Manifest Destiny And Westward Expansion In The Late 19th Century

The United States was not interested in having people with different cultures, languages, and religions where an older generation of moralists thought it violate a core principle of republicanism, while a younger generation believed that the United States had a role to uplift backward societies. When the foreign policy changed after 1890, the US became an imperialist nation. After the United States bought Alaska from Russia the US quickly decided to look into overseas. Their plan was to take over other foreign lands and slowly gain an empire, and soon become a world power. The two major causes for US expansion after 1890 were for economic benefits and military control overseas.

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.

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

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.

America started to imperialize Latin America and small islands surrounding or near the US. American expansionism, imperialism, was not justified.

Later in history, during the Manifest Destiny Era, a reason for expansion was better agricultural resources because having an ample amount of land would benefit the U.S. in many ways from the new nutrient rich soil. This new soil and land would also stimulate slavery because of the new natural resources this would create would also improve the economy and the half of the economy based on industry. This caused new products to be created and produced, from the new natural resources grown and taken from surrounding land. This is similar to the expansion past the Appalachian mountains, into the south. The prices of tobacco were dropping and slavery was starting to slowly die out because of the low prices.

America now longed to be known as a world power, which included the competition for foreign territory Alfred T. Mahan explained through his 1899 book The Interest of America in Sea Power, that America needed to acquire more land that would help our economy and keep the other world powers away from these lands. Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge responded by the Spanish-American war to gain new lands. Roosevelt demanded that they take Manila Bay from the Philippine territory. As president, in 1904 Roosevelt stated in his Annual Message to Congress that the duty of the U.S. was to protect the lesser countries’ stability and peace. America was to be known as the “police” of the world that would also control Latin America as well.

During the late 19th and early 20th century the United States began to expand internationally, adopting a new imperialistic foreign policy. While the transition from westward expansion to imperialism was a change geographically, the new imperialistic direction the United States, was taking was a continuation of the old ideas of expanding west. Motives for expansionism remain the same the ideals of westward expansion continuing into a new era of American foreign policy. Much of America’s motive for an aggressive imperialist policy is the desire for land and wealth.

Robert Morgan was saying that, “...westward expansion or Manifest Destiny, [is] ‘the greatest folk movement of modern times…”(2). For an example in The Way to Rainy Mountain Momaday stated that “There came a day like destiny: in every direction, as far as the eye could see…” For this reason, westward expansion greatly influenced the citizens because of exploring with it will open a person’s mind to new things. Morgan

Ever since the Pilgrims and Europeans first landed in America, westward expansion has been a goal of the common people. All groups of people have wanted to move westward to spread religions, establish new colonies, and claim better and more valuable resources. This began primarily in 1845 when president James K. Polk proposed to Congress that we begin expanding westward and coined the term “Manifest Destiny.” After Polk’s proposal, people began to feel the urge to move westward and settle the land for the betterment of the United States. However, it was the actions of the U.S. military against the Native Americans in their western homelands and the establishment of the Homestead Act in 1862 that sparked the massive internal migration movements in the United States.

also increased in size. By 1820, America had stretched all the way to the west coast. This increase in size was a result of the growing population, and a need to branch out in order to obtain more resources. Many of the people migrating west also believed in manifest destiny. The god given right for america to populate the U.S. from coast to coast.

The will to put yourself outside your boundaries and deal with success was powerful in the U.S. They had put their naval ships outside their realms and had their foot on other multiple countries at once, like the Philippines, Hawaii, and Spain. Force was the U.S. innate nature to success, and if forced, more pressure would be applied. All this force for trade goods, location of fuel and the ability to plot bases wherever

American identity was made of frontier spirit, yet when frontier lines no longer existed, America had to find other way to express its spirit. In addition, overproduction and under-consumption brought by industrialization aggregated the need to expand to new markets. Thus, imperialism in which a stronger nation takes over an area’s economics, politics or military control, was considered a solution. American imperialism became popular after the Spanish American War of 1898. Upon the defeat of Spain, America gained possession of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Philippine.

“Manifest Destiny,” written by John L. O’Sullivan, explains how expansion is needed for america and how it could better our nation. The painting “American Progress,”supports expansion by displaying what it looked like when the settlers moved in. The text, “Reporting to the President, September 23-December 31,1806,” by Stephen Ambrose, supports westward expansion by talking about how lewis and Clarke did good things to help westward expansion. What do you think about westward expansion?

He mentioned the need for the United States to advance their global role due to its growing economic and military interests outside the Americas. Similarly, Roosevelt was known for his big stick diplomacy which symbolized the aggressive actions taken in the Caribbean and in other colonies. Overall, the white superiority combined with military and political progress characterized and influenced oppressive relations with foreign