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Manifest Destiny Essay

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Manifest Destiny is the idea that the westward expansion of the United States was not only destined but justified by God and the idea that Americans had the divine right to stretch from coast to coast. However, not everyone was granted this define right, it was only the divine right of the white American. Since White Americans first encounters with the “red men” they thought of them as lesser people. They felt that because of their lack of a true government or religion like their own and their underdeveloped education and seemingly uncivilized living conditions that they were savages, untrustworthy and lazy. Before the westward expansion, Native Americans reserved large, uncultivated amounts of land simply to hunt. In the eyes of the white men the Natives “occupied valuable lands they neither appreciated nor developed”. Since the Natives weren’t using the land to farm or live, they assumed that it was being wasted and that they stood in the way of America’s destiny to expand westward. This, in their mind, justified the removal of the Native Americans from their home lands and soon made it their mission to capture the Natives, kill them, or push them onto reservations and settle the land for themselves. The removal of Native Americans was not only driven by race but by economics as well. Natives held a valuable amount of land, the Americans used this land to increase their territory and power, by emigrating and settling americans to grow more crops and create towns. With the

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