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  • Essay / The Influence of Manifest Destiny on 19th Century Americans

    According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “manifest destiny” is defined as “the 19th century doctrine or belief that the expansion of the United States United across the American continents was both justified and inevitable” (Manifesto). It's easy to see how this thinking influenced the people and events of that era, and it's hard to find another era (despite Manifest Destiny being a 19th century event) that exhibits more similar thinking. In our reading this week, manifest destiny was evident in many of the events that occurred. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay First, and probably most obvious, 19th-century Americans were influenced by manifest destiny thinking in their efforts against Native Americans. The conflicts, at their core, arose since Native Americans, according to our textbook, occupied “exactly the same land that white Americans wanted.” Because, as the doctrine of manifest destiny explained, at least in their minds, Americans believed that the land was rightfully theirs and that Native Americans were inconvenient obstacles to their deserved fate; The men and women, known colloquially as “Long Knives,” “believed that the Indians were a nuisance best kept away” (Ripper 173). In fact, 19th-century white Americans were willing to do anything to obtain this land, including signing dubious treaties giving them “legal right” to their land. In addition to being inevitable in the eyes of the Americans, they justified it in several ways. Hypocritically, as evidenced by Jackson's thought process, the Americans believed that they were doing this for the benefit of the Native Americans and that "no one could indulge in a more friendly feeling than I", but in reality the thinking went further along the lines of what Jackson said. in our manual, “The Cherokees [and all Indian tribes by extension] “have neither the intelligence, the industry, the moral habits, nor the desire for self-improvement which are essential to any favorable change in their condition which was actually the thinking behind the Indian Removal Act. Since expansion across North America was inevitable, to white Americans, Native Americans had no right to be there and could rightfully be removed by any means necessary. And finally, although it did not involve land conquests, the thinking behind the doctrine of manifest destiny also influenced slavery in the 19th century. In the case of Harriet Jacobs, her owner, James Norcom, viewed her as property and needed to control every aspect of her life. Manifest Destiny states that it was the destiny of the Americans to take over the continent, including all the property there, which to them meant slaves. In our manual, it says that Norcom "viewed her as uncooperative property, as someone who had to do whatever he demanded." According to the article “Manifest Destiny and the Pacic” by Dan E. Clark, a historian, noted that manifest destiny included a heavenly mandate as if God himself had appointed white people as masters of the earth. Thus, it is believed that they were superior to all other races living there, so slaves who disobeyed their masters were by extension also disobeying a heavenly command. In his quest to control every aspect of Jacobs' life, Norcom also took it upon himself to possess her children and use them as bargaining chips to manipulate her. Moreover,?