Westward Expansion Thesis

Westward movement is the populating of lands, by the Europeans, in what is now known as the United States. The chief resolution of the westward expansion is economic betterment. The United States story begins with westward expansion and even before the Revolutionary war, early settlers were migrating westward into what is now known as the states of Kentucky,Tennessee, parts of the Ohio Valley and the South. Westward Expansion was slowed down by the French and the Native Americans, however the Louisiana Purchase significantly improved the expansion efforts. Westward expansion was enabled because of wars, the displacement of Native American Indians, buying land, and treaties. This paper will discuss the effects of westward expansion on domestic politics and on American relations with other nations.
The expansion of the United States into the west of the Mississippibegan in 1803

with the Louisiana Purchase. President Thomas Jefferson sold 828,800 square miles, including fourteen currents states to France for fifteen million dollars. That is roughly four cents and acre. The Louisiana purchase nearly doubled the size of the United States. In 1804 Jefferson sent an Expedition ‘The Corps of Discovery Expedition’, led by Lewis and Clark, to explore the geography of the land. The expedition lasted three years and provided a better understanding of the land and resources available. The war of 1812 secured exisiting U.S. boundaries and defeated native tribes in various regions. In 1830 the Indian Removal Act of 1830 forcibly removed virtually all Indians for the present states of Arkansas and Oklahoma.
In the 1830s the spirit of “Manifest Destiny” emerges.

John L. O’Sullivan, an editor, coined the term “Manifest Destiny” and gave the expansionist movement its name in 1845. The “Manifest Destiny” was the belief that Americans had the divine right to occupy North America. The Americans believed they were culturally and racially superior over other nations and other races such as the Native American Indians and Mexicans. The notion of the ‘Manifest Destiny’ was that the Americans were morally superior and therefore morally obligated to try to spread enlighten and civilization to the less civilized societies. According to World History Group, “The closest America came to making ‘Manifest Destiny’ an official policy was The Monroe Doctrine, adopted in 1823, it put European nations on notice that the U.S. would defend other nations of the Western Hemisphere from further colonization” (World History, 2015). This divine American mission caused Anglo-Saxon Americans to believe they had the natural right to move west and bring blessings of self-government and religion, more specifically-

Protestantism.
Motivated by the ‘Manifest Destiny’ the nation expanded at a rapid rate. In 1845, the United States took possession of Texas. In 1846 the Oregon Treaty ended British claims to Oregan Territory, which led to thousand of western Americans suffering from the Panic of 1837 to migrate towards Oregon. The migration is commonly referred to as the “Oregon Trail”. In 1848, after the Mexican-American War, Mexico relinquished a large portion of the Southwest to the U.S.; then In 1853 the U.S. bought another tract of land from Mexico.
During the 1850s anti-slavery sentiment was on the rise. The North and the South was divided on the controversial issue. The debate received much attention from the nation because of the the refusal of African-Americans to passively accept their bondage. Slave resistance was on the rise. While slaves rarely rebelled armed with weapons, the slaves were beginning to plan uprisings. The most significant slave insurrection was the Nat Turner Rebellion. The United States was not unified. Tensions between the North and South grew over the debate of slavery until an inevitable Civil War was declared and thus slavery was abolished in the North and South.
Westward Expansion ended on February 14, 1912 when Arizona was admitted to the Union as the last of the 48 adjoining states. The admittance of Arizona completed the process of conquering, establishing and organizing the American West. While the conquering, establishing, and organizing of the American West has ceased, expansion in the American West endures still to present day. The era of the westward expansion is one of the most important legacies in American history.