Every human being has a trait of “you can never have enough” it’s kind of like making money you can never get enough. The United States most certainly had that thought in 1840s when manifest destiny inspired western expansion in the United States of America. The United States of America eventually pushed westward and challenged Mexico and the Spanish for territory winding up inducing a vast land expansion that would come to known as Westward Expansion. America should be for westward expansion in the United States because it lead to land expansion, the spread of the Christian religion, and the boost of capitalism in the United States economy.
In a Complete analysis of past land movements and expansion no other country expanded and gained land as much the United States of America. When settlers first came to the newfound “America’s” they brought forth a concept called manifest destiny. There is many ways to interpret manifest destiny and spread of land or a spread of wealth or even religion being spread across a very broad spectrum across the United States of America and the thirteen colonies across the now called the east coast. As implied the United States of America started with a thirteen colonies but many settlers seeped outside of the borders and traveled into what is now considered Tennessee, and Kentucky.
In 1811 Thomas Jefferson started the ball and got it off to a rolling start with manifest destiny when he acquired land in what would become known as the Louisiana Purchase. The western part the North America continent was to be considered. “Thomas Jefferson, a Founding Father and a prominent political leader, realized this economic structure and the dream to own land were at American democracy’s core” (Dobson 6). The United States of America in the beginning was a cultural balance that was built around farming and an agricultural perspective.
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One of Americas most highly regarded leaders and most historical founders of America Thomas Jefferson had a mindset that if you could you produce goods from an agricultural stand point and off the land that there would be more economic and financial growth. With that being said the United States of America was bottled up along the east coast with 13 colonies and felt as if they were never wealthy enough and the colonies could expand and take advantage of the vital
resources at hand in the Midwest and mid-south and fulfill manifest destiny west of the Mississippi river. As many as 600,000 Americans from the 13 colonies took off toward a new life west of the Mississippi between the 1840s and the 1860s. Then the United State of America annexed Texas as a state/providence, the Oregon territory was then annexed between the United States and Britain, also after the defeat of Mexico in the Mexican-American war resulted in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo finalizing land all the way from the East Coast to the Pacific coast resulting in almost a doubling in land expansion of 1,200,000 square miles of territory (Dobson.11).
The Americans should be for westward land expansion because it opened up many new opportunities for the United States for economic growth it changed this country more than anything at every perspective financially because how much it expanded and effected the growth of citizens and every generation moving forward in the United States of America.
There was one thing that was spread across the United States rapidly and faster more than land and that being the religious faith of the thirteen colonies in America. “American Anglo-Saxons, by reason of their cultural and racial superiority, were destined to extend themselves and their republican institutions of civil and religious liberty throughout the Western Hemisphere, if not the world” (Pinheiro). The Anglo-Saxons pushed for more than just a beginning they sought for a superior rise of religion in the United States of America through historical beginnings. Christianity began to expand throughout America and began a very popular rise.
The people of America believed that the very God that led the people of the Israel out of bondage of Egypt, was now leading them from Europe to the Americas and farther west to more promising land (Dobson). The believers of this method would travel west gathering more and more followers as if it was a snowball effect that gained follows the further they went throughout the new promise land. Many of the same believers in this faith settled in what is called the Utah dessert where at the time was being annexed from Mexico (Dobson). This led to many of the Christian Mormons to be able to worship their religion in ways that were not restricted.
The land was used to an extent that the people believed that the land was to be used as a profit given to them by god to use as a spiritual growth and to spread the religion throughout the united States of America and establish a firm religious culture in the what now is called western parts of the united States of America. Through Manifest Destiny the Christian religion was able to spread and expand westward across America and turn the Nature of the West into a Christian civilization. Any American should value the concept and turn of events that transpired in America between the 1840s and 1850s because it also allowed other religion to expand in the United States of America into the future as a free land for the people of America.
After the building blocks were set for the United States of Americas Expansion as a nation the walls began to go up to what would be a future powerhouses of a Country. The Country had the people set success now it was time for the economy of America to begin to grow. “By 1840, the US had caught the railroad bug as evidenced by the 3,000 miles of track built and in operation” (Dobson). This expanded growth for America even more from a migrating stand point it allowed people to move farther and more throughout the new found land America and begin to settle in places that were by some unbelievably unknown.
The profit of the railroads unbelievably exploded in the United States of America and became a huge product of what would turn the country into a major capitalism country. Capitalism did not only thrive in the railroads the people that went throughout the United States of America and began to settle toward the west they began to realize the western expansion had led to a far more rich agricultural land. Many farmers made plows and other instruments or tools that would aid agricultural techniques and help produce more crops in the west.
The eastern states began to struggle because so much demand for crops from the rich crop lands of the west produced a new industrial wave of farming tools that would once again allow capitalism to change America. “This early failure combined with the high demand for Western crops back in the Eastern states as well as in Europe generated a massive wave of agricultural inventions in the 1850s ranging from ploughs, seeders, corn huskers, and reapers to butter churns, yokes, and beehives” (Dobson). This made the capitalism economy boom and made a start of an industrial revolution across parts of America to produce these parts that were demanded by western settlers to produce crops along the rich new farmlands from the expansions.
This revolution of tools made life much easier on the farmers out west to produce the kind of numbers that could allow them to profit in trade from partners in the east and also across the world in shipping trades. With crops on the rise in west this also managed to make great feeding lands for the cattle because of the vast land and rich grasslands in the Midwest. The capitalist economy took a dramatic turn in the late 1840s for the good in the mining field. The farthest west state California would make a name for its self not from an agricultural stand point but a profitable resource of gold.
A event “On January 24, 1848, James W. Marshall discovered gold in the American River at Sutter’s Mill in Coloma, California, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada range northeast of Sacramento” (Huntington). James Marshall tried to keep the finding of gold a secret but very rapidly it became and major headline in the region and it began a movement unlike any other of its kind people from all states flocked to get their hands on the resource and make a profit. The state of California became stamped as a huge profit from western expansion. California eventually had to be forced to a union to control the mining gold rush in California and allow a stability in the state (Dobson).
The migrates that came from other parts of America made capitalism overflow in California and easily made the state a major empire in the western part of America. To this day the United States of America would not be what it is today because of capitalism growing the economy and spreading wealth across the country. Americans should had been for capitalism it allowed the economy to explode westward and expanded the United States of America in more than just land or religion but from an economic value that grew America more than any other Country in the world.
A reminder the United States started out as 13 colony country and become much more in such a little time span thanks to a three major concepts of western expansion. Westward expansion in the United States renovated America from land expansion, to the spread of the Christian religion, and the boost of capitalism in the United States economy that allowed to set stones for many generation moving forward that made Americans believers in Westward Expansion.
Manifest Destiny started a belief to expanded land and eventually laid the trenches for the future. When the land expansion was finalized religion changed many people’s lives and the geological stand point of where they lived and that allowed a free world of worship. With a major migrations of people there becomes new developments of culture and discoveries that expanded capitalism in the United States of America from the East to the West. Imagine if the United States of America settle 13 colonies and decided to not expand westward picture what kind of country the United States of America would be today?
Works cited
- “Country’s Westward Expansion Left its Mark on this Area, Too.” Daily Herald: 1. Apr 06 2009. ProQuest. Web. 15 Dec. 2015.
- Dobson, Darren. “Manifest Destiny and the Environmental Impacts of Westward Expansion.” Flinders Journal of History and Politics 29 (2013): 41-69. ProQuest. Web. 15 Dec. 2015.
- Huntington, Tim. “Westward Expansion.” History Net Where History Comes Alive World US History Online. N.p., Aug. 1998. Web. 13 Dec. 2015.
- Pinheiro, John C. “”Religion without Restriction”: Anti-Catholicism, all Mexico, and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.” Journal of the Early Republic 23.1 (2003): 69-96. ProQuest. Web. 15 Dec. 2015.
