What Is The Impact Of Manifest Destiny

The Proclamation of 1763 stated that British colonists must not expand from the colonies westward past the Appalachian mountains. Intending to curb spending after the war and save themselves from another bloody conflict with the French and/or the Indians again, the English nationals issues this decree straight from the throne. This, as was going to be the theme for the next few decades, did not sit well with the colonial Americans. They, drifting further and further from being under the relentless sun of the British Empire, were not keen on the idea of being told what to do from a force that couldn’t control them anyways.

The Americans felt that it was their destiny… manifested to have the right to this land westward. Had they not fought on and bloodied their own soil in order to help protect England. One of the impacts of this resentment was the birth of the idea of Manifest Destiny. It essentially entails the early Americans feeling entitled to expanding west because…. However, Manifest Destiny didn’t soley impact the colonists, but more profoundly the Native Americans who they were manifesting destiny all over. As the Americans pushed westward towards profit and expansion, they pushed many Indians from their homes forcefully. Thousands upon thousands were displaced in what would eventually come to be known as the Trail of Tears. However, that wouldn’t happen for years.
These events also forever altered the French presence in America, forcing her to cede lands to the French and Spanish.
Instead of control, she had spawned small yet significant minorities in areas like New Orleans and Montreal, that would shape culture and politics for years to come. However, France’s decline as a world power meant more than just that, it meant that the impacts would ripple throughout Europe as well as the colonies. In just a few short decades, internal strife and discord would tear the nation
apart.

Having a much more immediate impact, the Proclamation of 1763 also spawned resentment towards the English crown and Parliament. They weren’t there to see the battles or endure the hardships, so why should they have all of the decision making power? These were the thoughts of the colonists. The proclamation was the first step, of many, that marched the New World into the American Revolution. It started with acts of England trying to control a colony that she barely had a grasp on. Of its own nature, America was chock full of dissenters and fighters who wanted what was best for them; economically, socially, religiously… and at this point, they had come to realize that England was not thinking the same thing. At some point, a divide had split the two permanently, and what was best for England was no longer what was best for America and her citizens.