Effects Of The Westward Expansion

Their land had been taken over, and this is still happening today. This a struggle of loss in power that the Natives once had, but had to sit and watch it be taken from

White man promised to keep them well supplied with everything necessary to comfortable living. But they didn't kept their promise. This explains that white man did what they liked with Indians and lived where they liked and moved the Indians. So basically they made the Indians believe them and moved them to west and never did as they said they well. However, white man's idea was to remove the Indians and take over their land.

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

The whites forgot to fulfill their ends of the deal with the Native Americans, but if the whites asked the Native Americans for help they never

“Then later you tried to divide our land up and give us little pieces, you tried to make us have last names and marriage certificates, like we were white people,” (Nerburn 272). Undoubtedly, the U.S. was trying to change the way the Natives lived and

Native Americans were forced out of their homeland or otherwise beaten, killed, or thrown in jail for not obeying the order of the law. The Native Americans were forced to march a dangerous trail over 1,000 miles, it’s believed, to the land the US government had made them relocate to. The trail gets its name because many natives died from starvation, diseases, and poor conditions along the journey on the trail. Even though it had a negative impact on Native tribes it had a neutral impact on American expansion. The reason for this is because yes America got more land but it created tension and conflict with Native American tribes that had a major potential of turning violent.

The relocation of the Native Americans also called the Indian Removal act was signed by Andrew Jackson. He believed that this act protected the Natives and also protected their culture from the white settlers, “Surrounded by the whites with their arts of civilization, which, by destroying the resources of the savage, doom him to weakness and decay, the fate of the Mohegan, the Narragiansett, and the Delaware is fast overtaking the Choctaw, the Cherokee, and the Creek. That this fate surely awaits them if they remain within the limits of the states does not admit of a doubt.” (Andrew Jackson, page 282). He also made the relocation voluntary for the Natives as it was unjust for them to leave their land which had their ancestral values, “This emigration should be voluntary, for it would be as cruel as unjust to compel the aborigines to abandon the graves of their fathers and seek a home in a distant land.”

The natives were very cold and they were hungry; thousands of people died along the way. The constitution which was written in 1787, it states in the 5th amendment that is also part of the Bill of Rights, “ nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation”. No one can use or take someone 's property without the permission. The United States went against their own rights, they took away property from the natives, because they needed to expand, without even conversing with them.

Could you imagine the government coming to your family 's property you have had for years and taking it and making everyone walk a 1000 miles? Well thats is what happened to the Native Americans. They were drove from there property beaten and killed. Then made them walk over a 1000 miles to their new place that was awful. There was no food or water or anything while the government took there land and made fun of them.

Trail of Tears The name of the Trail of Tears came from a Cherokee phrase that meant “the place where they cried.” In my opinion it was not correct from the European colonists to evict all the indigenous Americans, they had been living there for thousand of years and only they had right to live there. The people were treated with disrespect, and one of the only reasons this happened was because the government decided that land, gold and other finite resources were more important than lives of Indians.

When the Europeans began colonizing the New World, they had a problematic relationship with the Native Americans. The Europeans sought to control a land that the Natives inhabited all their lives. They came and decided to take whatever they wanted regardless of how it affected the Native Americans. They legislated several laws, such as the Indian Removal Act, to establish their authority. The Indian Removal Act had a negative impact on the Native Americans because they were driven away from their ancestral homes, forced to adopt a different lifestyle, and their journey westwards caused the deaths of many Native Americans.

The Cherokee had been living on the land far longer than the settlers had arrived. They built their own land and made a whole society. The Cherokee were healthy and they had all the buffalo they needed and they had herbs. Only a handful of the Cherokee leaders signed the treaty and the Supreme Court even said they could stay. It is wrong to push people out of their own home when they did nothing wrong.

The government might have a different perspective and vantage point. They viewed a group of people that they couldn’t control, therefore, they tore the Native Americans down slowly. They probably felt like this benefited the Native American people because they’ll be more like them. They wanted the Indians to be more modernized and like other citizens. However, this wasn’t a wise or fair way to do this.

Throughout the 19th century Native Americans were treated far less than respectful by the United States’ government. This was the time when the United States wanted to expand and grow rapidly as a land, and to achieve this goal, the Native Americans were “pushed” westward. It was a memorable and tricky time in the Natives’ history, and the US government made many treatments with the Native Americans, making big changes on the Indian nation. Native Americans wanted to live peacefully with the white men, but the result of treatments and agreements was not quite peaceful. This precedent of mistreatment of minorities began with Andrew Jackson’s indian removal policies to the tribes of Oklahoma (specifically the Cherokee indians) in 1829 because of the lack of respect given to the indians during the removal laws.

The lands that the Native Americans were previously calling their homelands were immediately sold and used for their resources (timber, mining, gold etc.) I like the quote under the Treaty Timeline portion that highlights this best as quoted by Ohiyesa, “The greatest object of their lives seems to be to acquire possessions-to be rich. They desire to possess the whole world” (Why Treaties Matter, How Treaties Changed Lands and Lifeways) I think that this another example of how we have been socialized to believe the Eurocentric perspective that is taught in textbooks.