Barracudas: November 2011

As their final project for our social studies unit on Westward Expansion, the Barracudas wrote an essay about Mainfest Destiny. Here are two of them:

Manifest Destiny
By: C.H.

Manifest Destiny was the spark that inspired the USA to move west and take over the continent from east coast to west. There was many other ways to accomplish spreading across the continent, Manifest Destiny was not necessary for America growth.

In 1811, John Quincy Adams the sixth president of the USA wrote: “The whole continent appears to be destined…to be peopled by one nation. The acquisition of a definite line of boundary to the pacific forms a great epoch in our history” Meaning America should spread throughout the continent from east coast to west.

34 years later John O’Sullivan, an editor of the United States Magazine and Democratic Review wrote: “Away, away with all these cobweb issues of rights of discovery, exploration, settlement, contiguity, etc. The American claim is by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and posses the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federative self-government entrusted to us. It is a right such as that of the tree to the space of air and the earth suitable for the full expansion of its principle and the destiny of growth. It is in our future far more than in the past history of Spanish exploration or French colonial rights, that our true title to be found” meaning to forget the past and move west. The main idea of Manifest Destiny was god had sent a message saying they must move west and take over the entire continent.

After the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, America was almost double the size it was before, that gave Americans a great chance to travel west and restart with a fresh new life. Many people were on a rush to get to the west because you could get lots of land cheap. Starting in 1862 the Homestead Act cut the price in half and gave Americans a very good reason to go west and get low priced land. Traveling west was a dangerous thing, going through thousands of miles of unknown land. Many people risked their lives to travel to the west and some of them like the Donnor Party lost more than half of their people.

In 1948, the California Gold Rush began and when the populous found out everyone wanted to travel to California to make their fortune. It all start May 1848 when a man named Sam Brannan, a cashier in Sutter’s Creek was cleaning the store after it closed and came across a bottle with gold dust in it and ran outside yelling “GOLD, GOLD, GOLD FROM AN AMERICAN RIVER!” the people in the city now had proof of gold and all rushed to San Francisco harbor and the rush for gold was on.

During this wonderful time for Americans they ran into a small but to become large problem with the Indians and they weren’t about to give up their land for some greedy American. To deal with this ‘Indian Problem’ the Americans took four steps; Sovereignty, Assimilation, Removal, and Elimination.

Sovereignty was the American government writing three policies one saying we would not take the Indian’s land, the second saying we would make friends and not fight with them, and the last allowing us to trade with them. The bottom line of this was to make friends with them. But since Americans still wanted the Indian land the policies of sovereignty were revoked.

Second would be assimilation; assimilation was the Americans removing the Indians from their home and making them become part of the American society by making them eat American food, wear American clothes, speak English, follow Christianity, follow American law etc. etc. etc. This would destroy Indian culture, and it utterly failed since the Indians did not want to give up their culture.

Third would be removal; around the early 1830’s President Andrew Jackson decided that a new policy would be necessary to remove the Indians from their land. He supported the Removal Act of 1830 which gave the U.S Government the right to go to the Indians, take them to reservations and take their home land against their will. One of the largest removal events of the Indians was The Trail of Tears; The Trail of Tears was the American army taking the Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, and the Seminole from Georgia to land in Oklahoma. Except there was one little problem the land we put them on was pretty nice land and some whites wanted it so the government took the land then put them somewhere else. This happened repeatedly until we finally put them on to reservations.

The Americans put the Indians on reservations which was land that no one wanted; it was arid, had no plants, and you couldn’t leave. This caused the Indians to rebel and leave the reservations. This is one of reasons that the Indian Wars started.

Last is elimination; the Americans finally came to the conclusion that the only way to get rid of the Indians was to kill all of them. The Indians hated the reservations so they left, and that made the government very unhappy so they hunted them down like dogs. For example at the Wounded Knee Massacre, December 29, 1890 an American group of soldiers surrounded an Indian camp at Wounded Knee and attacked it completely annihilating them and killing their chief Sitting Bull. By 1900 the Indian population went form 6-10 million to less than 250,000 Indians alive.

As you see the Indians were gravely harmed and almost went into extinction. America was stronger than ever but did a horrible thing to get there, Manifest Destiny was not necessary for Americas growth.

Manifest Destiny
By: E.M.

Inspiration is a powerful thing. It makes us do things we never thought we could do and gives us the power to move mountains. Everyone has their own idea of motivation; Manifest Destiny, for many people, was inspiring. Manifest Destiny hurt both sides but, in the process, made the American settlers stronger and was what inspired them.

There is so much land to discover! Spread out! It is our destiny given to us by God! In 1849 Manifest Destiny was big and booming, the Louisiana Purchase had defiantly made its difference, the air was buzzing with inspiration and determination to accept our destiny, no matter what may land in our way. What an adventure! In 1811 John Quincy Adam’s wrote: “The whole continent seems to be destined …to be peopled by one nation. The acquisition of a definite line of boundary to the Pacific forms a great epoch in our history.” In other words we are destined for greatness and to be the rulers of this continent. This gave people courage and strength.

Then they ran into the Native Americans. The Earth probably felt like it had introduced two nuclear bombs, ready to see which one exploded first. Fortunately the Indians welcomed them, thinking they would stay just a little while. It wasn’t long though, before the Indians began to notice things, things that they didn’t like. The Whites were taking land, saying that they owned it. The Native Americans thought the land was shared, not bought or owned. Then they moved on, while some of them stayed behind to protect the land they ‘owned.’ The Whites were ready to fight for their destiny.

Time went on. More and more Whites were coming that said they owned land. Indians were getting impatient. To deal with the new ‘Indian Problem’ the American government decided to make three polices to deal with them. First, The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 proclaimed that the Native Americans would be treated nicely and fairly, their land not taken from them without consent and not invaded or disturbed, unless Congress authorized it. Second, Congress would have the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, Indian tribes and the several states. Third, The Indian Trade and Intercourse Act of 1790 placed all Indians under federal control, including the act of buying and selling land. It also settled the boundaries of Indian Territory, made trading with Indians under federal management and arranged that injuries against Indians was a federal crime. They could do anything they wanted on their land.

That didn’t work so well. Throughout the 19th century, the American legislative and legal system created a series of treaties and laws that applied only to Native Americans. Assimilation was what was expected of the Indians, the goal was to change the Indian ‘threat’ to ‘peaceful’ westward expansion of white settlers and destroy Indian culture, religious and political traditions by assimilating them into the American lifestyle.

Things were becoming less and less friendly between the Native Americans and Whites. Native Americans were very much into nature. They worshipped the Earth, believed in shared land and freedom. Americans thought of themselves as the first explorers and destined for greatness, similarity was what was expected and admired, if you weren’t part of the Christian community and ‘civilized’ you were savage and needed to be changed.

This ‘moving’ of the Indians was where government agents, missionaries and other White people functioning under federal management, would continue to try and ‘civilize’ Indians and prepare them for admittance into the United States. As Whites began to move westward they began to come onto more and more land, most of it was being held by American Indians. So, from 1830 to the rest of the 19th century, the federal government answered with four specific categories to open up Indian land the white settlement: allotment and assimilation, removal and reservations and then finally, elimination. (Not necessarily in that order.)

Americans didn’t like the fact that Native Americans weren’t assimilating. The amount of animosity between the two was building by the second. The Americans were mad, they had tried assimilation, they had tried working things out, it was time to take more drastic measures, they would start with removal. So, by the early 1830’s, about 80,000 members of the Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw and Seminole Nations lived on land that many Americans thought could be more beneficially settled by non-Indians. All five nations had signed the treaties with the federal government that guaranteed their right to live in their ancestral lands and carry on with their systems of tribal government. These tribes refused to give up any of their land or make any new treaties that would give away any of their territory.

President Andrew Jackson decided that a new federal policy would have to be made to in order to separate the Indians from their lands. And so, he supported the Removal Act of 1830 which gave the President the right to make ‘exchanges’ of land by forcibly removing the five tribes from their native lands, against their will. The President justified this to the Indians by saying that they were not losing any land; they were simply exchanging it for new land. The Removal Act was backed up by the 1834 Indian Intercourse Act which moved Indian Country westward above Mississippi and was set aside for all Indians once removed from their ancestral lands. Over the next several decades, more than 40 tribes were pushed into the new Indian Country, the land that now makes up Oklahoma.

From 1830 to 1840, between 70,000 and 100,000 American Indians living in the East were forced to resettle by the US Army. Many others were annihilated before they could be persuaded to leave, an unknown number died from disease, exposure and starvation suffered from the Trail of Tears, as well as on other enforced, long distance marches westward to the new Indian Territory.

The removal policy was working, people were happy, the Indians weren’t happy but Americans were happy, at least for a time. Though as more and more Americans moved westward, they found other Indian tribes living in peace and happiness throughout the continent, because these Indians prevented Americans from settling in many desirable areas, thus, the federal government had to do something about it. Many White settlers didn’t feel safe living around the ‘Indian danger’ and were probably afraid of the different things they did that Americans didn’t do. So the government thought…. and thought and thought. Finally, they came up with the idea of reservations. This idea was designed in the belief that if Indians were put in one specific place ‘reserved’ for them, they could be encouraged to work into a ‘civilized’ and assimilated American way of life. They thought that Native Americans could be encouraged to abandon their Indian ways and live like White men. These reservations goals were to make sure that the remaining tribes be converted to Christianity, taught English and above all else, to be Americanized.

After being relocated, Indians weren’t allowed to leave the reservations; they were subject to arrest if they left without permission and were ruled and governed by men from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. By the end of the 19th Century, 56 out of 162 had been established by executive order. But, after 1919, only an act of Congress could create a reservation. Even after the government’s enthusiasm for reservations the majority of Indians still did not adjust to the reservations, they didn’t even become like Whites a little bit or abandon their culture, and most even fought to protect their traditions and ways of life.

However, the reservation system continued to grow, resulting in nothing but more territory loss. It eventually became clear to even the dullest pencil in the box that not all Indians were going to be confined and the vast majority of them would not be changed or Americanized. By this time many Americans believed that Indians would never be Americanized as long as they celebrated their culture and spiritual beliefs on the reservations they were on. Furthermore, the reservation situation the Indians were in didn’t seem to give them any incentive to improve their situation. The frustration and anger clouded the minds of the government and left only a few choices, all of them extreme, the government chose the one they thought was the best at the time: allotment.

The federal governments’ idea was designed to break tribes apart and not have them so close together on reservations. This new policy was signed into law as the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887. The Dawes Act gave the President the power to give bits and pieces of certain reservation land to individual Indians. Any land that Indians didn’t ‘claim’ would be given back to the federal government to give to Americans or non Indians to farm. Every head of the family would be given a final title to the land and American citizenship after a 25 year period of taking care of and taking responsibility over the land.

At the time where the Dawes Act was being thought over, American policy makers were thinking of a new assimilation policy, something that would make Native Americans let go of their culture and live like White men. Many people thought different things, one of them was that for Indians to truly become Americanized the Indian children would have to be taken from their tribal and spiritual environment and instead, be in an environment that would support American cultural, religious, political and economic traditions, therefore, forcing them into an American way of life. So, in 1879, that the former Indian fighter, Colonel Richard Pratt created the first large Indian ‘boarding school’ in the country. It was called the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, talk about being humble. It was in Pennsylvania and dedicated to totally Americanizing Indian children.

As usual, the Dawes Act and the boarding schools policy were nothing less than catastrophic for American Indians; it ended up in huge land loss for them, making the 138 million acres of land they owned before the allotment idea into 90 million acres of land. It represented a result of 60% land loss after the Dawes Act was repealed. Indians, as expected, lost an enormous amount of their languages and culture and Indian family life was greatly disturbed. All these acts were created around the belief that Indians would transform and assimilate to imitate Whites but, in the end, just managed to make Indians poor, landless people that now depended on the American federal government for basic things.

So, again, the federal government had made a policy and it had failed, some Indian traditions and languages had been lost but ultimately, allotment and assimilation had finally failed. Toward the end of the 19th century a large number of Indians and Indian nations refused to be part of allotment or to live on reservations. Again, the anger and frustration built up in the heads of policy makers and the minds in government, resulting in only a few choices, it wasn’t the most reasonable and it certainly wasn’t the best but the federal government decided to go ahead with the policy they thought would surely work, elimination.

When all their other policies had failed, the federal government thought elimination would reach the goal of ‘Killing the ‘Savage’ Indian.’ It came out of and grew into the idea that Indian resistance was a declaration of war against the US. So it was that, in the late 1800s the US Army declared war upon several tribes and, with the idea of elimination, to annihilate any resisters and to completely control any survivors. The vast majority of the fighting happened from 1866 to 1891 and the US Army was involved in 1,470 official actions against Indians. In total, 948 soldiers were killed and another 1,058 were wounded while 4, 371 Indians were killed and another 1,279 were wounded. In 1890 when the federal ‘head count’ included American Indians for the first time less than 250,000 identified themselves as American Indians.

At the turn of the century, the first era of federal Indian policies came to a dramatic and sad end. The Indian population had 6-10 million people at the time of the US’s birth and only 250,000 people remained in 1900 and the majority of Indian tribes were at the brink of extinction. Most surviving Indians were on allotted lands or reservations and, once again, were expected to become civilized Americans. From the 1800s forward the Indians depended on the federal government for basic things. Between 1887 and 1934, Indian land went from 138 million acres of land to 48 million, 20 million of which were parched and arid or semi arid.

After over 100 years of these policies, treaties and agreements, fights and small skirmishes, the cultural and spiritual customs and traditions of many Indian nations still survived to live today. By the end of the 19th century, American Indians across the country refused to be like Americans, assimilate into the White life style, inherit the traits of Americans or be hurt by their historical experiences with the federal government. This survival style and life, with the movement of the 20th century, helped heal and help many Indian nations as they continued to fight assimilation and to celebrating their own spiritual, economical, cultural and political traditions that they fought so long to keep.

Inspiration is a powerful thing. It makes us do things we never thought we could do before. Manifest Destiny, for many people, was motivation, power and strength. Manifest Destiny hurt both sides but, in the process, made Whites stronger and what was inspired them.