Manifest Destiny Dbq

The term Manifest Destiny refers to the idea that Americans not only had the right to expand across the continent to the Pacific coast, but that they had a responsibility to do so, since it was considered to be “God’s will.” This passionate desire to expand had an enormous impact on the relations between the government of the United States and the native people of North America, as well as its relations with Mexico and the other countries of the Americas. “The American claim is by right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and our democratic government entrusted to us.” (Document 3) At the time, the American people

believed in taking they created and expanding it upon the land they lived on to create a prosperous and thriving country. John Gast, a Brooklyn based painter, painted a picture titled “American Progress” in 1872 on commission for George Crofutt, the publisher of a popular series of western travel guides. The static painting thus conveys a vivid sense of the passage of time as well as of the inevitability of technological progress. The groups of human figures read from left to right convey much the same idea. Indians precede Euro-American prospectors, who in turn come before the farmers and settlers. The idea of progress coming from the East to the West and the notion that the frontier would be developed by sequential waves of people was deeply rooted in American thought. (Document 7)
During this time period, there were many political, economic, and social reasons, to expand territory west.

The southerners desired more land for cotton production and Northerners believed expansion would relieve population pressures in the crowded urban centers of the Northeast. The Americans also desired access to the western ports so they could engage in the Asian markets. Also, the population of the States drastically increased before expansion west due to the combination of natural born citizens and immigrants coming into the country. The eleventh president of the United States, James Polk, wrote a letter during his presidency talking about westward expansion, and how Americans should protect all land they live on. “The protection of our laws and the benefits of our democratic government should be extended over them in the distant regions which they have selected for their homes.” (Document 5) However, with many people expanding at once, it affected different groups of people in different ways. The population of the Native Americans in Oregon dropped from about forty-five thousand down to under ten thousand (Document 1). The Oregon trail resulted hundreds of Americans growing ill and facing hunger. A pioneer named Clark Thompson wrote a letter in 1850, describing what he had seen on the trail, “Looked starvation in the face. I have seen men passing an animal that has starved

to
death on the plains, stop and cut out a steak, roast and eat it and call it delicious.” The Mexicans were forced to go to war over the western territory, as explained by a US governor before the Mexican War, urging the president to withdraw his ideas of migrating west. “Let us abandon all ideas of gaining further territory and cease at once this war. Let us call home our armies. Let us wash Mexican blood from our hands, and swear to preserve honorable peace with all the world and eternal brotherhood with each other.” (Document 6) However, the Americans were willing to persevere and push through, allowing them to expand America to the west coast and achieve the manifest destiny they had longed for.