In this chapter, nativism plays a huge part in all these three sections the chapter goes over. The meaning of nativism is the sense of pride and social conflict that they had between these new immigrants coming over from Europe. The ego of the "natives" or the pilgrims I should say that looked over the land first looked down upon immigrants and treat them lowly which forced them to work minimum wage and start from the lowest class. I can only imagine it was hard for immigrants to find stable jobs to provide for themselves along with their family. Thinking that life would get easier in America also played to the American Dream, thinking life socially, economically, and even religiously would be easier than being in Europe.
During the 1840's the majority of the immigrants that flew to America were the Germans and Irish. What intrigued me the most was the hostile competition for the working fields. The Irish were hostile towards blacks and abolitionists for their free labor work force and vice-versa for the blacks towards the Irish for their desperation for work and cheap minimum wage. It was even surprising to hear that religion also played a part of the desperation for the work force. Anti-Catholicism started spreading due to the fear of American-Protestants looking for cheap labor.
One last section I wanted to mention was the Manifest Destiny. The destiny to expand westward all the way to excess. Manifest is to set it and to make it real. It was the dream and goal to expand America to find more gold, land, agriculture, raise up economical factors and have everyone take apart of this goal. Immigrants, natives, etc. The goal was to help move west ward.
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