Westward Movement: Module 7

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After hearing the podcast posted by Professor Powell I would like to answer the question of whether or not I think that he is right in some of the points that he made in his podcast. Overall, I think that Professor Powell is right on all counts of his podcast from the overconsumption of the American people (something that we see still to this day) to the retreat of the Indians as the Anglo-Americans moved westward. I would mostly like to focus on two of the points that he made in his podcast, one being the greed of the American people with their move westward and the ideology of African-Americans and Native Americans at that time.

In Professor’s Podcast he compares the American people to the borgs from Star Trek because they were “‘insatiable’ and described as being the ‘ultimate consumer’” (Powell). An ideology that helped this portrayal of the American people was the Manifest Destiny. The Manifest Destiny was, “a phrase used by leaders and politicians in the 1840s to explain continental expansion by the United States” (Prelude to War). Everyone wanted the land that could be available to them if only they won the Mexican War. According to Zinn, “The Whig Party was presumably against the war in Mexico, but it was not against expansion” (Zinn 153). One author even stated, “In this age of annexation, why not extend the ‘area of freedom’ by the annexation of California?” (Foner 400). America wanted nothing more than to have California in the Union. To wage war on a neighboring country for the sole purpose of getting its land was what the Mexican War was all about.

Professor also comments on the different status of Africans and Indians in the American ideology. He states that Jefferson believed that Indians were only a, “Not a difference of nature but a difference of circumstances” (Powell). On the other hand Jefferson states, “The improvement of the black in body and mind when they have mixed with whites proves that their inferior is not an effect of merely their condition in life” (Powell) which is an opposite view to the Indians as stated above. The expansion was, “proof of the innate superiority of the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ race” (Foner 406). Overall, whites believed that they were above all but they felt that Indians were closer to being white than African-American. After Texas was annexed, “the entrance of free blacks into the state was prohibited altogether” (Foner 407). This shows that the American people believed that Indians could become “white” easier than an African-American.

In conclusion, the westward movement of America shows the ugliness that is America. Greed, hatred and prejudice fueled the expansion the America toward California. It is a sad truth that can be seen even to this day all over the country. Indians are still trying to assimilate into the American way of life and African-Americans still struggle to find their niche in this country.

Works Cited
Foner, Eric. Give Me Liberty!: An American History. Vol. 1. New York: Norton & Company, 2006. 2 vols.

"Prelude to War". PBS. July 30, 2009 http://www.pbs.org/kera/usmexicanwar/prelude/md_introduction.html.


Powell, Matthew. Westward Movement. 2009.

Zinn, Howard. A People's History of the United States. New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc, 2003.

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