Final Essay
When most people hear racial tension, when talking about American history, they automatically jump to the south and the civil war. Many people do not take in to account the effect that rapid westward expansion had on the American peoples views of other races. In the Essay Reconstructing race, author Elliot West try’s to illustrates those effects to us. He describes to us the events that took place and how the civil war and reconstruction after the civil war was effect by both the south and the west. He writes about how the acquisition of new land would lead to the question of whether the land would be Free or slave, causing the slave debate to flair up, and how rapid population growth in California would strengthen this idea of …show more content…
He explains that after the Mexican-American war the US became far more diverse then ever before. The land they won from the war would expose the American people to many new and different races. Many Americans at this time viewed these new people as savages and inferior to the white man and wanted nothing to do with them. The mind set at the time was that the darker skinned man was inherently inferior to the Anglo-Saxon and incapable of governing its self. Some even went as far to separate Mexicans from the rest of humanity by giving them there own category called “mexicanity”. West writes about how a popular argument for the annexation of Texas was the belief that it would act as a siphon for all inferior races and as the US continued to push west, the darkener skinned man would naturally go south and west in to Mexico. These beliefs show us that during this time period there were many different ideas as to what should be done with the non-whites in the west. West points out that this belief that the white man was superior to everyone else not only affected non-whites in the west but also slaves in the south causing the slave debate to continue to
When most people hear racial tension, when talking about American history, they automatically jump to the south and the civil war. Many people do not take in to account the effect that rapid westward expansion had on the American peoples views of other races. In the Essay Reconstructing race, author Elliot West try’s to illustrates those effects to us. He describes to us the events that took place and how the civil war and reconstruction after the civil war was effect by both the south and the west. He writes about how the acquisition of new land would lead to the question of whether the land would be Free or slave, causing the slave debate to flair up, and how rapid population growth in California would strengthen this idea of …show more content…
He explains that after the Mexican-American war the US became far more diverse then ever before. The land they won from the war would expose the American people to many new and different races. Many Americans at this time viewed these new people as savages and inferior to the white man and wanted nothing to do with them. The mind set at the time was that the darker skinned man was inherently inferior to the Anglo-Saxon and incapable of governing its self. Some even went as far to separate Mexicans from the rest of humanity by giving them there own category called “mexicanity”. West writes about how a popular argument for the annexation of Texas was the belief that it would act as a siphon for all inferior races and as the US continued to push west, the darkener skinned man would naturally go south and west in to Mexico. These beliefs show us that during this time period there were many different ideas as to what should be done with the non-whites in the west. West points out that this belief that the white man was superior to everyone else not only affected non-whites in the west but also slaves in the south causing the slave debate to continue to