How Did Technology Affect Territorial Expansion

“The settler colonial logic of elimination in its crudest form, a violent rejection of all things Indian, was transformed into a paternalistic mode of governmentality which, though still sanctioned by state violence, came to focus on assimilation rather than rejection.” –Patrick Wolfe, After the Frontier: Separation and Absorption in US Indian Policy, 13 Wolfe’s statement illustrates how the US government put more emphasis on legalized absorption of Indians into the White society rather than using forceful and violent methods to acquire the Natives’ land. After the colonization of the westward land and the end of the Frontier era, the US government’s method of assimilation of the Indians started revolving around allotment and blood quanta. With no place to further push the Natives away, the established Bureau of Indian Affairs and the government took action to eliminate the Natives culturally and spiritually instead of physically.

This story of the Seminoles’ struggles for identity and sovereignty is a microcosm of the true horrors inflicted on Indian nations by the federal government. The Seminoles remarkably defied federal, state, and local government pressures of removal in the early nineteenth century. They also disputed Creek insistence on tribal consolidation, and other Indian nation claims to their property. Among the federal tactics were the illegal removals, and treaties that meant little to the federal government when land, as part of Manifest Destiny, and wealth the federal government sought entered the equation. The Seminoles also endured the paternalism, coercion tactics, and pressures from Bureau of Indian Affairs agents who made promises to them that were frequently broken.

Many Americans were influenced by the Homestead Act which gave them 160 Acres of land as long as they maintained the land for 5 years. Eventually, the Native Americans no longer had somewhere to go. They decided to sign a treaty with the Americans which granted them a small reservation in which no American would cross and a promise that supplies would be sent. However, the supplies never came and Americans continued to cross into the reservation. The Native Americans wanted to fight back but they were powerless against the American’s

Within the years 1800 and 1855 an issue that was making waves in the United States was whether the country should expand in size or not. Multiple events such as the Mexican-American war and the idea of “Manifest Destiny” lead to a growing discrepancy between the supporters and opponents of expansion. Although the opponents had some valid and understandable concerns with expansion, the supporters overall had a better argument. To start off, trade was a reason that many people supported the expansion of the United States. The supporters claimed that the expansion could lead to a route to Asia and that the United States trade would flourish and the economy would boom and everyone would have their fair share of the success (Doc. F).

One reason why Americans moved westward was to gain opportunities for themselves. The two most promising land claims were Oregon Country and the Louisiana Territory. The idea of starting a new life on the recently claimed land of Oregon Country lands all began when Lewis traveled to the land and discovered that “this passage across the continent as affording immense advantages to the fur trade,” (Doc 9). As a result of Lewis’s expedition some settlers headed to the new land to start trading on this land. Afterward, more Americans flooded this land upon learning that it was, “nice and (it had) streams full of fish,” and that “the valleys are rich and the mountains high

Americans were naturally curious about the land west of them after receiving letters from the emigrants describing “really great land”. “To get free land in the heavenly country where sickness was hardly ever known” also “ The emigrants sent letters back home describing the great land. This is showing that the oregon trail was the Americans right because there was only emigrants there meaning that it was unclaimed, and that the land was great meaning that it had excellent farming, it was free.and there was hardly ever any sicknesses. Another reason that people moved west on the Oregon trail was because of the discovery of gold. “After the discovery of gold in California in 1848, more prospectors set out on the Oregon Trail”.

In the late nineteenth century there were many key technological developments the account for the American industrial growth. Technological developments were not the only thing that contributed to the rise of the American industry: raw materials, labor supply, entrepreneurs, federal government, and and an expanding domestic market. Although there were many contributing factors, technological development was one of the principal sources to industrial growth in the late-nineteenth century. In the late 1800’s Cyrus Field created a transatlantic telegraph cable to Europe and in the next ten year Alexander Graham Bell developed the first telephone taking the communication era to new heights.

(Blakemore, 1) As gold-rushers started flooding the land, there soon wasn’t enough to go around. To solve this, the United States started rewarding people who killed and stole from the natives. “Whites are becoming impressed with the belief that it will be absolutely necessary to exterminate the savages before they can labor much longer in the mines with

Manifest Destiny (first developed in 1845) was the idea that during the nineteenth century, America not only could but would expand from coast to coast. The accomplishment of this idea came with the removal of indians in areas like the great plains, as well as many smaller conflicts in between the indians and the Americans. The Americans attempted to make a compromise with the indians so that they would leave peacefully, examples of this would be the offer to pay the indians in the form of supplies and annuities. The idea was a good one until Americans denied a payment in 1862 because John pope regarded the Indians as “maniacs or wild beasts ” and states that they do not deserve treaties or anything of the sort. Another big factor in the expansion of America from coast to coast was the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, not only with the people that it had brought to the west for the work, but the ease that it had provided for those who wanted to travel from the east to the west and did not have the money nor the time.

People were drawn to the West because it was scene as the last resort to make a living when all else failed in the East. Communication with friends and family who had moved west led these pioneers to believe the journey would be easy and the reward for getting west would be best. And the greatly available land was the strongest pulling factor to people interested in adventuring west. Migration was a personal choice that depended on several key factors, “Age of the head of household; economic status; personal attitudes; and projected costs and benefits of the resettlement.” Most historians agree that the majority of the people who migrated west were middle class and mostly immigrants to the US.

“Once we became an independent people it was as much a law of nature that this [control of all of North America] should become our pretension as that the Mississippi should flow to the sea” –John Quincy Adams (Henretta, p. 384). In the 1840s, Americans had a belief that God destined for them to expand their territory all the way westward to the Pacific Ocean. This idea was called Manifest Destiny. In the nineteenth century, Americans were recognized for coming together and building up one another for one cause: westward expansion.

In the second chapter of Ronald Takaki’s A Different Mirror, he begins to elaborate on the fundamental principles many settlers sought to possess: expansionism. “The whole earth is the Lord’s garden and he hath given it to the sons of men [to] increase and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it. Why then should we stand starving here for the place of habitation…and in the meantime suffer a whole continent as fruitful and convenient for the use of man to lie waste without any improvement”. In fact, these principles justified and empowered many imperialist countries to conquer lands of beneficial resources.

Was American expansion justified during the late 1800’s and early 1900’s? This was a debate that Americans fought over then and still now fight over now. There were two types of people some were for expansion and others were against expansion of the U.S. Both sides of the story will be well explained in this essay. First, this will explain the people for expansion’s side.

During the “Gilded Age” period of American history, development of the Trans-Mississippi west was crucial to fulfilling the American dream of manifest destiny and creating an identity which was distinctly American. Since the west is often associated with rugged pioneers and frontiersmen, there is an overarching idea of hardy American individualism. However, although these settlers were brave and helped to make America into what it is today, they heavily relied on federal support. It would not have been possible for white Americans to settle the Trans-Mississippi west without the US government removing Native Americans from their lands and placing them on reservations, offering land grants and incentives for people to move out west, and the

“Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress”, chapter one of “A People’s History of the United States”, written by professor and historian Howard Zinn, concentrates on a different perspective of major events in American history. It begins with the native Bahamian tribe of Arawaks welcoming the Spanish to their shores with gifts and kindness, only then for the reader to be disturbed by a log from Columbus himself – “They willingly traded everything they owned… They would make fine servants… With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.” (Zinn pg.1) In the work, Zinn continues explaining the unnecessary evils Columbus and his men committed unto the unsuspecting natives.