How Did Native Americans Affect Westward Expansion

It was our Manifest Destiny to expand our empire. In the United States, settlers across the board believed they were destined to expand across North America from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Thomas Jefferson, our third president, predicted that the nation’s future depended on its westward expansion. According to the online OpenStax textbook, section 11.1, subsection: Lewis and Clark, it states, “Many Americans also dreamed of finding a Northwest Passage and opening the Pacific to American commerce and influence, including President Thomas Jefferson. In April 1803, Jefferson achieved his goal of purchasing the Louisiana Territory from France, effectively doubling the size of the United States. The purchase was made possible due to events
The first true abuse and impact the Native Americans had were when the Spanish Missions on the coast of California would enraptured the Natives. They would be forced into Christianity or death would be upon them off they opposed. The Natives had no other options but to be forced in Christianity. With California in the pursuit of statesmanship, the indians had to be relocated. Even Peter Hardeman Burnett, the first governor of California, openly admitted to his contempt for the native population and demanded that the Native American population be removed or extinct. In our Openstax US history book, in section 17.4, subsection: claiming land, relocating landowners , it says “On the eve of westward expansion, as many as 250,000 Indians, representing a variety of tribes, populated the Great Plains. Previous wars against these tribes in the early nineteenth century, as well as the failure of earlier treaties, had led to a general policy of the forcible removal of many tribes in the eastern United States. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 resulted in the infamous ‘Trail of Tears’.” In fact, under his leadership, many white settlers were paid bounties in exchange for Indian scalps. As a result, a bounty hunt of sorts had begun. White settlers were now determined to hunt down and kill Native Americans to cash in on their rewards. This hunt was the forefront of white society for some time until the Native American population was almost completely decimated in 1890. According to our OpenStax online textbook, section 17.4, subsection: American Indian Submission states that, “...neither the Sioux nor any other Plains tribe followed this battle with any other armed encounter. Rather, they either returned to tribal life or fled out of fear of remaining troops, until the U.S. Army arrived in greater