The United States became a continental nation with the purchase of Louisiana from France in 1803 and the settlement of the lands beyond the Appalachian Mountains. Westward expansion fueled conflict with Native populations and led to their forced removal. By 1820, 2 million Americans lived west of the Appalachians, out of a total national population of 10 million. The regional cultures that had developed along the Atlantic Coast New England, Middle Atlantic, Chesapeake, and Carolinas were transplanted into the Old Northwest, which included; Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin and the Old Southwest which included; Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas. But although Americans had begun to identify themselves as a nation, they were divided by sectional interests that deepened with rapid industrialization and the question of slavery. Americans steadily achieved economic independence from Europe. Rural Americans, once exclusively farmers, began manufacturing, merchants constructed regional market economies, and state governments promoted economic development. Industrialists remade rural villages into burgeoning factory towns such as Lowell, Massachusetts, the center of cotton textile manufacture. However, many textiles continued to be made in individual households and small weaving workshops. Mill owners called upon machines and factory operatives to boost production. Government leaders and entrepreneurs campaigned for the construction of
America into an "empire for liberty". He made that happen by expanding westward, to create "room enough for our descendants to the thousandth and thousandth generation”. This westward expansion is also known as the "manifests destiny", where many Americans was our God-given right to expand to the Pacific Ocean and into Mexican Territory.
Westward expansion played a huge part in history and helped the United States become what it is today. In 1803, the United States started expanding westward by obtaining more land. The United States got land through purchasing, negotiation, war, and annexation. Such a great expansion would surely have an impact on the country. Westward expansion impacted both positively and negatively the people living in America, the environment, and the growth of the United States.
From the years 1800-1850 the nation was filled with battles and affluence. Westward Expansion was America's inclination to possess western territories that have yet to be claimed or negotiate claims with other countries. Expansion of the U.S. was a cause for most battles fought during this time; however, our nation was continuing to prosper. Under, the idea of Manifest Destiny which was the belief that the United States was divinely made to expand from coast to coast, the country began to use any means necessary to expand. Among these were battles, purchases from other countries, and treaties. Conflicts during this period included, but not limited to, The Oregon Territory, Louisiana Purchase, and the Mexican-American war. I believe Westward expansion was an
During the Westward expansion it impacted many people's lives. Americans were proud of what they did and accomplished, but didn't realize what truly was happening in other people’s lives. In 1803, Thomas Jefferson purchased the territory of Louisiana from the French government for $15 million. The Louisiana Purchase stretched from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and it doubled the size of the United States. Progress can be both positive and negative because of the westward expansion, the gold rush, manifest destiny.
America’s westward expansion really affected the lives of the Native Americans in several ways. Since Americans were wanting land for farming, ranching, and mining, it took away the Native Americans land for hunting and gathering. In general, this dramatically changed the face of American history.
The story of the United States has always been one of westward expansion, beginning along the East Coast and continuing, often by leaps and bounds, until it reached the Pacific, what Theodore Roosevelt described as "the great leap westward." The acquisition of Hawaii and Alaska, though not usually included in discussions of Americans expanding their nation westward, continued the practices established under the principle of Manifest Destiny. Even before the American colonies won their independence from Britain in the Revolutionary War, settlers were migrating westward into what are now the states of Kentucky and Tennessee, as well as parts of the Ohio Valley and the Deep South. Westward expansion was greatly aided in the early 19th century in the year of 1803 by the Louisiana Purchase , which was followed by the Corps of Discovery Expedition that is generally called the Lewis and Clark Expedition; the War of 1812, which secured existing U.S. boundaries and defeated native tribes of the Old Northwest, the region of the Ohio and Upper Mississippi valleys, and the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which forcibly moved virtually all Indians from the Southeast to the present states of Arkansas and Oklahoma, a journey known as the Trail of Tears. In 1845, a journalist by the name of John O’Sullivan created the term "Manifest Destiny," a belief that Americans and American institutions are morally superior and therefore Americans are morally obligated to spread those institutions in order to free people in the Western Hemisphere from European monarchies and to uplift "less civilized" societies, such as the Native American tribes and the people of Mexico. The Monroe Doctrine, adopted in 1823, was the closest America ever came to making Manifest Destiny official policy; it put European nations on notice that the U.S. would defend other nations of the Western Hemisphere from further colonization. The debate over whether the U.S. would continue slavery and expand the area in which it existed or abolish it altogether became increasingly contentious throughout the first half of the 19th century. When the Dred Scott case prevented Congress from passing laws prohibiting slavery and the Kansas-Nebraska act gave citizens of new
The Westward Expansion had a really big impact and very much antagonized the relationship between the Northern and the Southern states. Both states had very different lifestyles. The North was very industrial based while the South was very agricultural based and farmed a lot. Over time they each side developed their own identity and felt that their life was way better than the others. The Southern states were a very big fan of slavery while the Northern states were not. As the expansion were to happen, this would result in the stopping of expansion of slavery as well. This is why the southern states peeved about westward expansion because the knew that the balance of slave to non slave states was at risk. With their lifestyles
This text is a sampling of times, places, and people of the Westward Expansion. A teacher teaching the Westward Expansion will find historical images and stories behind the historical times and the sheet music that correlates to the topics. This cross-curricular resource allows for the stories to be read and the pictures to study, and ultimately the music to be incorporated into the classroom learning. Ultimately this book can be utilized to bring adventure, danger, dreams, and the realities of American life during the Westward Expansion to come alive for students. This will make history fun for all students, allowing students to build more of a connection to the past. This is another great resource but because I don’t teach Western Expansion
How do you see progress, as a process that is beneficial or in contrast, that it´s a hurtful process that everyone at one point of their lives has to pass through it? At the time, progress was beneficial for the United States, but those benefits came with a cost, such cost that instead of advancements and developments being advantageous factors for humanity, it also became a harmful process in which numerous people were affected in many facets of life. This all means that progress is awsome to achieve, but when achieved, people have to realize the process they had to do to achieve it, which was stepping on other people to get there.
In 1800 brave pioneers moved worst ward. people moved to the was the number of reason. One of that reasons was wanted the family works in a land for five years then they can have the pice of land That is one of the biggest reason that people wanted to move to the west. They had to work hard too so that they can have the land all to themselves.
Ever since Jamestown, America has come a long way. In the middle of the nineteenth century American’s were eager to move west. They wanted to see the span of the United States from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. Jefferson was able to double the size of the United States by negotiating with France, which ended up being known as the Louisiana Purchase. Americans saw empty land waiting to be filled. They thought the open land meant opportunity and potential wealth. By moving west, they could share their unique way of government and the freedom it represented. They believed that America would be a great nation.
I argue that the factors most responsible for the U.S.’s westward expansion until 1885 are the push to find greater sources of wealth along with simultaneous technological advances. Since the founding of the U.S., the central theme of foreign relations was to expand in order to gain access to economic resources. The primary driver of the early U.S. economy was commerce, which led to expansion across the North American continent in search for more land to produce agricultural exports. In the early 19th century, cotton became the paramount export of the U.S. economy, further accelerating territorial acquisition across North America. The importance of the cotton industry was bolstered by the technological developments of the railroad, steamship, and telegraph, which served to closely integrate the nation’s economy. Thus U.S. policy makers engaged in continental expansion primarily in order to foster American commerce at home and abroad.
Didn't the traveling time from coast to coast use to take months? Aren't you glad you don't have to take hazardous and slow wagons currently? During the Industrial Revolution, many factors contributed to the rapid expansion of the West. Before the transcontinental railroad was fully completed, the travel time from coast to coast was costly and took months through very troublesome terrain. Even though there were several constructive results from inventions, there were also dire consequences. The improvements made were great but, they came with substantial economic and political costs. One of these great improvements was the construction of the railroad. This helped many Americans to travel west in a week instead months. Towns sprung up all along the railways, increasing the population of the west dramatically.
In the mid-1800s, many Americans began to move westward, with a variety of motivations. Farmers were drawn west by all of the fertile, open land in the west, offered to them cheap by the Homestead Act. The California Gold Rush was another reason many moved west. Gold was discovered in California, and miners flocked there, hoping to strike it rich. Additionally, cattle ranchers were attracted to the west because their beef cattle thrived on the abundant grasses and open range of the Great Plains. Later on, newly built railroads, including the first transcontinental railroad, made transportation of people and goods west much more feasible, and opened the West to rapid settlement (History Alive). Although Westward Expansion was a time of full
Westward expansion was a time of successes and failures, a time celebrations and grief, a time full of life and death but in the end it shaped how America is the way is today. Westward expansion was put in action because of the belief of Manifest Destiny, the belief that it is America fate to expand from the Atlantic to Pacific ocean. The economical, political and humanitarians impacts were necessary to achieve the goal of manifest Destiny and Westward Expansion.