Manifest Destiny: The Colorado Gold Rush

For several years, the idea of people coming over to a previously uninhabited land full of new rewards brought thousands of immigrants to the frontier lands. With this notion of moving west, many politicians acclaimed that this was America’s right to conquer from Atlantic to Pacific and that it was justifiable by Manifest Destiny. In addition to the influx of immigrants causing a population boom, new technologies stimulated improved communications and transportation that brought several more inhabitants to the new lands in order for them to work and get a better living. Manifest Destiny was especially seen to several as the 1859 Colorado Gold Rush brought instant fortunes for many and caused an elevation in the economic stature. Although moving …show more content…
For several centuries, the Plains Indians were highly dependent on the Buffalo for all purposes including their hide for shelter and their meat for food. However, with the inclusion of the massive railroads, many buffalo were decimated by the millions as the railroad tycoons only saw the animals to be burdens worthy of being removed to make way for better things such as money and profit, thus hurting the natives and forcing them to live in reservations, unable to live on lands where railroads dominated, and being treated as second-rate humans. Additionally, Congress completely changed their view on the natives, from the Cherokee Nation v Georgia, under the Indian Act of 1867 declaring that the tribes were no longer acknowledged as an independent nation. This meant that the white settlers were legally now over the natives and could misuse and persecute the natives who were now inferior. Adding on to the destruction of a centuries-worth of culture, President U.S Grant had sent Christian missionaries and set up a Indian Police and Courts of Indian Offenses program in the reservation causing many natives to give up their nomadic practices, change their culture forcefully without any reluctance, vow to adhere to white standard of behavior, and lost their chief as now he was powerless and could not render power against the tyrannical white police. With more pressure and people coming from the east and merging on to the natives’ original lands, the natives were being highly sacrificed and were taken advantage of all because the whites thought it was their right to conquer lands and that the federal government would protect them of their destiny. Although manifest destiny was the justification for Americans to move west and seek better fortunes, hence in the process the