Expansion After the Civil War Essay

Post Civil War Expansion

The American expansion from the post-Civil War years to the turn of the 20th century was a form of imperialism. Essentially, the U.S. simply took over a number of areas and groups of people, without any real regard for them or true need for the land. It was not an expansion that was agreed-upon and equal, but rather something that required one group of people to come in and take what belonged to someone else, for their own material gain. One of the main examples of this was the Native American policy, as the settlers who come to the United States took over more land and pushed the Native Americans onto reservations where they had little space and no room to expand. All they had and worked for was essentially taken from them, not because it was really needed, but because the people who came to America were capable of taking the land and they decided they wanted it. They saw that they could gain something materially, and so they determined that they wanted that gain. What would be lost by those they were taking from was a non-issue, and not a concern.The Native Americans got the short end of the deal, but they were not the only ones who struggled after the Civil War. Hawaii was also seeing turmoil. The native Hawaiian people were largely invaded by others, and much of what they held dear in their culture was pushed aside. Hawaii ended up becoming one of the 50 states, and lost a great deal of the anonymity it had enjoyed. Additionally, the language was changed, and English was much more widely spoken. There are still native Hawaiians who speak the language and live in more traditional ways, but there are also a number of other people who live in Hawaii even though they were not native to the island and did not have any ties to it. The expansion of settlers and other people into Hawaii and into the land areas of Native Americans was imperialism at its most severe and significant, as it changed the entire landscape.

Another example of imperialism was….....