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Essay #2 In Frederick Jackson Turner’s essay, he talked about how he thought the West was where true American character was formed and that the West was the birthplace of democracy. However, in my perspective I don’t only feel that Turner was inaccurate in his analysis, but also very racist and selfish. I believe that Turner wanted to justify why taking over the West would be so necessary and beneficial to Americans. He stated several things in his essay that were obviously undermined by many primary sources in Hollitz’s book. At the time Americans took on the ideology of Manifest Destiny, which basically was the belief that Americans were destined to expand from coast to coast in North America despite the fact that there was people already occupying land on …show more content…
Essentially what he is referring to when he says savagery are the Mexican and Native American people on West. By civilization he obviously is referring to himself and the Americans. From there you can see the judgment Turner has about other people who are not white. He also takes a moment to refer to the market revolution and how it drastically differs from how civilization is on the West. Turner states, “The wilderness masters the colonist. It finds him a European in dress, industries, tools, modes of travel, and thought… It strips off the garments of civilization and arrays him in the hunting shirt and the moccasin” (Hollitz,166). As you can see here Turner is again trying to make it seem people on the West are uncivilized by to trying to differentiate how the West is compared to the American East. However, the market revolution astoundingly put the Americans ahead of anyone else near them in terms of evolution with the creation of railroads, canals, steam engines, boats, etc. Foner also talks about this and says “Improvements in
Reginald Horsman’s Race and Manifest Destiny: The Orgins of American Racial Anglo-Saxonism explores the evidence and reasons of racial prejudices in America and discusses one of the most controversial topics in American history. The book also navigates the subjects of white superiority, and the creation of Anglo-Saxonism.
Turner’s thesis was to a wide extent based on this belief. Turners tried to convince people that American uniqueness is as a result of the constant contact with an open frontier for about 300 years. Turner’s conclusion significantly builds up on the American exceptionalism or uniqueness. He summarized his thesis by saying the most relevant aspect of the frontier was promotion of individualistic democracy. The ubiquity of opportunity and significance of individual labor restrained monopoly of political power from developing and led to American Democratic
Americans throughout history have always felt that they were superior. The concept of “Manifest Destiny” has been the fuel to the fire of superiority. Manifest Destiny is the belief that it is American’s are the chosen ones and have the obvious right to conquer and own land between the eastern and western seaboards and that such expansion was inevitable. Manifest Destiny along with Christianity were two reasons that drove and encouraged both expansion within North Amer...
The Manifest Destiny was a progressive movement starting in the 1840's. John O'Sullivan, a democratic leader, named the movement in 1845. Manifest Destiny meant that westward expansion was America's destiny. The land that was added to the U.S. after 1840 (the start of Manifest Destiny) includes The Texas Annexation (1845), The Oregon Country (1846), The Mexican Cession (1848), The Gadsden Purchase (1853), Alaska (1867), and Hawaii (1898). Although this movement would take several years to accomplish fully, things started changing before we knew it. New technology took off right away!
While the US may have prided themselves in the fact that we didn’t practice imperialism or colonialism, and we weren’t an Empire country, the actions conquering land in our own country may seem to rebuff that claim. In the 19th century, the West was a synonym for the frontier, or edge of current settlement. Early on this was anything west of just about Mississippi, but beyond that is where the Indian tribes had been pushed to live, and promised land in Oklahoma after policies like Indian removal, and events like the Trail of Tears. Indian’s brief feeling of security and this promise were shattered when American’s believed it was their god given right, their Manifest Destiny, to conquer the West; they began to settle the land, and relatively quickly. And with this move, cam...
After reading The Book of the Unknown Americans, I realized how difficult immigrating to the United States can be. I am an immigrant also, so just reading the story makes me relate to many problems immigrants experience relocating to a different country. Immigrants often face many issues and difficulties, but for some it is all worth it, but for others there comes a point in time where they have to go back to their hometown. Alma and Arturo Rivera came to the United States to better their life, but also so that Maribel could attend a special education school. While Arturo had a job things had gone well for the family, but once Arturo lost the job and passed away the two of them had to go back because they felt that that was the best option for them. Reading this book made me realize how strong an individual has to be to leave their own country and relocate somewhere else not knowing if this will better your life or cause one to suffer.
Coined in 1845 by journalist John L. O'sullivan the term Manifest Destiny outlined the idea that it was America's God given right to spread to the western territory bought in the Louisiana Purchase and beyond. Already swept up in the excitement of expansion, the people of America took up the term quickly, using it as yet another incentive to populate new lands in pursuit of riches. Manifest Destiny was used often to give reason to the nation’s imperialistic activities of conquering the west, including its justification for the war against Mexico in 1845- 1848. (Acuna 222, 226). America's desire for economic power and military prowess, as well as her wish to keep up with ever-expanding technology pushed her people west, with O'sullivan's Manifest
Where Turner limits their view of American history to simply what the colonists did to take over the continent, viewing their history in isolation, Horsman tries to go beyond this, showing some of the history—and racially-based ideology—which in turn influences Turner’s view of history. Let us consider these differences further, beginning with how Turner presents the expansion of the American peoples across the North American continent.
One of the largest and most wealthy countries in the world, the United States of America, has gone through many changes in its long history. From winning its independence from Great Britain to present day, America has changed dramatically and continues to change. A term first coined in the 1840s, "Manifest Destiny" helped push America into the next century and make the country part of what it is today. The ideas behind Manifest Destiny played an important role in the development of the United States by allowing the territorial expansion of the 1800s. Without the expansion of the era, America would not have most of the western part of the country it does now.
When the shape of America first started to grow from just land to the 13 colonies to the westward expansion of our country in less than a century, it sure feels like hopes and dreams came true. Though it might have seemed like an easier task, it took luck, labor, and intense warfare. The long process of American territorial expansion was justified by a mid-century ideology known as Manifest Destiny (pg 1). The one people we seem to forget about when we discuss the growing settlement of our country are the Native Americans. They had inhabited the country long before Columbus had discovered America, and still play an important part in today’s society. Manifest Destiny justified the displacement and domestication of Native Americans all while
Destiney was an expression used to spread the idea than it was America 's "destiny" to
In a way, it was destiny for the Colonists to move, as destiny can be defined as events that lead a person or a thing in the future, and that for them was the future, and was the rock that has formed our nation to what it is now. Focusing on whether or whether not it was right for our ancestors to do what they did, it in technical terms was destiny. The term of Manifest Destiny back then was ideal on our part, and nobody ever thought twice about it being ill-willed or wrong. The assumption that the American’s had the right to spread and claim whatever they wanted cannot be justified within our modern moral values. However, back in the mid-1800’s, when Manifest Destiny took place, everyone just assumed that larger nations had the right to parade around and take over smaller nations.
Turner’s essay is motivated essentially by the fact that the frontier is disappearing. The 1890 Census explicitly states that “Up to and including 1880 the country had a frontier of settlement, but at present the unsettled area has been so broken into by isolated bodies of settlement that there can hardly be said to be a frontier line….[the frontier’s extent] can not therefore have a place in the census reports”. Turner’s essay is sparked by this statement because he does not want the frontier to disappear, since he believes that the frontier has given so much to the American culture and contributed so much to American history, and he believes
There are a number of key arguments in “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”. A few of which include inequality, education, and Christianity as the keys to freedom in terms of its true values within the institution of slavery. While Frederick Douglass made some key arguments, he also made common ground to make his appeal for the abolition of slavery.
John Louis O 'Sullivan was an American Journalist who coined and advocated the Manifest Destiny Policy to justify the annexation of many states such as Texas. This policy stated that the expansion of the United States was basically a divine mandate from God that was inevitable and justified by God. It was its divine destiny. Sullivan advocated for the Manifest Destiny because America was "the nation of many nations"; a nation that was specifically chosen by God just like the Puritan believed about their own destiny. John Louis O’ Sullivan also advocated for the Manifest Destiny because the American People felt like it was their duty and purpose to expand to new territories. O’Sullivan believed that America had the destiny to expand to show mankind the principles of God.