This great push began because Americans now had control of the land west of the Appalachian Mountains, and the revolutionaries had promised soldiers who had served in the Continental Army their property a once the nation had won the war. Just as soldiers desired to own their own land, more and more Americans had come to desire the economic power that comes from owning property, from ownership of the land to the resources it may contain. In addition to the economic benefits that the westward movement would have guaranteed to the United States, "manifest destiny" had also found itself used as a religious ideology, political ideology and racism.