Territorial and Economic Expansion

Manifest Destiny

1830-1860

Manifest Destiny

“Away, away with all these cobweb tissues of the rights of discovery, exploration and settlement…[The American claim] is by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty!…

-John L. O’Sullivan

John O’Sullivan

• Journalist and founder/editor of the United States Magazine and Democratic Review

• Coins the term "manifest destiny" to encourage the spirit of expansionism

Manifest Destiny Defined

• Manifest Destiny: popular belief that the US had a divine mission to extend its power and civilization across N. America

• Enthusiasm for expansion…why?– Nationalism, population increase, economic

development, technological advances, reform– Late on: sectionalism over slavery

Was Expansion Inevitable?• Treaty of Paris 1783

Lands from Britain• Louisiana Purchase &

Lewis/Clark Expedition• War of 1812• Monroe Doctrine• Adams Onis Treaty• Trail of Tears• Missouri Compromise

Other Factors to Push Expansion

• INFRASTRUCTURE ie roads, canals, etc– Cumberland/National

Road– Erie Canal

• INNOVATIONS ie steamboat, railroad

BUT WHO’S LAND IS IT?New Perspective: Indian Removal

History of Abuse

• British arrive: 13 colonies, Indians losing land

• Pre-Revolutionary War: French & Indian war, fighting with British in Rev. War

• New U.S. Government: fought to be recognized as a sovereign nation

• 1778 to 1871: 400+ treaties

• Today: “Trail of Broken Treaties”

Jefferson, Jan. 1803

“The Indian tribes residing within the limits of the U.S. have for a considerable time been growing more & more uneasy at the constant diminution of the territory they occupy…In order peaceably to counteract this policy of theirs, two measures are deemed expedient. First, to encourage them to abandon hunting, to apply to the raising stock, to agriculture and domestic manufacture; Second  to multiply trading houses among them & place within their reach those things which will contribute more to their domestic comfort.”

Indian Removal Act• President Jackson pushes

Congress to force Indians to move west of the Mississippi

• Congress established Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) as the new Indian homeland

• US govt creates Bureau of Indian Affairs

John C. Calhoun-Sect. of War

“One of the greatest evils to which they (Indians) are subject is the incessant (constant) pressure of our population.”

1) According to John C. Calhoun, why is the US government forcing the Native Americans to move off of their homelands?

2) What is wrong with this statement?

Cherokee Indians/5 Civ. Tribes

• Lived peacefully in the Appalachian Mountains of Georgia and Tennessee

• Adopted culture of whites - wrote and spoke English

• Had own written language and newspaper

• Based their government on the U.S. Constitution

Cherokee Sue For Land

• Cherokee sued the government of Georgia for taking their land

• Worcester vs. Georgia - Supreme Court rules Georgia’s actions are illegal and that the Cherokee can stay

President Andrew Jackson

“Chief Justice John Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it.”

1) What is wrong with this statement?

Trail of Tears• Georgia govt. smashes

in Cherokee printing press

• US troops move 18,000 Cherokee at gunpoint 800 miles from 1838-1839

• 25% of Cherokee died - most elderly and children

Primary Sourcing

• Break into PAIRS (That means 2)

• Address the following documents as a group-answer the “Focus Questions”

• 45 Minutes

Reservations• US government forced Native American tribes to live

in certain areas called Indian Reservations Not the best land; Indian Appropriations Act of 1851

• In exchange for living on the reservation, tribes were often – paid some money called an annuity. – The annuities were usually not very much money

• Government did not always pay them on time • Native Americans usually had to spend their money

buying food and supplies from white American traders

• Dawes Act of 1887-parcels of land

“Kill the Indian, Save the Man”

• Assimilation: process of one group of people being "absorbed" into another's culture

• Goal of assimilation policy: for all Native Americans to live & behave like white Americans

• Tools to achieve assimilation: – Boarding schools for

Native – American children – Killing bison (their

main food source) – Missionaries to

introduce Christianity

TREATIES!...that don’t work

• Omaha Creek• Kansas Muscogee• Lakota Navajo• Pawnee Mohawk• Arapaho Oto/Missouri• Cheyenne Shawnee• Banncock Seminole• SiouxWitchetaw

• http://digital.library.okstate.edu/kappler/Vol2/tocy1.htm#Y1%20