Piece of Writing: (1) . A piece of writing that reinforced American Westward Expansion was President Andrew Jackson’s State of the Union Address in 1829, which promoted Indian Removal and led to the Indian Removal Act. Both the address and act demonstrated Americans’ mindset of being innately superior to the natives, and encouraged Americans to expand west. In the first few years of the 1800s, the United States acquired additional land, the Louisiana Territory, which promoted citizens to move west to claim and settle the territory, however, movement was greatly inhibited due to Indian tribes. Native Americans had populated the continent hundreds of years before whites ‘discovered’ it, so they were not keen to give up their land to the entitled Americans. As an
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The Natives were seen as bestial creatures rather than humans; their characteristics and actions broken down into that of an immoral, impulsive animal. This led to the widespread idea that Indian men were like prurient beasts; lustful creatures who would see a white American woman, lust for her, and attack her (Source ___). Americans grew resentful of natives; women feared for their safety, and men enraged at the thought that an inferior race would touch their white women. This idea was prolonged in the 1960s and early 1970s, when television westerns, such as Gunsmoke, showed villainous Native American attempting to savagely rape a white woman, only for her to be saved at the last moment by a heroic white man, (Source COCK). Native Americans were outraged because their population as a whole was being depicted as beasts and criminals based on a racist, negative sexual stereotype, however, the general population did not see a problem with the depictions, supporting such shows by watching them, and Indians were a minority so their discontent had little impact in a white-dominant society (Source
The Natives were seen as bestial creatures rather than humans; their characteristics and actions broken down into that of an immoral, impulsive animal. This led to the widespread idea that Indian men were like prurient beasts; lustful creatures who would see a white American woman, lust for her, and attack her (Source ___). Americans grew resentful of natives; women feared for their safety, and men enraged at the thought that an inferior race would touch their white women. This idea was prolonged in the 1960s and early 1970s, when television westerns, such as Gunsmoke, showed villainous Native American attempting to savagely rape a white woman, only for her to be saved at the last moment by a heroic white man, (Source COCK). Native Americans were outraged because their population as a whole was being depicted as beasts and criminals based on a racist, negative sexual stereotype, however, the general population did not see a problem with the depictions, supporting such shows by watching them, and Indians were a minority so their discontent had little impact in a white-dominant society (Source