Westward Expansion Essay Samples and Other Free Papers on American History

It is one of the ironies of history that the “old west” was actually the last area of the north American continent to be settled. By 1860, for example, San Francisco, California was a booming city of 56,802 persons making it the 15th largest city in the nation (San Francisco Population). Kansas City, meanwhile, had a population of 4,418 (U.S. Census Bureau). Denver, Colorado was already the “Queen City of the Plains” with a population of 4,749 (Population of Denver, CO). These three communities are important since Denver and Kansas City represent the western and eastern ...

St Louis and New Orleans were the furthest points in the West in 1860. San Francisco was not in existence, and the whole of the population was composed of native tribes that were cut out from active participation in the national economy. There was no transport system, and the farthest point of the railroad was in St Louis while the area between Chicago and San Francisco was largely untapped for economic activities like mining and agricultural production. There were more than forty native tribes, but their population did not cross the 100,000 mark. The population grew very fast ...

Wheat, genetically a hybrid of various grasses, was one was one of the original grains . In fact, wheat is so important that it warrants its own web page - “Wheat: A Plant That Changed the World.” Although wheat has less direct food value in terms of calories produced per acre (Ma. n.d.) it has advantages over corn (maize) and rice, the grains that outproduce it in this key metric. Corn is more generally used as animal feed, although it can be easy converted to a very high value low bulk commodity, alcohol (Steinson, 1994). Rice has a longer growing ...

During the mid-nineteenth century, freedom in the North and West led to significant American social, economic and political advancement. Owing to the aspect of freedom in the civilized world, various Americans invested in trade opportunities. Territorial expansion was caused by a considerable increase in the American population. Political ideologies led to the establishment of factions that would differ along the lines of administrative roles. Furthermore, free labor and slavery paved the way for the creation of lobby groups that would advocate for the protection of human rights in America.

Economic advancement

Giant economic leaps were made in America during in the ...

Three Challenges in America, 1820-1840 This report considers three main challenges facing the nation and its citizens during the 1820 to 1840 time period and offers reasons why these challenges were significant. Foner (356) indicates Andrew Jackson’s presidency highlighted several major developments, including: the expansion of democracy and nationalism, the westward expansion movement and the slavery issue. During these two decades, American democracy and nationalism became more defined. The property requirement to vote eventually disappeared. “Democratic political institutions” became the hallmark of America’s identity that emphasized equality ...

Hello Dave,

You know, a couple days ago I watch a TV show where the theme of intolerance was slightly noticed. The thing is in this ‘slightly’ – it seems like nowadays only a few people can clearly formulate its origins and reasons it still exists. With it, I also remembered the movie Crash, which also discussed some racial tensions (Crash). It was as if the TV show and movie were pulling me in the same direction. Maybe it is a coincidence, but on our last lecture we had some topics connected with this problem. Thus, in this letter I will try ...

Introduction

An invention takes place due to the need of some technological growth in a society and its development is based upon factors like inventions, property right, demand of the technology and encouragement. The introduction of steam engine and locomotive had deep positive and negative effects on European communities; it brought positive and negative impacts creating huge turn points in history.

Steam Engine Locomotive

The Steam engine locomotives used to run on the basis of steam engine. The steam trains were powered by those steam engines which consisted of system of cylinders compressing the superheated steam in order to pressurize it. After the ...

The American Westward Expansion was one of the key events of the nineteenth century. To a great extent, it established the relationship between the White people and Native Americans and influenced their lifestyle. It was the time of mounting tensions between the two nations. The aim of this paper is to study how the life of the Plains Indians, especially the Lakota Sioux, changed under the influence of the Westward Expansion at the end of the nineteenth century. Generally, the Plain Indians had always been hunters and needed big land territories to sustain their hunting societies. The American Westward ...

(Teacher)

In the years 1807 -1912 people settled in the western areas of the United States, and all points in between the east coast and the Pacific Ocean. This period is known as the Westward Expansion. The expansion began on the east coast and continued to the Pacific Ocean, where the pioneers settled and began to colonize the areas in between. It seemed that the land was available to be claimed and thousands of natives were pushed off their ancestral lands to make way for the white settlers. Although white civilization had been established in the Eastern United States ...

Section I. Describe the importance of the water to the North American through 1800s to 1865

Since the beginning of the nineteenth century the role of the water in the American society still was significant. The countries were seeking for the measures and instruments allowing to expand the existing territory in order to gain more access to the rivers and oceans. In this regard, in 1803 the United States of America entered the agreement with Napoleon Bonaparte to purchase Louisiana Territory so that to gain the access to Mississippi (Davis, 318). This decision created the ground for the further exploration of the region in this dimension by the Americans. Moreover, the shipping was a inevitable ...

Reflection on Multiculturalism

Reflection on Multiculturalism

Critique of Holladay’s Perspective on Teaching Multiculturalism

In her concept of how multiculturalism should be imbibed amongst students in school, Jen Holladay argues that providing culinary inputs to match the topics being discussed in class would actually trivialize the topic being addressed. Holladay underlines he point when she says that if students were offered tacos while learning about the Mexican resistance to the French occupation (Holladay, 2013, 2:05), they would rather focus on the taste of the tacos; their appreciation of the travails of the Mexican resistance would be undermined. I disagree with Holladay’s concept that offering food of a region would ...

1) America is a settler nation. The majority of the United States population has always been of foreign descent. Early on this was primarily people of European and African descent, and to this day European-Americans remain probably the richest and most politically dominant group. That said, there were already numerous communities of indigenous people living throughout the lands that became the territory of the United States. Those communities, if not necessarily the individuals who made them up, had to go as political entities for the US to be born. That required an ideological justification not just for colonialism as ...

- Introduction Although the United States is a young nation, she has had a background that is full of conflict. Because the birth of the United States was born from a bloody conflict with Britain, it seems unsurprising that much of the early days of the nation was also full of conflict. Some of these conflicts were necessary conflicts, while others, looking back with perfect hindsight, were more avoidable. Regardless of how avoidable or unavoidable the conflicts in the United States of America were during the early years of the colony, however, they were very important for the development of wartime ...

Introduction

The present territorial domains of the United States (US) were a result of expansionism that came in the years that followed its independence in 1776. Prior to expansion, much of the US included only the 13 original states and territories that spanned the Midwest. A series of colonial trysts with Spain over its territories has led to the gradual westward expansion of the US towards the Pacific Ocean. White American settlers have since mingled with Hispanic and Asian populations, both of which have settled through colonization and waves of immigration. The rise in mining activities, particularly triggered by the Gold ...

Westward expansion in American began in small groups and the first places in the west to become states were Tennessee and Ohio. They were considered western states at that time. The Louisiana Purchase doubled the amount of land owned by the United States and an era of exploration and settlement ensued. After the War of 1812 the United States began to develop western areas more intensely. Six more states achieved statehood from 1816 to 1821: Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama, Maine, and Missouri (Claunch, A. and Tripp, L. 2009). Pioneers moved through the west with the trade routes and ...

Asian immigrants were, for many years, the silent victims of American westward expansion. When Americans were expanding westward in pursuit of Manifest Destiny, they were not doing all the work themselves. Manifest Destiny was the widely-held belief by many Americans that America was destined to expand across the current-day United States. During the 1820s all the way through the 1860s, Americans from the east coast of the United States expanded across the United States, seeking a variety of different things-- some sought land, others new experiences or natural resources. Everyone who participated in the American westward expansion carried some kind ...

Manifest destiny is a term coined by newspaper editor John O’Sullivan in 1845 to describe the moral, ethical, religious, patriotic, and financial reasoning behind the United State’s expansion of territory from the Atlantic to Pacific oceans (“Manifest”). Many Americans believed that it was God’s intent for them to do this; their Christian faith was seen as superior to that of the “heathen” native Americans who already occupied the land. The rapid expansion westward was driven in part by the feeling that the American people were special and in some ways remains a part of today’s foreign policy. ...

In the 1800s, America was at a crossroads - seeking to expand west of the Mississippi, its increasing power led it to make many interesting and controversial decisions along the way to establishing and maintaining its supremacy from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Relations with the Indians turned sour as America slowly but surely stripped them of their lands. The Market Revolution brought both innovation and health hazards to both male and female workers. In the meantime, the debate over slavery led to the secession of the Confederacy from the Union, leading to the bloodiest war in American history. All ...

Book Review - The Long Bitter Trail

In The Long Bitter Trail: Andrew Jackson and the American Indians, Anthony F.C. Wallace takes on the unenviable task of discussing the Jacksonian era of Indian removal, recounting the history and politics of the forcible expulsion of Indians from their native homes by the United States Government. Though brief (the book comes in at only 120 pages), Wallace's work tries for conciseness and brevity in this subject; no footnotes can be found to supplement the material. Instead, Wallace seems to have meant this book "for students of history and others," and tells the story of Indian removal from pre-contact ...

America's history, from the Constitution to the presidency of Andrew Jackson, is full of fascinating social, political and cultural changes, all of which were vital components to making this country what it is today. All this started with the forming of the American Constitution, which has its own storied history stemming from previous attempts to create a governmental document for the new nation. The Articles of Confederation, Prohibition, and lack of voting rights for women and minorities presented the most important hurdles for the country to overcome in its infancy. Before the drafting of the Constitution, the Articles of Confederation ...

Industrialism

The United States was the first country to industrialize outside Europe. Industrialism began in the late eighteenth century. It started with the construction of various industries such as shipbuilding, iron manufacturing, textile industry, and development of machines and machine tools. These innovations led to increase in production–farming methods improved and so were the outputs. Inventions in the transport and communication sectors such as the steam engine and railroad improved the transport of raw materials and finished goods. Improvements in transport also boosted the agricultural and mining industries. It also led to ease of the labor movement and more ...