Westward Expansion Essay

Between 1783-1912, all Americans were involved in the Westward Expansion of the United States. Westward Expansion became an opportunity to find new homes and work, to experience, adventure, to explore possibilities, to be rich, find gold or silver, escape from the constraints of civilization and to make a new start. In this period of an era, the land symbolised, ‘wealth, self-reliance, and freedom’. The rapid increase of population, along with infected by the ‘economic depression’, the journey to the West embarked an investment for the white settlers, in hope to expand the West. However, the residents of the West, the Native American tribes on western land troubled the white settlers. From that point on, a revolution of American history

began. The U.S. Government policy moved first to assimilate the Native Americans into the white culture than to remove Native Americans from their land and relocate them to land set aside for them further west. Enforcement of these policies led to violence and destruction.

During the 19th century, expansion of the West was successful by building railroads,mines, killing the Natives’ livestock and their communities. However, culture diversity and political issues arose, as the indigenous peoples and Spanish settlers had been living there for hundreds of years. The big steel and oil businesses grew bigger, but workers/labourers were treated harshly and left in bad working conditions.

The extraordinary expansion of the United States began in the West of the Mississippi River, with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.

At that time, president Thomas Jefferson expanded twice the size of the nation by compromising a price of $15 million, in order to achieve 828,800 square miles of property from France and some part of 14 current states. citation In 1804, Jefferson sent a team of explorers, and their leaders Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to investigate the area. Over three years, they gained information about the geography and resources of the western part of the continent. In the 1830s and 1840s, “manifest destiny,” is the name of the idea to expand in the West to increase further territorial expansion. While settlers and miners traveled towards the prior to the Civil War, which can be recalled as the fastest migration after the war. The Homestead Act (1862), persuaded white settlers to move west- because it gave permission to claim 160 acres of land for free. Also, the completion of the “first transcontinental railroad in 1869” increased migration and also contributed to economic development. It all began with the Native Americans and ended with them too. Who were they? Do not use questions Well, the were any member of the indigenous people. They all were separated by different groups, which had varied lifestyles. Some lived in nomadic lifestyles, with the access to large amounts of rangeland to support their families, while others settled in

communities, in which livestock is being farmed and raised- brought by the Spanish. Thousands of Native Americans were forced west from the favourable areas of the white settlers.

When Spain ruled the southwestern United States ( 598-1821),it used land demands to promote migration and settlement and protect the region . Spanish policy gave settlers free land owned by the government. The Republic of Mexico customised similar policies while governing the Southwest (1821-1848). Therefore, white settlers started multiplying into the West, invading areas indigenous peoples and Spanish settlers had been living for hundreds of years. Nor was east the only direction from which settlers came into the American West. African Americans came from the southeast, Spanish settlers came from Mexico in the south, and workers came from the west, across the Pacific from China. The many different cultural encounters that occurred in this era, however, also continue to have an impact on everyday life in the United States, and may prove to be among the most important legacies of the great era of westward expansion.

Meanwhile, slavery would/wouldn’t be allowed in the new western states left puzzled every conversation about the frontier. In 1820, the Missouri Compromise tried to solve this situation: It admitted Missouri to the union as a slave state and Maine as a free state, preserving the fragile balance in Congress. More importantly ,slavery would be prohibited Missouri (the 36º30’ parallel) in the rest of the Louisiana Purchase.(citation)
However, the Missouri Compromise did not apply to new territories that were not part of the Louisiana Purchase, and so the issue of slavery continued while expansion. The Southern economy grew increasingly dependent on “King Cotton” and the system of forced labor that sustained it.

II. Body

The Dawes Act

Time in between 1887 and 1933, the ‘US government policy’ established to assimilate the Indians to converge as a part of the American society.

It was a demanding and extensive mission, for the US government policy.In 1886, a contributor quoted that the Indians were going to be transferred to ‘Christian civilisation’. In order to do so, the Indians had to forcefully perform all these tasks:convert to Christianity, learn and speaking English, adapt to western clothing, children were kidnapped and sent far off to schools and inevitably blend and become a part of the Americans. The Dawes Act of 1887 separated the Indian Reservation lands into small farmlands and designated to individual Native Americans. These Reservation lands were not allowed to be sold for 25 years, however, reservation land left over was allowed to be sold to outsiders. This became a golden opportunity for ‘land-hungry white American’s to achieve and snatch the Indian land. The permission was given by the 1903 Supreme Court decision, in which they were given the power to retrieve Indian land without the consent of the Indians involved.Therefore , the amount of Indian land decreased from 154 million acres in 1887 to an only 48 million, only half a century later.

(citation)
In addition, The Dawes Act also promised US citizenship to Native Americans who chose to an advantage of the allotment policy and ‘adopted the habits of civilized life’. This meant that the education of Native American children – many in boarding schools away from the influence of their parents – was considered an essential part of the civilising process. The principal of the best-known school for Indian children at Carlisle in Pennsylvania boasted that his aim for each child was to ‘kill the Indian in him and save the man’.

The Mass Massacre

The end of the existence of the Native Americans. The biggest wipe and devastation of US history. The US government forced Native Americans to live in Indian Reservations and tribes were often paid a little money. The Government did not always pay them on time ,left unfed and starving. The worst- the Bison ("buffalo") were the main source of food, clothing, weapons and protection for Native Americans. The white settlers forcefully built railroad companies to clear out the Great Plains, from the Bison. Assimilation is the process of one group of people being "absorbed" into another's culture Goal of assimilation policy: for all Native Americans to live and behave like white Americans Tools to achieve assimilation: Boarding schools for Native American children killing bison (their main food source) Missionaries to introduce Christianity.

Members of the Sioux Tribe declined slowly- unable to support themselves by hunting. The Ghost Dance offered hope that if everyone followed the Ghost Dance rituals, their culture and power would be return and the white people would leave. However, problems arose .US troops felt threatened by large groups of Sioux men and their families, so they fired, killing dozens of men, women and children.