美国西进运动的影响 英文的
美国西进运动的影响 英文的
美国西进运动的影响 英文
I Introduction
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American Westward Movement,movement of people from the settled regions of the United States to lands farther west.Between the early 17th and late 19th centuries,Anglo-American peoples and their societies expanded from the Atlantic Coast to the Pacific Coast.This westward movement,across what was often called the American frontier,was of enormous significance.By expanding the nation’s borders to include more than three million square miles,the United States became one of the most powerful nations of the 20th century.However,this expansion also resulted in great suffering,destruction,and cultural loss for the Native Americans of North America.
This expansion also meant that much of North America was dominated by English institutions and ways of life,instead of Spanish or French ones.The Spanish and French were also exploring and settling North America in the sixteenth,seventeenth,and eighteenth centuries.For good or ill,the westward movement of these Anglo-American settlers was one of the most influential forces to shape North American history.
II Early Settlement and Growth
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A Contest of Empires
Before Anglo-American westward expansion,North America had been shaped by many other forces and cultures.There were hundreds of Native American tribes who had been living on the continent for thousands of years before any Europeans arrived.Many of these tribes disappeared because of the assault of European exploration and settlement.
The Spanish,who explored the Southwest and Southeast beginning in the 1540s,founded the earliest European settlements.They planted their first colonies at Saint Augustine in Florida in 1565 and in the upper Río Grande Valley of New Mexico between 1598 and 1610.By the time of the American Revolution (1775-1783),the Spanish had established settlements from the south Atlantic and Gulf coasts,through Texas and the Southwest,and up the Pacific coast as far north as San Francisco,which was founded in 1776.