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Manifest Destiny Essay

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A great deal of people do not understand what the term manifest destiny really is or what it truly means or can mean to considerable amounts of people. The specific term, manifest destiny, is the idea that it is the White Americans God-given right to move west. This idea was first introduced in a newspaper article written by John O’Sullivan. During the time of manifest destiny, which was about 1810’s to the early 1860’s, there was a great dispute within the United States on whether or not the idea of manifest destiny was moral, if it actually helped the country in any way, or if it was just a ploy to spread slavery. All of these things were hugely contradicted and defended, over a time span of about 50 years. All this time, the president at …show more content…

In the graph titled, “Oregon Populations,” as the amount of non-indian people went up, the amount of the Natives drastically dropped from about 30,000 to a low of about 6,000. (Oregon Populations). This is because the white settlers would come into or pass through native tribal lands and kill for a sport. The people thought of the Native Americans as nothing more than animals to just hunt down and kill. This brutal act of so called “civilization” would cause the Native American population to decrease drastically. However, there were other factors for the Natives to be reduced that much. Another source, which was a picture, showed a killed buffalo lying beneath the shadow of a mound of buffalo hides. Sitting on top of these hides is a white man (The National Archives). Although the picture may seem as if it is just a thriving buffalo business, this “business” was one of the key factors in the mass destruction of the Native population. Since the whites came in and saw hunting buffalo as a sport, just like hunting deer or small game, they killed them by hundreds. However, on the Natives side, the buffalo were the people’s main source of food. By the white settlers coming and killing the buffalo there was a shortage of food, basically starving the Native Americans to death. All of this disaster coming upon the American Indians was a result of

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