Question

1. Define the idea of Manifest Destiny in your own words.

Answer 1

1. Define the idea of Manifest Destiny in your own words.
2. What or who did Americans feel gave them the right to expand westward?
3. If someone (say, Native Americans or Mexicans) were in the way of Americans moving westward, what would someone who believes in Manifest Destiny feel empowered to do with these people?
4. How does expanding one's space relate to the concept of Manifest Destiny? How about the opening lines from "America the Beautiful"?
5. How is “Manifest Destiny” and Texas related?
6. How is “Manifest Destiny” and the Mexican War related?
7. What is the Gold Rush? What NFL team is correlated with the Gold Rush?

Answer 2

1. Manifest destiny is the unspoken belief that Americans are meant to expand West and to colonize the land.

2. Americans felt that the Louisiana Purchase granted them the right to expand. Thomas Jefferson also believed that expansion would help fuel the agricultural economy.

3. Westward expansion also states that it is the American destiny to colonize the Western regions with or without consent of the other residents.

4. 'Oh, beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain' once again represents Jefferson's outlook on Manifest destiny.

'For purple mountain majesties, Above the fruited plain!' The "fruits" in this case, probably refer to the abundant resources that can be found on plains; such as buffalo.

5 + 6. Americans still continued to move West although some of the land in the Louisiana purchase still technically belonged to Mexico. Texas was admitted as a slave state in 1846, the same year President Polk waged war on Mexico.

7. The Gold Rush is the term used to describe the rapid flow of prospectors onto some gold discovery sites in California. The main series of events lasted from 1848 to 1849. The NFL team called The 49ers derived their name from the prospectors in the year of 1849.