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Question

An important historian has suggested that the Lewis and Clark expedition showed America the right way to "go west" and America failed to follow the example. Write a well-organized response to that argument either disagreeing or agreeing with it. What would have been the right or just way to settle the West? Give at least 2 historical examples to support your answer. Key ideas to consider: The US-Mexico War and the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, Oregon and Texas annexation, the Mormon migration, the reform movements of the 1840s and 1850s, Native Americans, immigration to the US by people from Europe, and the idea of manifest destiny

Answer 1

Hi Robert. I believe your instructor is asking you to recognize that the Lewis and Clark expedition approached their journey as an opportunity to build relationships with First Nations peoples, with a goal of learning rather than exploiting. The later expansion efforts approached the west as something to be acquired with little regard to the interests of those who had been there long before European colonization. The notion of manifest destiny is important here - the general ideology that America was special, and therefore it was a given that it could and should take what it wanted. This created intense conflicts that caused much suffering across the continent.