Manifest Destiny Benefits

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There are different interpretation about manifest destiny today, many people define Manifest Destiny was a 19th century doctrine that the united states had the right and duty to expand through out the North American Territory. John O'sullivan defined manifest destiny as the divine and God given right of the American people to expand through the lands. I'll be defining Manifest destiny differently, Manifest destiny to me was/is the greedy want for resources, economical wealth, and land which drove the American government into causing an historical aberration i.e the trail of tears and the Mexican war which will remain in history forever. Expansionists/Nationalists felt the republic needed to expand so as to keep growing economically, military might etc even though it resulted to the killings of native Americans and a civil war between America and Mexico. Many supported Manifest destiny for moral, political, parotitic reasons but the Southerners supported it because they thought it would help spread slavery in the states. Benefits of the manifest destiny were more land for agricultural patrices, more harbors to be able to trade effectively with the Chinese, more resources etc. This so called expansion was lead by the president of that time who was James K Polk. I think there were both good and bad effects on manifest destiny but the negative effects out weigh the positive effects. These negative effects are mentioned and explained below. Effects of Manifest Destiny The following were the major effects of Manifest Destiny: Indian Removal Act This was an act passed on my President Jackson to move all Indians from the southern part to the western part of the Mississippian river. The five major tribes affected by this act where the Cherokees, Chickasaw, choctaw, creek and Seminole. The Indians who refused to comply to the act where forcibly taken away "In a single week some 17,000 Cherokees were rounded up and herded into what was surely a concentration camp. Many sickened and died while they awaited transport to the west. In June the first contingent of about a thousand Indians boarded a steamboat and sailed down the Tennessee River on the first lap of their westward journey. Then they were boxed like animals into railroad cars drawn by two locomotives. Again there were many deaths on account of the oppressive heat and cramped conditions in the cars. For the last leg of the journey the Cherokees walked. Small wonder they came to call this 800-mile nightmare ‘The Trail of Tears.’ Of the approximately 18,000 Cherokees who were removed, at least 4,000 died in the stockades along the way, and some say the figure actually reached 8,000. By the middle of June 1838 the general in charge …show more content…
Another cause of the war was that Texas broke out of Mexico to be an independent republic but the Mexican government didn't see it that way, the government of the United states thought differently and so they offered Mexico a certain amount of money for the acquisition of texas but was seen as a disrespectful and so both sides resulted to fighting because they couldn't come into an agreement. The inhabitants of Texas of that time had more Americans than Mexicans,These Americans who where in support of Manifest destiny. The war started in 1846 and continued until the treaty of Guadalupe was signed on February 2,

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