Free Custom «Manifest Destiny» Essay Paper

The concept of Manifest Destiny, aimed to expand white Americans to the west, first emerged from the white traders in the native’s lands where they discovered that the land was fertile for farming and animal rearing. This made the people of America to start the expansion westward as the news about Manifest Destiny reached them. The early missionaries also trekked these lands creating their missions and trying to spread the Gospel.

They had discovered land that could flourish the agriculture, and thus spreading the news to new Americans about the land that would be freely provided for them to occupy due to their ever increasing population. The American government had set out an expedition to explore the lands in the west, as the Manifest Destiny had created a positive impression; there was panic among the Americans due to the economic disorder, and to the lack for suitable and cheap lands for agriculture in the eastern part. The missionaries claimed that the land fertility was waiting for exploitation and this led to massive expeditions to the west, which came to be known as the great migration (Keene, Cornell, & .O'Donnell, 2010).

 

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The migration and settlement in the west by the different people had some similarities. The black American life was slowly changing as many slaves were being freed and hired by land owners for wages. Jewish settlers’ life was also changed significantly as they started to trade abandoning their homesteader agricultural habits, and dispersing their culture to the west of America. The Chinese also migrated to the west side of America and started to own businesses and develop Chinese culture (Keene, Cornell, & .O'Donnell, 2010).These groups had the similarity abandoning their earlier life style and adopting new way of living, although they came from different cultural diversities they worked together for the unified America. The migration of other people in the west had affected the perspective of the pioneers as competition became immense among the different people, and the use of slavery was abolished.

The promising Manifest Destiny drew many people to migrate to the west, where an overland trail was about 2000 thousand miles. It consisted of more than one hundred wagons which paved the way for subsequent migration to the west in the next years as it became the route connecting the west and the east. The way took more than 6 months on land to the western territory, and this was a burden to women as there were no discussions before the continuation of the journey.

Many women had opposed this migration due to the trying circumstances, which they encountered in the expedition that had eliminated the cheerfulness of women. Many women were supposed to take the traditional man’s jobs, they helped in repairing wagons and aided in the construction of bridges, though they had to carry on with their traditional roles of mothers and wives (Keene, Cornell, & .O'Donnell, 2010).

The journey to the west had negative effects, as it doubled the roles and workload for women. The pioneering spirit impacted the perception of freedom for both genders as women could play the role of men while men played the independent role of decision makers. Women objected the idea of moving west but they were overruled the males and the journey had to commence.