What Were The Consequences Of The Westward Expansion

The Westward expansion began for the United States with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. For $15 million dollars, President Thomas Jefferson purchased from France 828,000 square miles, including most of 14 current states, thus doubling the size of America. Jefferson now had the land, but how to populate it was another story. On a three year expedition, Lewis and Clark were sent by Jefferson to explore the lands to get a better understanding of the geography and resources of the West. During the 1830s to 1840s, to promote further territory expansion, the “manifest destiny” came into play – which was the idea that America was destined to expand across the entire country westward. Quickly, the nation expanded.

Throughout history, Native Americans were always treated with disrespect and in this region “More and more, government officials saw Indians as standing in the way of the agricultural and industrial development of the west ” (349). No matter how considerate and negotiable the Natives had been to the whites, the homesteaders greed took over causing them to think it was okay to treat them like they were a lower class. Many wars broke out but the whites were determined to steal their land and put them on reservations so no one could stand in the way of expanding causing them to succeed. During this time, the west was in fact affected since “These instant towns had no government, no law, and little order” (344). Without any book or rules to go off of the towns were high in robbery and other crimes because the system never changed to adjust for the greater population. Everyone did what they wanted without any concerns because it was accepted. An abundance of beliefs and situations remained the same during the great expansion of the west although many things did

government has unspecified and unorganized policies, which were unprotected for Native Americans who lived in the west because of all the new coming Americans. During westward expansion, a majority of who moved were whites, who didn’t know the Native Americans who already lived in the west. The Natives felt their land was being conquered, because of the U.S government policies(Louisana Purchase & Homestead Act) and the whites not wanting them to be there, which lead to fighting between the Natives and the whites. These acts and policies such as the Indian Removal Act often resulted in violated treaties and violence. The Indian Removal Act was the removal of Native American homes and tribes. “This also confines the Indians to still narrower limits, destroys that game which in their normal state, and constitutes their principal means of subsistence.” Resulting in westward expansion, Native Americans began rapidly decreasing in the area by wars and new diseases caught by new coming

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

A positive humanitarian effect of westward expansion is that it increased a sense of patriotism. Although the treatment of the Native Americans was indeed in humane but during the times, the thought process was different. Many people agreed that Manifest destiny was justified because of the growing population and also it was a god given right. In addition, the white settler believed that it was their duty to help the Native Americans. This brought people together to set out on missions to do what they believe what they think is right. On the contrary, seeing the inhumane treatment of the Native Americans allowed more people to speak up and take a stand.The wars between the Native Americans and settlers could have potentially showed the any side the repercussions of violence bringing people together to find more convenient solutions. The idea of Manifest Destiny and movement of Westward expansion hit the Native American hard. As the movement westward increased, the discovery of gold on native American lands resulted in the

Native Americans were affected negatively in the United States Western Expansion. The Americans stripped the Natives from their culture, land, and the buffalo. From all that Native Americans onced lived all over the West were now living on reservations. The Natives suffered at the Sand Creek massacre, which killed over 200 Native Americans. Also another battle that affected the Native Americans negatively was the Battle of Little Bighorn. The battle was over the Sioux’s right to Sioux land with Sitting Bull as the Sioux war chief and spiritual leader and George A. Cluster as the commander of U.S troops. It wasn’t just land that affected the Natives it was also their culture. Natives boys had their culture stripped away. There clothes,

Westward Expansion started with President Thomas Jefferson made the Louisiana Purchase from the French for only fifteen million dollars. This allowed landless families to migrate from where they currently were to a new place with fresh lands to claim. This had a few effects such as increasing the size of the country, while providing land and means for income to families. During the course of westward expansion the size of the United States took a drastic population increase, with the overall population going from five million to seventy-six million. This set the U.S. on the fast track to expand out to the west coast. Abraham Lincoln signed in to law the Homestead Act, which gave people willing to

During the American Revolution, the colonists revolted against the British and eventually gained independence. The American Revolution instigated the change of American policies and expanded the entire nation. Westward expansion of the American colonies was a developmental time period for the United States. From the American Revolution, Americans established their own laws instead of following British rule, and the women’s movement arose due to the expansion of slavery. Many of these new policies were purely made to expand westward and take over Indian land, which was necessary for the expansion of the growing colonial and slave populations. The era of westward expansion finally came to an end with the United States overcoming Mexico and justifying their actions by claiming they were superior to the Mexicans in every way.

The westward expansion saw the emergence of major cities, railway networks, more interactions and improved agriculture which kept on improving in the 1800s. In the interactive map helped me realized a few important things. For instance. there are several ways through which the United States experienced a huge growth during the 1860–1890 westward expansion. Increased population, development of railroads, as well as large-scale agriculture are amongst the decades' major achievements as indicated on the decade base maps. Furthermore, the map showed as some of the natural barriers that prevented growth as well as the indigenous populations which existed prior the expansion (Billington, Allen, and Martin 2001, 201).

Prior to the 1800s, US expansion had been accepted by the government in the thirteen colonies. Despite the government's favor for territorial expansion, the controversy was spread throughout the 13 colonies on the idea of expansion. An American who influenced expansion in America, John O’ Sullivan, conjectured that territorial expansion was destined and it was god’s given right to expand America coast to coast, or in this case into westward territories. This thought was defined as Manifest Destiny and aided the fuel of western settlement, Native American Removal and war with Mexico. Many Americans did, however, oppose expansion and war causing, but their inputs didn’t change the idea of expansion. During the period of 1800-1855, America’s idea to expand territory succeeded in events such as the Louisiana Purchase (1803) and the Indian Removal Act. These events certainly satisfied proponents of expansion and influenced America's westward expansion. Despite these achievements, opponents of expansions opposed because of events like the War of 1812 and the Mexican-American war. America’s shape today is indeed based on these beliefs of expanding America.

The instances of social, political, and economic antagonism between cultural and ethnic groups that arose from Westward Expansion were racism and the assimilation forced against marginalized groups of people. According to the Document B, “...China—the greatest and oldest despotism in the world—for a cheap working slave...the meanest slave on earth—the Chinese coolie—and imports him here to degrade white Labor.” One can infer that many were not happy with the fact that Chinese immigrants were doing jobs that white settlers did for cheaper and thought of them as stealing their jobs which added to the conflicts between the two groups, Whites and Chinese. According to Document D, “Many of the Indian dogs were still found in the vicinity lately occupied by the lodges of their owners; they probably subsisting on the bodies of the ponies that had been killed and then covered several acres of ground nearby.” One can assume that Custer was very biased against the Native Americans and reported them as dogs and savages that would leave their kind behind, which further adds to the antagonism between Native Americans and White Settlers.

The result of Western settlement was devastating. The outcome of the war strongly impacted and profoundly conformed Western Expansion to a new war filled with greed and frantic need for better transportation. Gold rush, the whites antagonized a war on the Indians, knowing their chances of defeat were strong, not because they were incapable, but because they were willing to believe the false promises and would’ve rather sacrificed their land instead of causing bloodshed. Native Americans were held accountable by the law, yet they were left unprotected from the law with no legal rights. The native Americans were considered peaceful and useful towards the American White Settlers and U.S. Army until they got in the way of expansion of the Railroad system during the Homestead act, giving away land that did not belong to them in the first

Before becoming the Unite States of America, one of a massive country in the world. There were many stories behind its successful. Controversies, violences, tragedies, rebellions, and wars were the combination of expansion of the United States. In U.S. history, a story began from the east coast where the game players from. The competition between the north and the south was intense, and to occupy a piece of land was a prize that worth to fight for.

Westward expansion begun when Americans began to make purchases of territories in the west. The expansion included Manifest Destiny which was the idea of bringing liberty to the lands. Before the Louisiana Purchase, Native Americans occupied all of the land to the west of the Mississippi River. Native Americans abided by tribal law, traded, produced crafts, tools, and clothing. Their appearance typically obtained long hair for both men and women, head dresses, skirts, and or dresses, before the white men interfered. They lived in extended family groups with ties to other tribes that spoke the same language. While expanding, farmers found fertile lands, developments of railroads increased, trade increased, and due to the Gold Rush in California, the discovery of gold influenced the expansion. Settlers would be in hopes to discover treasurous gold, therefore they would expand. Often conflicts and clashes would occur due to many Native Americans disliking living on reservations often poor and starving. The settlers often brought diseases, and killed off thousands of buffalo.Western expansion and the federal government affected the Native Americans by assimilation, conflicts and clashes finally, treaties and acts.

Between the years of 1820 and 1861 an increase in population led to a demand for more land in the west. This expansion caused growing territories to begin to enter as state's according to the Land Ordinances. Westward expansion directly caused sectionalism in the country in attempt to retain balance in congress. The north and south economies were very different which gave them each different priorities, contributing to the oppositions. In an attempt to satisfy both the north and south, congress passed many compromises and laws to try and satisfy the pair. The earlier compromises had positive aspects, however, the benefits including keeping peace for some time were far outweighed by the costs of the later compromises not being able to please both sides ultimately resulting in the civil war making compromise exponentially more unsuccessful as the years went on.