American Leaders In The 19th Century

According to John O’Sullivan, an editor of United States Magazine and Democratic Review, Manifest Destiny means that “that our country is destined to be the great nation of futurity.” What does Manifest Destiny mean? American leaders in the nineteenth century believed that it was America’s destiny to expand the nation’s civilization and spread the idea of democracy across the continent. The United States was growing in numbers and economically as a nation. As the colonies are growing, land expansion was much needed. More land meant more income opportunities. So America wanted to expand their nation more western towards the pacific coast. The white, Protestant American in the mid-nineteenth century defined this progress as a mission to extend their limitations of freedom by opposing their beliefs of self-government and Protestantism. There were certain kinds of people that America saw as being incapable of self-government so they excluded them, such as the Native Americans, immigrants from Mexico, and immigrants from Chia. America had an issue with the Native Americans because it was trying to expand as a nation, but the Native Americans owned the land it wanted. America fixed this problem by placing the Indian Removal Act upon the Native Americans in 1830 forcing them to move out of their homelands so that
America can poses the land for themselves. The Indians journey to new inhabitations is known as The Trail of Tears. America treated immigrants from Mexico the same as they treated the Native Americans.
Americans started to inhabit on the Mexican territory and felt like they were a better fit to govern the land instead of the Mexicans. This interaction between the Americans and the Mexicans on land possession lead to the Mexican-American War, which lasted from 1835-1845. In the end America, won which allowed them to have ownership of New Mexico and California. This war inspired many painters to paint pictures to portray the events that happened. Carl Nebel was one of these painters who painted The Battle of Monterrey, which showed American troops marching on
Monterry. The Chinese heard about the Gold Rush in California so many people from China immigrated there. “In 1849, there were only 54 Chinese immigrants in California, but by 1876, there were 116,000.” “ America did not like this because they feared this rapid growth of immigrations would take away their job opportunities. The governor of California eventually passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 that forbid any person of Chinese descent from becoming an American citizen in hopes to prohibit future Chinese immigration. A Chinaman by the name of Norman Assing wrote a letter to the governor concerning his issues with this act. In his letter he writes, “You argue that this is a republic of a particular race… This proposition is false in the extreme… The declaration of your independence, and all the acts of your government, your people, and your history, are against you….” Over all, America’s ideal of Manifest Destiny was to become the greatest nation it can be. In order to do this, America had to do whatever it could to accomplish this mission. The main thing America had to do was expand its land territories. In order to do so, America had to remove the original owners, such as the Native Americans and Mexicans through force. A famous painter by the name of Frances Flora Bond Palmer painted the progress of Manifest Destiny. The painting shows a town growing and expanding economically while the Native Americans are looking upon the town.