Preview

Summary Of John Gast's Manifest Destiny

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
4700 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Summary Of John Gast's Manifest Destiny
Manifest Destiny

This painting (1872) by John Gast called American Progress, is an allegorical representation of the modernization of the new west. Here Columbia, intended as a personification of the United States, leads civilization westward with American settlers, stringing telegraph wire as she travels; she holds a school book. The different economic activities of the pioneers are highlighted and, especially, the changing forms of transportation. The Native Americans and wild animals flee.
Events leading to the US Civil War
Northwest Ordinance
Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions
Missouri Compromise
Tariff of 1828
Nullification Crisis
Nat Turner's slave rebellion
The Amistad
Texas Annexation
Mexican–American War
Wilmot Proviso
…show more content…
When the British refused the offer, American expansionists responded with slogans such as "The Whole of Oregon or None!" and "Fifty-Four Forty or Fight!", referring to the northern border of the region. (The latter slogan is often mistakenly described as having been a part of the 1844 presidential campaign.) When Polk moved to terminate the joint occupation agreement, the British finally agreed to divide the region along the 49th parallel in early 1846, keeping the lower Columbia basin as part of the United States, and the dispute was settled by the Oregon Treaty of 1846, which the administration was able to sell to congress because Mexico had declared war beginning the Mexican-American war, and the president and others argued it would be foolish to also fight the British …show more content…
It is manifest destiny." On the other hand, former President Grover Cleveland, a Democrat who had blocked the annexation of Hawaii during his administration, wrote that McKinley's annexation of the territory was a "perversion of our national destiny." Historians continued that debate; some have interpreted the overseas expansion of the 1890s of other Pacific island groups as an extension of Manifest Destiny across the Pacific Ocean. Others have regarded it as the antithesis of Manifest Destiny

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Oregon Country - Northwestern territory in dispute between Britain and the US, subject of "Manifest Destiny" rhetoric in 1844…

    • 786 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Polk became one of the most aggressive and productive men to hold the U.S presidency. During his reign, a major event in his administration was the Mexican war that fit neatly with his expansionist policies. He was considered the last strong pre-Civil war president. Polk is widely noted for his successes in the foreign policy. Furthermore, he threatened Britain with war over an issue, in which the US owned the Oregon Country, after backing away over ownership of the Oregon region with Britain. Hence, during his tenure, the Oregon issue was solved between the US and Britain in which both states agreed to do partitioning of the Pacific Northwest at the 49th parallel. Eventually, the territory of the US extended to the Pacific Ocean.…

    • 1271 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Manifest Destiny Summary

    • 478 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Newspaper editor John L. O'Sullivan first used the term manifest destiny in an 1845 article to describe the inevitability surrounding the annexation of Texas. Since then it has come to describe the belief among American settlers and political leaders that it was their God-given right and duty to expand U.S. territory, customs, and institutions throughout North America from coast to coast. The concept gained traction during the nineteenth century as immigration and land acquisitions, including the Louisiana Purchase (1803), drastically increased the feasibility and pace of westward expansion.…

    • 478 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Wanted to annex Hawaii, although opposed by queen, U.S. suceeded by Cleveland took office and said not until he was out of office could annexation occur.…

    • 495 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Apush quiz let

    • 689 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Why did President Cleveland not want to annex Hawaii? Grover Cleveland, an anti-imperialist, opposed annexation as an infringement upon a soverign nation and tried to restore the Queen (Liliuokalani). …

    • 689 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The American people having derived their origin from many other nations, and the Declaration of National Independence being entirely based on the great principle of human equality, these facts demonstrates at once our disconnected position as regards any other nation; that we have, in reality, but little connection with the past history of any of them, and still less with all antiquity, its glories, or its crimes. On the contrary or national birth was the beginning of a new history, the formation and progress of an untried political system, which separates us from the past and connects us with the future only; And so far as Regard the entire development of the natural rights of man, in moral, political, and national life, we may confidently assume that our country is destined to be the great nation of futurity.…

    • 786 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In John Gast’s painting labeled “American Progress”, there are many dominant societal forces that could be depicted through his illustration. One well-known depiction that has been made after closely examining the painting is that the woman in the picture resembles an angel of some kind or even the prominent American symbol ‘Lady Liberty’. As she hovers in the air, she pulls a cable line that is connected with the posts beneath her which is connected to American society almost as stringing it behind her as she flies to new land in the west. This represents an “angel” spreading America’s Manifest Destiny one could say from the east to the west coast during this time period. Gorski uses the word “annexed” when describing what the United States did to Texas during this Civil War era in which he states that the U.S. “ ‘annexed’ the Republic of Texas,…

    • 467 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The idea of Manifest Destiny ran through American history since the 19th century. America began to expand through the continent, because it was their destiny to expand. America wanted to become bigger and greater. Manifest Destiny not only included the idea of being destined to expand America, but it also included the idea of expanding America for economic opportunity and for the progress of Liberty. America went straight for Manifest Destiny to better its economy and strength. Imperialism degrades other nations making them oppressed by their ruling countries, however the United States did try to expand their colony into the pacific ocean for the ideology of Manifest Destiny by having people from America going to other countries, building canals in other provinces and creating companies in China to expand the American economy.…

    • 586 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Blue Planet

    • 3501 Words
    • 15 Pages

    Hawaii had been used as a rest stop for shippers and sailors in the early nineteenth century. Hawaii became a very important place for sugar production. America came to regard Hawaii as part of the country and warned others in the 1840s to stay away. In 1887 an agreement was made for a free naval base to be at Hawaii (Pearl Harbor). Disease had cut down the Hawaiian population down to 1/6 of what it was when Europeans first made contact. Americans brought in large amounts of Asian laborers to work the sugarcane fields and mills. The McKinley Tariff of 1890 blocked the Hawaiian product. The Queen denied the right to annex Hawaii so whites revolted with the aid of the American military in 1893. A treaty of annexation was proposed but a new president came into office (Cleveland) and withdrew because he felt Hawaii was wronged.…

    • 3501 Words
    • 15 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    At the time of the mid- 1800's most Americans thought that it was destiny for the United States to stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. There were many reasons why people wanted to move from the Atlantic to the Pacific. A few reasons were free farmland was offered to people out west. As well as the growing population along the Atlantic, gold, and other discoveries found out west. Many people thought that the manifest destiny was predictable and was just a matter of time before it happened.…

    • 437 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Oregon Treaty- Oregon country was annexed into the united states in 1846 due to the efforts of president James K. Polk. With Polk’s focus on United States expansionism led to the renegotiation of the oregon territories into united states ownership in the name of manifest destiny. The cut off of the territory was on the 49th parallel leaving canada to take the territory to the north from the British eventually and connecting the two american coasts.…

    • 1092 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One of the territories he considered buying were the Hawaiian Islands. During the early 1800's, missionaries from the United States went to Hawaii to try to convert people to Christianity. Their descendents started sugar plantations. The planters conquered Hawaii's financial system by the late 1800's. The Queen thought that the planters had too much authority. So, she thought that she should try to limit their power. Meanwhile, in the United States, the trade laws were changed to support sugar grown completely in American states. The American planters that lived in Hawaii were upset that they had changed the law not to their advantage. In 1893 the planters rebelled. They overthrew Queen Liliuokalani and arranged their own regime. After that, they asked the States to annex them into the US. When the president at the time, which was President Benjamin Harrison, heard the planters demand he approved and sent the treaty to the Senate. But Grover Cleveland became the president before the Senate could act on the treaty. He withdrew the treaty because he thought…

    • 941 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Suffrage

    • 757 Words
    • 4 Pages

    True/False The Oregon question was finally settled by Britain surrendering claims below the 54th parallel.…

    • 757 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    At Marian Goodman, walking from the north room of the gallery to the south room proved to be just as effective. The drawings are a linear, cinematic voyage, which recall the ‘promotional’ paintings of the 19th-century artist Albert Bierstadt, who created his monumental oils partly as a paean to the untouched beauty of the American West, but also to encourage pioneers to fulfil America’s Manifest Destiny. Dean is more…

    • 930 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Art and Architecture

    • 16688 Words
    • 67 Pages

    Two opposite forces have coexisted in American art since the establishment of the first colonies. On the one hand, American artists have been aware of their European cultural heritage and of continuing innovation in Europe; on the other hand, they have had to adapt European forms to the exigencies of their native situation. This interaction between rival forces is hardly unique to American art--all art grows within a tradition--but what distinguishes the American experience is the ambivalent attitudes brought to that tradition. To many of the early settlers, the ambivalence was clear, since so many of them were religious and political exiles. Yet despite the pressures of conscience and conviction, the European traditions persisted in memory, so that the first American art and architecture were adaptations of European styles and modes, modified to suit the colonists' urgent needs in a new and often hostile world. The conflict, aroused by traditions at once alienating and indispensable, has served as the underlying dynamic for the rise and progress of art and architecture in the United States.…

    • 16688 Words
    • 67 Pages
    Better Essays