Now, on to our business for the week. Only two more weeks and we will be finished with our course.
As the course starts to wind down, America is just winding up! 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. Of course, many Native American cultures and the nation of Mexico had different opinions on this “destiny.”
As America
Most Americans were pleased with the new outlines of their country. Still, not everyone rejoiced in this expansion. Until the Mexican- American War, many people had believed that the United States was too good a nation to bully or invade its weaker neighbors. Now they knew that such behavior was the dark side of manifest
“Manifest Destiny” is a phrase that perfectly sums up the American experience in the early 19th century. During this time, Americans were moving west with the idea that they had the god given right to do so and this idea didn’t stop there. Continuing into the American imperialism ages of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the United States never abandoned the “justification” given to them by God and used this to drive their expansion into foreign nations and beyond, as stated in Document B. It could be argued that the expansion of the late 1800s and early 1900s is a continuation of the previous westward expansion, but many aspects of expansion changed during this time as well. Obviously, the expansion of the early 19th century and
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.
In the 1800’s Manifest Destiny became a widely-held belief among settlers, their mentality was that they were destined to expand across North America pushing the natives out of their land. This attitude among western settlers fueled the removal of Native Americans and war with Mexico. The thinking of some of these settlers was both inevitable and justified by their God to expand and take more land with no limit. Geographically speaking, modern day America is the result of this “Manifest Destiny”. This was also happening around the time the United States experienced its second “Great Awakening”, which was another protestant religious revival movement happening in the early 19th century.
Manifest destiny is when people believe in god’s plan to extend the U.S. The United States was justified in going to war with Mexico because God’s plan was to extend the U.S., Texas had already gotten its independence, and the Mexican army attacked the Americans first. One reason the Mexican War was justified in going to war because it was a god given destiny to extend the United States. “Limiting our greatness and checking the fulfillment of our manifest destiny to overspread continent allotted by providence [God]..,” (O’Sullivan 323) This quote shows the Americans need to fulfill their manifest destiny to overspread the continent. ”
Manifest Destiny was the belief that many Americans held, that the United States was destined to someday hold land “from sea to shining sea”. Emigrants came to the new world seeking their own land and freedom. For some it was freedom for religion, and for others freedom from the feudal system of Europe. With seeming unlimited land for the taking, anyone could be a lord of the new world.
However, it was not Gods mission on wanting to expand the US territory it was the mission of Americans. Not only did whites conquer the lands of the Spanish speaking people but they also had taken the lands of Native Americans. Senator Lewis Cass stated that “We do not want the people of Mexico, either as citizens or as subjects. All we want is their territory” (469). This statements shows how manifest destiny had a strong influence on Americans because all they wanted was Mexico’s land and to remove its people and culture for their own benefit.
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
Whatever its true purpose, Manifest Destiny has indeed stretched the U.S territory and seized half of Mexico’s land. On the contrary, Manifest Destiny resulted in a conflict with
In my opinion, manifest destiny was a positive course for the United States. In despite of the duty given by Providence may not confirm by everyone, the U.S. had the power to take over Texas or California. Or I should change the word “take over” because it was Texas requested to join the union. According to the Reading 2, Texas “was disintegrated from Mexico in the natural course of events, by a process perfectly legitimate on its own part, blameless on ours (Americans’)…”. In this case, California would also be part of the union natural due to the manifest destiny of the U.S.
The Oregon Trail was a huge historic movement in the mid-1800s which stretched over 2000 miles across the American Midwest. In present-day America, the Oregon Trail would go across the states of Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, and finally end in Oregon. The trail was constantly showing the American pioneer's problems because of how hard it was to cross and with hundreds of thousands of them trying to get to their destination there were plenty of casualties and hardships. Determined to spread their religion, gain wealth, or find a place to live, many pioneers took these hardships head-on in hopes of making a better life for themselves or spreading what they believed to new people. The Oregon Trail surely helped boom the United State’s growth
In the later part of the 1800’s, the United States had started to become increasingly roaming. The creation of a new mode of transportation dubbed the Transcontinental Railroad shortened a 6 month wagon journey to just a 7 day train ride. This allowed settlers to move west and fulfill the assumed manifest destiny. This combined with the Homestead Act gave settlers the freedom and prosperity they had always dreamed of. The settlers could claim as much as 160 acres of free land.
Manifest Destiny was the European’s belief that God had sent them to North America to conquer and spread their ideas across the entirety of the continent. They had seen themselves as a vessel for God to use to spread his message and the democracy that came with them. When the Europeans first landed on North American soil, they immediately announced themselves as the rulers of the land and began to occupy the land. When the white settlers arrived on North American grounds, they immediately disregarded the existence of the first nation people. The first nation people were unfamiliar with the European lifestyle and their way of governing the land.
“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.
“it was God’s plan that America extend its territory.” (Roden 317) God wants America to take Texas. The Mexicans are “limiting our greatness checking the fulfillment of our Manifest Destiny” (O’Sullivan 323) People are wrongly stopping God’s plan. Later America got Texas, California, and Oregon Territory.(Roden 317)