It’s the fall of 1783, and your whole town is ringing with excitement. The colonists have won the war against Britain!
The faraway British king and Parliament no longer have power over this land. You no longer live in “the colonies.” You now live in an independent nation, the United States of America. Your father slaps your uncle on the back, laughs, and says something he’s been saying a lot lately: “We’re Americans now!”
The American Revolution influenced the French Revolution, the rise of nationalism in Europe, and independence movements around the world. Citizens of the young United States felt proud of their country, and many ideas that arose in the 1800s reinforced that national pride. By 1845, many Americans believed in “manifest destiny.” The term meant that it was clearly the fate of the United States to expand and control all the land stretching to the West – all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
