Manifest Destiny is what we call the United State's desire to expand the country from the Atlantic Coast to the Pacific coast. This was an effort to hold as much land as possible, and also a way to have a presence (for future trade) on both oceans. It essentially gives us a chance to be easily connected to the European countries, as well as the Asian countries.
Sounds like a great thing, right? There's a few questions we need to ponder.
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1. Who is this going to be great for?
2. Who is already in the land that the U.S. wants to control and what will happen to them?
3. Who is going to the make big money from this?
4. When everyone and everything is considered, what is and for whom is the upside of Manifest Destiny and what is and for whom is the downside of Manifest Destiny?
Here's a pretty solid explanation of Manifest Destiny from Hip Hughes History. He's pretty concise in what he says, but he explains what's going on pretty well.
So what does it all mean? It means that we need to understand some historical context. What does the country have to gain by expanding coast to coast? Who will this affect and will those affects be positive, negative, or both?
Your job is to answer the following question in Google Classroom:
Everything has a cost. The cost may be worth the gain, but it costs something. What did the expansion of the United States cost?