Essay about United States Expansionism: 1790s- 1860s

Despite that, the United States government told the Indians that they would not invade their lands. They soon heard that the Indians had fertile land and decided to allow settlers to move west. “After hearing tales of fertile land and a great mineral wealth in the West, the government soon broke their promises established in the Treaty of Fort Laramie by allowing thousands of non-Indians to flood into the area.”. (Victoriana) To make more land available to the settlers the government had to make reservations that would separate the Indians from the whites. In exchange for the Indians moving to

settled property. This property included many different types of land. Farmers were able to buy

Another cause for poor relations between Native Americans and European Settlers was the constant push for acquiring new land by the Colonists. The Native Americans did not just want to give up their land and this resulted in war between the Indians and the Colonists. During this time Native Americans were sold into slavery belittled and removed from their land, due to the fact that the Colonists had more advanced technology and weapons. One of the major wars was the French and Indian War which resulted in the removal of Native Americans from their land and many casualties on both sides. Over time many battles were fought over land, even after America was an established country with presidents, laws, and court systems. Native Americans were continually pushed out of their land for hundreds of years while they were forced to move west. The constant push of Native Americans out of their land would cause an event known as the Trail of Tears where thousands of Indians were removed from their land by the Indian Removal Act. “In 1830 the Congress of the United States passed the "Indian Removal Act." Although many Americans were against the act, most notably Tennessee Congressman Davy Crockett, it passed anyway. President Jackson quickly signed the bill into law. The Cherokees attempted to fight removal legally by challenging the removal laws in the Supreme Court and by establishing an

The making of the treaty was a problem and a conflict for several reasons. One is that the Indians didn’t like it. They were very afraid of being moved onto a reservation. They hated being on reservations because they knew that the Americans were going to put them on the same reservation as 40 other tribes. Plus they didn’t want to move onto the same place with an enemy tribe!(Schuster 65) Neither would I. They would probably get into a fight or an all out war actually! Furthermore there were hardly any resources for one tribe, so how were they going to feed several? Especially when there were hundreds in each tribe! (Lambert, 150) Another reason the Indians didn’t like the treaty was because they couldn’t tell if the Americans were telling the truth, America had broken promises and ripped up treaties with other nations and tribes before, why not this one? Then there was the reason about not wanting to cede their land. It was theirs to keep. They had rightfully claimed that land and who were the settlers to take it? They had made that land livable and they were not about to give it up to a nation that was greedy and selfish in their eyes. Another reason why they didn’t like the treaty was that they didn’t want to give up their land. They wanted to be able to hunt and grow plants and fish, use their own herbs, use their own spices without having to beg, buy, and starve.

The European settlers thirsted for more land and aggressively took over the land Native Americans had been cultivating for years; therefore, causing the Indians to feel betrayed. “The United States took a more realistic approach when it passed the Northwest Ordinance in 1787, recognizing that tribes did have rights to their lands, and that U.S. purchase of tribal lands must be done through formal treaties. Ratification of the federal constitution in 1789 further streamlined Indian affairs by investing the new central government--rather than the states--with all treaty-making powers” (Relations Between Indians and U.S. Citizens). The colonists created the Northwest Ordinance in 1787 in order to seem proper in regards to stealing Ohio from

The large debates over whose land it was and how to settle it delayed the official adoption of the articles of confederation. There were some people that benefitted from the mass confusion and debate and these people were called squatters. They illegally settled on the western land without and claim or right to it and lived out their lives until the United States got their stuff together. Throughout all of the debate over land and such indians were being pushed out of the only homes they or their ancestors had known so that we could settle

During the early years of the new nation, there were a multitude of social problems the United States had to struggle with. The founding fathers and many early settlers felt that if this young new nation was indeed to reach its full potential as a strong world power, the Western lands needed to be established. President Thomas Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase of 1803 was an enormous step forward in achieving this vision for the United States, as it gained a massive amount of territories West of the original thirteen colonies (Schlesinger, 1993, p. 148). The issue was, Indians already occupied these lands and had for many generations. The major social policy of the 19th century, known as the manifest destiny, explains that it is “our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions” (Schlesinger, 1993, p. 249). This ultimately led white European settlers on an

The Cherokees used that land as the main focal point. For instance, "The land on which we stand we have received as an inheritance from our fathers, who possessed it from time immemorial, as a gift from our common Father in Heaven. We have already said, that, when the white man came to the shores of America, our ancestors were found in peaceable possession of this very land. They bequeathed it to us as their children, and we have sacredly kept it, as containing the remains of our beloved men. This right of inheritance we have never ceded, nor ever forfeited." The Cherokee insisted that they inherited this land from their ancestors; therefore, the Cherokee argued for the right to sustain their inherited lands without any conflict The Americans were so overwhelmed with the lust for gold that they ignored the most basic right of the

America needed the Indians land, so instead of just of killing them they thought it was a good idea to move them, that way every one could be happy. Unfortunately, it wasn't just land

Later on “there was intense pressure to acquire Indian land, by debt-ridden states and a federal government anxious to use public land to pay off war debts, and from speculators who saw fortunes to be made from the sale of thousands of square miles of virgin timber and agricultural acreage, of waterways, mill sites, harbors, and so forth” (Wallace 30). Profits and paying off others were more important than the Indians and their rights. Due to these pressures and greed, “the U.S. commissioners at the Treaties of Fort Stanwix, Fort McIntosh, and Fort Finney in 1784, 1785, and 1786 “gave” peace to the Iroquois and the Indians of Ohio. In return, the Indians present at these meetings promised that their tribes would vacate much of their land north

Manifest Destiny was a widely held belief in the United States that its settlers were destined to expand across North America. It opened up opportunities for wealth, strengthened our position as a powerful nation in the world and begins to further define the “American Dream”. As a result, Manifest Destiny had a positive impact on U.S history. The United States benefited economically from adding territory. The Louisiana Purchase, made by Thomas Jefferson, doubled the size of the U.S.

As the 19th century started people were filling up the United States heading to what is now Alabama and Mississippi. Indians living here became an obstacle to the expansion. White settlers were upset and petitioned to remove the Natives. Although Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe argued that the Indian tribes in the Southeast should exchange their land for lands west of the Mississippi River, they did not take steps to make this happen. Indeed, the first major transfer of land occurred only as the result of war.

The “Indian Problem” was really the Indians themselves, because of the newly purchased western land Americans wanted expansion but Indians occupied a large mass of the area where expansion would take place. Jefferson was not going to let that go to waste, so he gave Indians an ultimatum, either become part of the white man’s society; converting their religion and becoming farmers, or they could migrate to the west of the Mississippi and that would become their new home. Most tribes didn’t want to relocate but because the Indian tribes are scattered and aren’t as powerful as the Americans they either were threatened, bribed, or tricked into giving up their land and signing it away to the Americans. The Indians have always thought of the British

Some of the reasons why this occurred were because the whites wanted the land. This new plan promised the Indians to become

The removal of the Indians from their own land went on for years and years. Although we see it as unjust now, back then it was justified by the Manifest Destiny. This was the belief that the United States had the “God-given” right to aggressively spread the values of white civilization and expand the nation from ocean to ocean. Basically people believed that it was right to take land from the Indians if it was for exploration and the expansion of their settlements, while it was completely wrong.