Foreign Policy of United States Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Foreign Policy of United States - Essay Example During this time, among other things was the settling of the West and the Indian Wars. The United States signed the Treaty of Guadalupe de Hidalgo in 1848 which gave the Southwestern lands to the United States. This began the migration west and the Indian Wars began. This time was marked by much sadness and death. Most of the western lands belonged to different Indian tribes. All of those tribes depended on their hunting grounds to survive. There was much to lose in the loss of their lands. Life would disappear as they knew it. As the white man continued to move into the area, with them came buffalo hunters and white ranchers. These people killed buffalo by the millions just to get their pelts and trampled the land. The people began to starve and there was no way to feed the women and children of the tribes. The government established treaties with most of the tribes giving them rations of food and clothing to allow pioneers to pass through their lands. Most of these pioneers came with the thoughts that the only good Indian is a dead Indian. The Indians land was taken from them and they continued to be forced onto to reservations that were on land that was mostly worthless. They could not hunt and the land would not support stock or farming. Even those that fought back like Sitting Bull and Red Cloud were eventually defeated. The Trail of Tears which was the removal of five Tribes from Southeast Oklahoma Cherokees were marched to a reservation. The march killed most of the old people and many of the women and children. It was a loss that the Cherokee and most of the white people of today will never let be forgotten but was only one example of the many cruelties that these People withstood. The Battle at Wounded Knee is another. In this case essentially a whole tribe was shot dead in camp. It is hard to see it as a Battle, as it seems it was pretty one sided. 1914-1919 Woodrow Wilson who was known as the President of the people was President at this time. He was the idealistic President and up until the time we entered World War I, the country was isolationist in values. Wilson changed many things in this country during that time. He believed that government should be for the common people and during his first term he helped farmers with the Federal Farm Loan Act and the Warehouse Act. The Farm Loan Act allowed low interest loans available to farmers and the Warehouse Act authorized them to have security loans on staple crops. Social welfare programs were started. Workman's compensation began to protect workers and the Child Labor Act began. The Child Labor Act only allowed products produced by children 14 or older to be sold. He followed that with the Adamson Act which only allowed children to work an 8 hour day. The Underwood Act established the first income tax and that was felled by the Federal Reserve Act. All of these things happened because of Wilson's idealist attitude (Ferrell, 2001). Unfortunately the idealistic attitude that helped the country so much also led to it entering World War I. Some say that Wilson had it in mind from the very beginning to enter the war and others say it was because of his pride (Hoover, 2009). We will probably never know the answer to that. Whatever