Essay Sample on Manifest Destiny

📌Category: History, History of the United States
📌Words: 668
📌Pages: 3
📌Published: 18 June 2022

Manifest Destiny, in simpler terms, was a necessary policy of imperialistic expansion and a belief that the destiny of the United States was to expand its territory across the entirety of North America, in order to enhance the political, economic, and social influences. It was thought of as sea to shining sea, the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean, in the middle to latter part of the nineteenth century, historically establishing territorial boundaries, significantly expanding our land. The belief was inherited into a majority of the white Americans, standing behind the then president James K. Polk, becoming increasingly popular as the newspaper editor, John O’Sullivan, coined the term as “manifest destiny” in 1845. However, this idea was seen as bad for the Native Americans, as well as the black Americans. The Whig Party, a major political party who supported the supremacy of Congress over the presidency, greatly rivaled this idea as they worried expansion would increase slavery nationwide. Others believed that it would create too much land to govern, efficiently. 

The timeline of manifest destiny is as follows; in 1803, President Thomas Jefferson confirmed the Louisiana Purchase, the western half of the Mississippi basin bought from France, doubling the size of the United States. The Transcontinental Treaty of 1819, gaining Florida and the Oregon Country from Spain. The Indian Removal Act, signed in 1830 by President Andrew Jackson, forced the relocation of Indian Tribes into the western region through the Trail of Tears, in the 1840s traveling along the Oregon Trail. The term “manifest destiny” first appeared in an essay, in 1845, arguing for the annexation of Texas from Spain. The beginning of the Mexican-American War, in 1846, arising from a border dispute, Mexico claimed the Southern border of Texas to be the Nueces River, while the United States declared it to be Rio Grande. The United States declared war in May, lasting roughly two years, yet in June Polk signed the Oregon Treaty with Great Britain, establishing the northern boundary. At the close of the Mexican-American War, with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexico cedes all of present New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, California, Texas, and western Colorado. In 1867, Secretary of State William Seward negotiated an Alaska sale from Russia and with a major discovery of gold, American settlement began. Finally on the timeline in 1898 is the Spanish-American War. At the end of this war, under defeat Spain removes all of their claims to Cuba and cedes Puerto Rico, Philippines, and Guam to the United States, creating a major world power. That year, the United States as well annexes Hawaii. 

Many effects came from the manifest destiny, ranging from economics to the negative impact upon the Native American population. Economically, the new territories gave the country greater access to better natural resources, as well as the Pacific trade. A major group, the lower to middle class white American farmers, adventurers, and tradesmen were greatly affected as they recognized the opportunity for acquiring a better life, with their new ability to settle in cheap lands within the west. This doctrine increased the goods, doubling the land area and services, as well as wealth. As we expanded, continents like Europe and Asia opened more ports, bringing in a lot of wealth to the United States economy. With the introduction of California, came the discovery of gold, attracting 80,000 new people in 1849. This said, the gold rush largely reinforced the idea of manifest destiny, with almost 300,000 new arrivals by the mid 1850s.

Yet, the indigenous Native American populations suffered heavily, especially concerning the armed conflict and forced relocation they underwent. Through the continental expansion, it was meant for there to be an occupation and annexation of Native American land, a majority of the time expanding slavery into these sacred areas. But, the Natives were not going down without a fight, leading to many confrontations and wars with several groups, hence the addition of the Indian Removal Act. This law, signed by Andrew Jackson, authorized the president to “negotiate” with the Southern Native American tribes for their removal off of federal territory found west of the Mississippi River, for white settlement upon their ancestral lands. Many battles were fought, the Native Americans consistently losing, their way of life being completely destroyed, suffering heavily from diseases spread as the American people moved onto the lands of the Natives.

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