While Europeans were dividing up much of the rest of the world, The imperial expansion westward across North America held the attention on many U.S. citizens. Americans used the period of relative peace between their Civil War and the Spanish American war to subdue and confine American Indians.
It seems westward expansion has had a strong effect on our America culture and democracy. Many influential Americans, contrary to some of their founders, decided that the rest of the world was a new frontier for the empire of the rulers of the United States.
It was not long before railroad, steel, and oil business leaders became meg-employers of citizen laborers. Some of the movers and shaker citizens were wise enough and lucky enough to practice a monetary policy that steadily increased the value of the dollar. Foreign lenders were pleased to lend large amounts of wealth at low interests rates to influential Americans. Lenders were pleased to lend because they were being repaid with money worth more than the money they had lent. Americans were able to gather capital to buy arms and infrastructure that allowed them significant expansion around the world. That expansion cost the people of other lands dearly and allowed some Americans to profit well.
