Project 2
• By: Austin Keating, Santiago Gutierrez, and Sam
Spears
Question
“Although Americans perceived Manifest Destiny as a
benevolent movement, it was in fact an aggressive
imperialism pursued at the expense of others.”
Assess the validity of this statement with specific
references to American expansionism in the 1840s.
Thesis
• Manifest destiny is the idea that that America
deserves and has every right to take over all the land.
It was imperialism because they were taking the land
away from the Native Americans and eventually toke
land from mexico. They were hostile towards Native
Americans and during the civil war the north and the
south were both struggling to maintain power over
each other, land was a key factor.
Manifest destiny
•
Manifest Destiny is an intangible ideology that created
American history. In its simplest form, Manifest Destiny can
be defined as, "A Movement." More specifically, it would be
the systematic body of concepts and beliefs that powered
American life and American culture.
•
Manifest Destiny reflected both the prides that characterized
American Nationalism in the mid 19th century, and the
idealistic vision of social perfection through God and the
church.
• Manifest destiny was a justification for expansion and western
movement, or, in some interpretations, an ideology or doctrine that
helped to promote the process of civilization.
Manifest Destiny continued
•
"Without Manifest Destiny, phrases and terms such as "Beyond the
Great American Desert," "The North West Passage," and "The
Oregon Trail", would be just empty examples of white man's travels."
•
Herman Melville, an American novelist, addresses the perils that
underlay the soaring ambition and aggressiveness of the new age.
The whaling captain Ahab, who brings his own demise and the
destruction of his own ship by his own relentless pursuit of the white
whale.-- this symbolizes, among others-- the dangers facing a nation
that was overreaching itself by indulging its pride and exalted sense
of destiny with too little concern for the moral and practical
consequences
Mexican American war
•
The Mexican American war also know as the Mexican war, was
an armed conflict between the united states and Mexico from
1846-1848 in the wake of the 1845 U.S. annexation from Texas.
Mexico still considered Texas part of their country despite the
1836 Texas revolution.
•
The war with Mexico was just one of a series of aggressive acts
that can be tied to America's manifest destiny. Manifest destiny
emerged naturally out of the fundamental need and want to
explore, conquer new land, and establish borders. With this
growth came moral, cultural, social ideological and economic
differences between people, states, and countries.
Native Americans
• Manifest destiny had serious consequences for native
Americans, since continental expansion for America
toke place heavily on Native America soil.
• The age of manifest destiny came to be associated
with extinguishing Americans Indian territorial
claims and removing them to reservations. An
example of this would be Jackson's indian removal
act of 1830 which best correlates to the trail of tears
where thousands of Indians died on a treacherous
forced relocation.
Civil war
•
The civil war could also be considered an aggressive imperialism
pursued at the expense of others because of the enormous amount of
casualties caused by the issue of land.
•
The civil war was entirely fought over the South's secession. If the
south seceded than many others could have succeeded as well
causing a massive loss of land for the U.S.
•
Manifest destiny therefor is the reason that Lincoln could not have
stood the loss of land and toke any and all measures to ensure he
didn't, even if that meant the deaths of hundreds of thousands.
Conclusion
In conclusion Manifest destiny was an aggressive imperialism
pursued at the expense of others which is shown by each of the
following, the Mexican American war, the Indian removal act of
1830, and the civil war.