Manifest Destiny and American Expansion

In the 1840s, nearly a decade after the end of Texas seceded from Mexico and became an independent state most Americans were looking to expand westward. One of the most influential American expansionists, a columnist named John L. O'Sullivan, called for America's "Manifest Destiny", a term which he himself coined in 1845, the year America annexed Texas. Manifest Destiny, O'Sullivan wrote, was the God-given right of Americans to expand their country from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean in an effort to spread democracy and the blessings of liberty. The United States already consisted of over half of what it currently has today due to Napoleon Bonaparte's hastily selling the Louisiana Territory. The Louisiana Territory doubled the size of the United States and only gave them a larger hunger for land.

Manifest Destiny was used by American expansionists as a reason for the annexation of Texas and the push to control all of the Oregon Territory, where Americans had been living in disputed territory with the British. The U.S. government-backed expansion westward took a terrible toll on the native peoples that already inhabited the area. American Indians were continuously forced from their homes and forced more and more West until finally the federal government of the United States controlled all of what it has today. When the Indian Removal Act of 1830 was passed all American Indians were immediate forced west of the Mississippi River into Oklahoma along the Trail of Tears, where thousands of Indians died during the 800 mile trek. With the call for America's Manifest Destiny, the American Indians would have to be forced further West, but many resisted. Armed with horses and guns, Apache and Sioux Indians fought against expansionist settlers in an effort to resist the encroachment. This resistance was all but destroyed when settlers began using automatic weapons on the Indians who were technologically behind the Americans.