16 Conquering a Continent

1854–1890

The Civil War is a pivot point in American history, but the focused attention it receives sometimes obscures significant continuities. Such is the case with Americans’ drive to expand the bounds of their country. The earlier period of Manifest Destiny in the 1840s led to the Mexican War and the political crises over the extension of slavery that precipitated the Civil War. In the postwar years, however, the itch to move was no less powerful a motive than it had been decades earlier. This continuing historical pattern of expansion shaped the latter decades of the nineteenth century. Railroads became the means of realizing continental dreams. The political muscle required to push them west both reflected the economic goals of the Republican Party and jeopardized the lives of Native Americans whose territorial claims became obstacles to industrialists’ expansionist efforts. Western boosters convinced others that the cost to American Indians served the broader aims of integrating the West into the national economy, tapping the vast mineral, timber, and animal resources the continent offered. The costs were indeed high, and not only to Native Americans. Chinese laborers were hired to lay the tracks for railroads that hauled away the West’s natural resources and changed its geography forever.