians reasoned that the removal was for the Native Americans’ own safety and the preservation of their culture, but the removal only tore tribes away from the origins of their culture and

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539 Words | 3 Pages

Have you ever been forced to do something? If so, you and the Natives have something in common. Manifest Destiny and Westward Expansion was mutually beneficial to the U.S because they gained land from Mexicans which was Texas and then gained land from the French which is also known as the Louisiana purchase but the Natives were heavily impacted by the Westward Expansion and Manifest Disney because the U.S wanted more land and Native lands was in the west but the U.S wanted to expand west so the they could have a bigger population. The Natives also had to fight for their land but not only the Natives had to fight the U.S and Mexicans troops also had to fight each other to maintain their land but a lot of U.S and Mexians died due to the war. Some people think that Manifest Destiny And Westward Expansion was helpful to the Indians also called the Natives because Manifest Destiny was a phase that people believe that god was trying to expanded more land and Westward Expansion was when the U.S expanded west so Natives thought they would have more land

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527 Words | 3 Pages

In 1830, the Indian Removal Act was signed, forcing the Indians to move west of the Mississippi River. 4,000 of the 15,000 Cherokees died along the trail of tears, meaning over 25% of the Cherokees died. Although they did not want to leave their land, they had to because of President Jackson. The Indians should not have been forced off their land. President Jackson did not treat the Indians fairly, the land belonged to the Indians, and the Indians rights were being violated.

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930 Words | 4 Pages

They either moved west to new lands, which were called Indian Territory, where their independence would be respected or they would have to live under Georgia laws, meaning many of their human rights such as voting would be taken away from them. This decision was completely unfair to the tribe since the region was home to them and the new lands were unfamiliar and not at all valuable to them. Jackson soon passed the bill, forcing the Cherokees to march from their homelands all the way west to a portion of the Louisiana Purchase. This march was known as the Trail of Tears where thousands of Cherokees passed away on the journey. This demonstrates how Jackson’s view of the common people was only placed on his white Americans, rather than the natives who were always in the United

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819 Words | 4 Pages

President Jackson instated the Indian Removal Act. removed thousands of Native American families, specifically Cherokees, from their homes in the Carolinas and Georgia so that white families could move into their land because the population was expanding and there was not enough room for everyone. The Native American people were forced to walk from their homes to a new area in present day Oklahoma. The Native Americans made this walk during the fall and winter of 1830 which became known as “the trail of tears”. This was a brutal journey to Oklahoma, which many diseases spread and many people died of illness, exhaustion, starvation, and cold.

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1102 Words | 5 Pages

Indians were being surrounded a whole nation and not willing to give up their life style and costumes, relocation was best option in order to stay alive and take care of their culture. During the late 1820s a number of small “civilized tribes” had become a part of American society; some have moved into cabins, houses, and even mansions. After the Indian Removal Act of 1830, there was great unpleasant experience among the Indians who decided to remain on the natural land and way of life. Some of the Indians rejected the money given by Americans for their land. They stated that too much of their land had been taken already in the past 20 years and would defend and die for the land if it was necessary.

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spread westward, intense conflict with both the Native Americans and Mexico were inevitable. Already heavily depopulated due to the diseases, the Native American peoples were unable to compete against the encroaching settlers and the advanced military that accompanied them; the rapidity and force of disappearance from the West is one of the major blemishes on American history; particularly brutal episodes such as the Trail of Tears are merely examples of the widespread and systematic extermination of these people. Conflict with Mexico was more formal but also resulted in the (perhaps opportunistic) large scale acquisition of land for U.S. settlers. These two effects of Manifest Destiny have strongly colored its representation in historical hindsight; in spite of (or perhaps because of) strong belief in God and democracy, the imposition of majority rule on minorities can be

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360 Words | 2 Pages

Imperialism " is a term that alludes to the financial, military, and social impact of the United States on different nations. To start with advanced amid the administration of James K. Polk, the idea of an "American Empire" was made a reality all through most of the 1800s. Amid this time, industrialization made American businesspeople look for new global markets in which to offer their merchandise. Also, the expanding impact of social Darwinism prompted the conviction that the United States was innately in charge of bringing ideas, for example, industry, vote based system, and Christianity to less created "savage" social orders. The blend of these mentalities and different elements drove the United States toward dominion.

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1031 Words | 5 Pages

This act, as stated before, led directly to the Trail of Tears. Many tribes were relocated and had to walk hundreds of miles, suffering from disease, exhaustion, and

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1036 Words | 5 Pages

Some Indians relocated peacefully, while most resisted. The Cherokee Indians were a particularly difficult tribe to relocate because they demanded to stay in Georgia. Eventually, the Cherokees settled to sell the land to the federal government for $5 million dollars. The relocation of Cherokee Indians became known as the Trail of Tears, where 4,000 Indians died because of the mistreatment of the Indians while relocating. While relocating, the military that was supposed to escort the Cherokees would take their blankets and food to sell for profit (Jones, 290).

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824 Words | 4 Pages

Contrary to the Muslim empire, the United States today is very similar. Since 1990, the United States has had to fight many wars to convince the world that it was the only military and economic force to deal with. A lot of people today are easily intimidated by our domination worldwide with the use of military force and economic sanctions on which we generously rely (Ron Paul 1.) Despite the fact that many may deny the current stance on America today, United States is indeed an empire due to it’s strong military, the spreading of ideas, and economic power.

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744 Words | 3 Pages

Before the 20th century the United States was an isolationist nation but around the late 19th century America decided to convert into an imperialist power. They had numerous reasons to shift into being an imperialist nation. America didn’t want to begin imperializing to settle and live in the nations they were taking over, they already had America for that reason, they wanted to adopt these nations for what they had to offer, which was many things. America saw an opportunity to improving their nation and took it. Even if there were many causes for America to imperialize, three of them stood out the most.

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590 Words | 3 Pages

This was all to compete with other world powers. In the 1800’s-1900’s we weren 't even close to the world power we are today. Through imperialism the united states grew and became one of the strongest nations to this day. The USA prospered because of the amount of success American imperialism brought to the table.

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2016 Words | 9 Pages

If Native Americans were not compliant, Americans would murder them. Although Manifest Destiny was seen as an inevitable movement among Americans and resulted in the formation of the American West in the Nineteenth century, it was truthfully an act of invasion and subjugation against peoples who had settled the land for hundreds of years earlier. Manifest Destiny led to an obvious upsurge in racial

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