War of 1812

One of the goals of the War of 1812 was to threaten to annex the British colony of Lower Canada as a bargaining chip to force the British to abandon their fortifications in the Northwestern United States and support for the various Native American tribes residing there.^[50][51] The result of this overoptimism was a series of defeats in 1812 in part due to the wide use of poorly-trained state militias rather than regular troops. The American victories at the Battle of Lake Erie and the Battle of the Thames in 1813 ended the Indian raids and removed the main reason for threatening annexation. To end the War of 1812 John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay and Albert Gallatin (former treasury secretary and a leading expert on Indians) and the other American diplomats negotiated the Treaty of Ghent in 1814 with Britain. They rejected the British plan to set up an Indian state in U.S. territory south of the Great Lakes. They explained the American policy toward acquisition of Indian lands:

The United States, while intending never to acquire lands from the Indians otherwise than peaceably, and with their free consent, are fully determined, in that manner, progressively, and in proportion as their growing population may require, to reclaim from the state of nature, and to bring into cultivation every portion of the territory contained within their acknowledged boundaries. In thus providing for the support of millions of civilized beings, they will not violate any dictate of justice or of humanity; for they will not only give to the few thousand savages scattered over that territory an ample equivalent for any right they may surrender, but will always leave them the possession of lands more than they can cultivate, and more than adequate to their subsistence, comfort, and enjoyment, by cultivation. If this be a spirit of aggrandizement, the undersigned are prepared to admit, in that sense, its existence; but they must deny that it affords the slightest proof of an intention not to respect the boundaries between them and European nations, or of a desire to encroach upon the territories of Great Britain... They will not suppose that that Government will avow, as the basis of their policy towards the United States a system of arresting their natural growth within their own territories, for the sake of preserving a perpetual desert for savages.^[52]

A shocked Henry Goulburn, one of the British negotiators at Ghent, remarked, after coming to understand the American position on taking the Indians' land:

Till I came here, I had no idea of the fixed determination which there is in the heart of every American to extirpate the Indians and appropriate their territory.^[53]

Continentalism

The 19th-century belief that the United States would eventually encompass all of North America is known as "continentalism".^[54][55] An early proponent of this idea, John Quincy Adams became a leading figure in U.S. expansion between the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 and the Polk administration in the 1840s. In 1811, Adams wrote to his father:

The whole continent of North America appears to be destined by Divine Providence to be peopled by one nation, speaking one language, professing one general system of religious and political principles, and accustomed to one general tenor of social usages and customs. For the common happiness of them all, for their peace and prosperity, I believe it is indispensable that they should be associated in one federal Union.^[56]

The first Fort Laramie as it looked prior to 1840. Painting from memory by Alfred Jacob Miller

Adams did much to further this idea. He orchestrated the Treaty of 1818, which established the Canada–United States border as far west as the Rocky Mountains, and provided for the joint occupation of the region known in American history as the Oregon Country and in British and Canadian history as the New Caledonia and Columbia Districts. He negotiated the Transcontinental Treaty in 1819, transferring Florida from Spain to the United States and extending the U.S. border with Spanish Mexico all the way to the Pacific Ocean. And he formulated the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which warned Europe that the Western Hemisphere was no longer open for European colonization.

The Monroe Doctrine and "manifest destiny" formed a closely related nexus of principles: historian Walter McDougall calls manifest destiny a corollary of the Monroe Doctrine, because while the Monroe Doctrine did not specify expansion, expansion was necessary in order to enforce the doctrine. Concerns in the United States that European powers were seeking to acquire colonies or greater influence in North America led to calls for expansion in order to prevent this. In his influential 1935 study of manifest destiny, done in conjunction with the Walter Hines Page School of International Relations,^[57] Albert Weinberg wrote: "the expansionism of the [1830s] arose as a defensive effort to forestall the encroachment of Europe in North America".^[58]

All Oregon

Manifest destiny played its most important role in the Oregon boundary dispute between the United States and Britain, when the phrase "manifest destiny" originated. The Anglo-American Convention of 1818 had provided for the joint occupation of the Oregon Country, and thousands of Americans migrated there in the 1840s over the Oregon Trail. The British rejected a proposal by U.S. President John Tyler (in office 1841–1845) to divide the region along the 49th parallel, and instead proposed a boundary line farther south, along the Columbia River, which would have made most of what later became the state of Washington part of their colonies in North America. Advocates of manifest destiny protested and called for the annexation of the entire Oregon Country up to the Alaska line (54°40ʹ N). Presidential candidate Polk used this popular outcry to his advantage, and the Democrats called for the annexation of "All Oregon" in the 1844 U.S. presidential election.

American westward expansion is idealized in Emanuel Leutze's famous painting Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way (1861). The title of the painting, from a 1726 poem by Bishop Berkeley, was a phrase often quoted in the era of manifest destiny, expressing a widely held belief that civilization had steadily moved westward throughout history. (more)

As president, Polk sought compromise and renewed the earlier offer to divide the territory in half along the 49th parallel, to the dismay of the most ardent advocates of manifest destiny. When the British refused the offer, American expansionists responded with slogans such as "The whole of Oregon or none" and "Fifty-four forty or fight", referring to the northern border of the region. (The latter slogan is often mistakenly described as having been a part of the 1844 presidential campaign.)^[61] When Polk moved to terminate the joint occupation agreement, the British finally agreed in early 1846 to divide the region along the 49th parallel, leaving the lower Columbia basin as part of the United States. The Oregon Treaty of 1846 formally settled the dispute; Polk's administration succeeded in selling the treaty to Congress because the United States was about to begin the Mexican–American War, and the president and others argued it would be foolish to also fight the British Empire.

Despite the earlier clamor for "All Oregon", the Oregon Treaty was popular in the United States and was easily ratified by the Senate. The most fervent advocates of manifest destiny had not prevailed along the northern border because, according to Reginald Stuart, "the compass of manifest destiny pointed west and southwest, not north, despite the use of the term 'continentalism'".^[62]

In 1869, American historian Frances Fuller Victor published Manifest Destiny in the West in the Overland Monthly, arguing that the efforts of early American fur traders and missionaries presaged American control of Oregon. She concluded the article as follows:

It was an oversight on the part of the United States, the giving up the island of Quadra and Vancouver, on the settlement of the boundary question. Yet, "what is to be, will be", as some realist has it; and we look for the restoration of that picturesque and rocky atom of our former territory as inevitable.^[63]

Mexico and Texas

Manifest destiny played an important role in the expansion of Texas and American relationship with Mexico.^[64] In 1836, the Republic of Texas declared independence from Mexico and, after the Texas Revolution, sought to join the United States as a new state. This was an idealized process of expansion that had been advocated from Jefferson to O'Sullivan: newly democratic and independent states would request entry into the United States, rather than the United States extending its government over people who did not want it. The annexation of Texas was attacked by anti-slavery spokesmen because it would add another slave state to the Union. Presidents Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren declined Texas's offer to join the United States in part because the slavery issue threatened to divide the Democratic Party.^[65]

Before the election of 1844, Whig candidate Henry Clay and the presumed Democratic candidate, former president, Van Buren, both declared themselves opposed to the annexation of Texas, each hoping to keep the troublesome topic from becoming a campaign issue. This unexpectedly led to Van Buren being dropped by the Democrats in favor of Polk, who favored annexation. Polk tied the Texas annexation question with the Oregon dispute, thus providing a sort of regional compromise on expansion. (Expansionists in the North were more inclined to promote the occupation of Oregon, while Southern expansionists focused primarily on the annexation of Texas.) Although elected by a very slim margin, Polk proceeded as if his victory had been a mandate for expansion.^[66]

All of Mexico

Main article: All of Mexico Movement

American occupation of Mexico City in 1847

After the election of Polk, but before he took office, Congress approved the annexation of Texas. Polk moved to occupy a portion of Texas that had declared independence from Mexico in 1836, but was still claimed by Mexico. This paved the way for the outbreak of the Mexican–American War on April 24, 1846. With American successes on the battlefield, by the summer of 1847 there were calls for the annexation of "All Mexico", particularly among Eastern Democrats, who argued that bringing Mexico into the Union was the best way to ensure future peace in the region.^[67]

This was a controversial proposition for two reasons. First, idealistic advocates of manifest destiny like O'Sullivan had always maintained that the laws of the United States should not be imposed on people against their will. The annexation of "All Mexico" would be a violation of this principle. And secondly, the annexation of Mexico was controversial because it would mean extending U.S. citizenship to millions of Mexicans, who were of dark skin and majority Catholic. Senator John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, who had approved of the annexation of Texas, was opposed to the annexation of Mexico, as well as the "mission" aspect of manifest destiny, for racial reasons.^[68] He made these views clear in a speech to Congress on January 4, 1848:

We have never dreamt of incorporating into our Union any but the Caucasian race—the free white race. To incorporate Mexico, would be the very first instance of the kind, of incorporating an Indian race; for more than half of the Mexicans are Indians, and the other is composed chiefly of mixed tribes. I protest against such a union as that! Ours, sir, is the Government of a white race.... We are anxious to force free government on all; and I see that it has been urged ... that it is the mission of this country to spread civil and religious liberty over all the world, and especially over this continent. It is a great mistake.^[69][70]

This debate brought to the forefront one of the contradictions of manifest destiny: on the one hand, while identitarian ideas inherent in manifest destiny suggested that Mexicans, as non-whites, would present a threat to white racial integrity and thus were not qualified to become Americans, the "mission" component of manifest destiny suggested that Mexicans would be improved (or "regenerated", as it was then described) by bringing them into American democracy. Identitarianism was used to promote manifest destiny, but, as in the case of Calhoun and the resistance to the "All Mexico" movement, identitarianism was also used to oppose manifest destiny.^[71] Conversely, proponents of annexation of "All Mexico" regarded it as an anti-slavery measure.^[72]

Growth from 1840 to 1850

The controversy was eventually ended by the Mexican Cession, which added the territories of Alta California and Nuevo México to the United States, both more sparsely populated than the rest of Mexico. Like the "All Oregon" movement, the "All Mexico" movement quickly abated.

Historian Frederick Merk, in Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History: A Reinterpretation (1963), argued that the failure of the "All Oregon" and "All Mexico" movements indicates that manifest destiny had not been as popular as historians have traditionally portrayed it to have been. Merk wrote that, while belief in the beneficent mission of democracy was central to American history, aggressive "continentalism" were aberrations supported by only a minority of Americans, all of them Democrats. Some Democrats were also opposed; the Democrats of Louisiana opposed annexation of Mexico,^[73] while those in Mississippi supported it.^[74]

These events related to the Mexican–American War and had an effect on the American people living in the Southern Plains at the time. A case study by David Beyreis depicts these effects through the operations of a fur trading and Indian trading business named Bent, St. Vrain and Company during the period. The telling of this company shows that the idea of Manifest Destiny was not unanimously loved by all Americans and did not always benefit Americans. The case study goes on to show that this company could have ceased to exist in the name of territorial expansion.^[75]

Filibusterism

After the Mexican–American War ended in 1848, disagreements over the expansion of slavery made further annexation by conquest too divisive to be official government policy. Some, such as John Quitman, Governor of Mississippi, offered what public support they could. In one memorable case, Quitman simply explained that the state of Mississippi had "lost" its state arsenal, which began showing up in the hands of filibusters. Yet these isolated cases only solidified opposition in the North as many Northerners were increasingly opposed to what they believed to be efforts by Southern slave owners—and their friends in the North—to expand slavery through filibustering. Sarah P. Remond on January 24, 1859, delivered an impassioned speech at Warrington, England, that the connection between filibustering and slave power was clear proof of "the mass of corruption that underlay the whole system of American government".^[76] The Wilmot Proviso and the continued "Slave Power" narratives thereafter, indicated the degree to which manifest destiny had become part of the sectional controversy.^[77]

Without official government support the most radical advocates of manifest destiny increasingly turned to military filibustering. Originally filibuster had come from the Dutch vrijbuiter and referred to buccaneers in the West Indies that preyed on Spanish commerce. While there had been some filibustering expeditions into Canada in the late 1830s, it was only by mid-century did filibuster become a definitive term. By then, declared the New-York Daily Times "the fever of Fillibusterism is on our country. Her pulse beats like a hammer at the wrist, and there's a very high color on her face."^[78] Millard Fillmore's second annual message to Congress, submitted in December 1851, gave double the amount of space to filibustering activities than the brewing sectional conflict. The eagerness of the filibusters, and the public to support them, had an international hue. Clay's son, a diplomat in Portugal, reported that the invasion created a sensation in Lisbon.^[79]

Filibuster William Walker, who launched several expeditions to Mexico and Central America, ruled Nicaragua, and was captured by the Royal Navy before being executed in Honduras by the Honduran government.

Although they were illegal, filibustering operations in the late 1840s and early 1850s were romanticized in the United States. The Democratic Party's national platform included a plank that specifically endorsed William Walker's filibustering in Nicaragua. Wealthy American expansionists financed dozens of expeditions, usually based out of New Orleans, New York, and San Francisco. The primary target of manifest destiny's filibusters was Latin America but there were isolated incidents elsewhere. Mexico was a favorite target of organizations devoted to filibustering, like the Knights of the Golden Circle.^[80] William Walker got his start as a filibuster in an ill-advised attempt to separate the Mexican states Sonora and Baja California.^[81] Narciso López, a near second in fame and success, spent his efforts trying to secure Cuba from the Spanish Empire.

The United States had long been interested in acquiring Cuba from the declining Spanish Empire. As with Texas, Oregon, and California, American policy makers were concerned that Cuba would fall into British hands, which, according to the thinking of the Monroe Doctrine, would constitute a threat to the interests of the United States. Prompted by O'Sullivan, in 1848 President Polk offered to buy Cuba from Spain for $100 million. Polk feared that filibustering would hurt his effort to buy the island, and so he informed the Spanish of an attempt by the Cuban filibuster López to seize Cuba by force and annex it to the United States, foiling the plot. Spain declined to sell the island, which ended Polk's efforts to acquire Cuba. O'Sullivan eventually landed in legal trouble.^[82]

Filibustering continued to be a major concern for presidents after Polk. Whigs presidents Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore tried to suppress the expeditions. When the Democrats recaptured the White House in 1852 with the election of Franklin Pierce, a filibustering effort by John A. Quitman to acquire Cuba received the tentative support of the president. Pierce backed off and instead renewed the offer to buy the island, this time for $130 million. When the public learned of the Ostend Manifesto in 1854, which argued that the United States could seize Cuba by force if Spain refused to sell, this effectively killed the effort to acquire the island. The public now linked expansion with slavery; if manifest destiny had once enjoyed widespread popular approval, this was no longer true.^[83]

Filibusters like William Walker continued to garner headlines in the late 1850s, but to little effect. Expansionism was among the various issues that played a role in the coming of the war. With the divisive question of the expansion of slavery, Northerners and Southerners, in effect, were coming to define manifest destiny in different ways, undermining nationalism as a unifying force. According to Frederick Merk, "The doctrine of Manifest Destiny, which in the 1840s had seemed Heaven-sent, proved to have been a bomb wrapped up in idealism."^[84]

The filibusterism of the era even opened itself up to some mockery among the headlines. In 1854, a San Francisco Newspaper published a satirical poem called "Filibustering Ethics". This poem features two characters, Captain Robb and Farmer Cobb. Captain Robb makes claim to Farmer Cobb's land arguing that Robb deserves the land because he is Anglo-Saxon, has weapons to "blow out" Cobb's brains, and nobody has heard of Cobb so what right does Cobb have to claim the land. Cobb argues that Robb doesn't need his land because Robb already has more land than he knows what to do with. Due to threats of violence, Cobb surrenders his land and leaves grumbling that "might should be the rule of right among enlightened nations."^[85]

Homestead Act

Norwegian settlers in North Dakota in front of their homestead, a sod hut

The Homestead Act of 1862 encouraged 600,000 families to settle the West by giving them land (usually 160 acres) almost free. Over the course of 123 years, 200 million claims were made and over 270 million acres were settled, accounting for 10% of the land in the U.S.^[86] They had to live on and improve the land for five years.^[87] Before the American Civil War, Southern leaders opposed the Homestead Acts because they feared it would lead to more free states and free territories.^[88] After the mass resignation of Southern senators and representatives at the beginning of the war, Congress was subsequently able to pass the Homestead Act.

In some areas, the Homestead Act resulted in the direct removal of Indigenous communities.^[89] According to American historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, all five nations of the "Five Civilized Tribes" signed treaties with the Confederacy and initially supported them in hopes of dividing and weakening the U.S. so that they could remain on their land.^[90] The United States Army, led by prominent Civil War generals such as William Tecumseh Sherman, Philip Sheridan, and George Armstrong Custer, waged wars on "non-treaty Indians" who continued to live on land that had already been ceded to the U.S. through treaty.^[89][90] Homesteaders and other settlers soon followed and took possession of the land for farms and mining. Occasionally, white settlers would move ahead of the U.S. Army, into land that had not yet been settled by the United States, causing conflict with the Native people who still resided there. According to Anglo-American historian Julius Wilm, while the U.S. government did not approve of settlers moving ahead of the army, Indian Affairs officials did believe "the move of frontier whites into the proximity of contested territory—be they homesteaders or parties interested in other pursuits—necessitated the removal of Indigenous nations."^[89]

According to historian Hannah Anderson, the Homestead Act also lead to environmental degradation. While it succeeded in settling and farming the land, the Act failed to preserve the land. Continuous plowing of the top soil made the soil vulnerable to erosion and wind, as well as stripping the nutrients from the ground. This deforestation and erosion would play a key role in the Dust Bowl in the 1930s. Intense logging caused a decrease in much of the forests and hunting harmed many of the native animal populations, including the buffalo whose population was reduced to hundreds.^[86]

Acquisition of Alaska

Historical territorial expansion of the United States, showing the Alaskan acquisition in an inset in the upper right

The final U.S. territorial expansion of the North American mainland came in 1867 when the U.S. negotiated with the Russian Empire to purchase Alaska. In the aftermath of the Crimean War in the 1850s, Emperor Alexander II of Russia decided to relinquish control of the ailing Russian America (present-day Alaska) on fears that the territory would be easily be taken over by Canada in any future war between Russia and the United Kingdom. Following the end of the Civil War in 1865, U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward entered into negotiations with Russian minister Eduard de Stoeckl for the purchase of Alaska. Seward initially offered $5 million to Stoeckl; the two men settled on $7 million and on March 15, 1867, Seward presented a draft treaty to the U.S. Cabinet. Stoeckl's superiors raised several concerns; to induce him to waive them, the final purchase price was increased to $7.2 million and on March 30, the treaty was ratified by the U.S. Senate. The transfer ceremony took place in Sitka, Alaska on October 18. Russian and American soldiers paraded in front of the governor's house; the Russian flag was lowered and the American flag raised amid peals of artillery.

The purchase added 586,412 square miles (1,518,800 km²) of new territory to the United States, an area about twice the size of Texas. Reactions to the purchase in the United States were mostly positive, as many believed the possession of Alaska would serve as a base to expand American trade in Asia. Some opponents labeled the purchase as "Seward's Folly", or "Seward's Icebox",^[91] as they contended that the United States had acquired useless land. Nearly all Russian settlers left Alaska in the aftermath of the purchase; Alaska would remain sparsely populated until the Klondike Gold Rush began in 1896. Originally organized as the Department of Alaska, the area was renamed the District of Alaska and the Territory of Alaska before becoming the modern State of Alaska in 1959.

The start of the Klondike Gold Rush brought 200,000 prospectors to Alaska. The gold rush greatly increased the U.S. government's commitment to developing the industrial infrastructure, and in turn attracting new residents to maintain it. The increase in gold seekers brought epidemics and land conflicts between settlers and Indigenous Alaskans. According to Yupik historian Shari Huhndorf, "These changing demographics transformed social relationships between Native and the newcomers and soon led to Jim Crow-like segregation supported by a rapidly expanding territorial government."^[92]

In 1905, the Nelson Act was passed, which allowed the Territory of Alaska to open schools outside of incorporated towns and run them outside of the federal Bureau of Education's control. According to historian Carol Barnhardt, the Territory of Alaska opened schools for "white children and children of mixed blood leading a civilized life," while schools for Native children were still run by the Bureau of Education, which operated with the belief that it was important to transform Native Alaskans, along with all Indigenous people in America, into civilized Christians. The U.S. government saw education as the most effective way to achieve this goal. Overall, there was little recognition of the important differences between different groups of Indigenous people. The federal Bureau of Education also extended services such as medical services, cooperative stores, and a ship to supply remote coastal villages, slowly reducing the self-sufficiency of Native communities and allowing the U.S. government to assume more control of the lives of Native Alaskans.^[93] The effects of the Alaska Purchase are still felt by Native Alaskans. According to Inuit author Sheila Watt-Cloutier, "The land that is such an important part of our spirit, our culture, and our physical and economic well-being is becoming an often unpredictable and precarious place for us."^[94]

Native Americans

Early Native American tribal territories color-coded by linguistic group

Manifest destiny had serious consequences for Native Americans, since continental expansion implicitly meant the occupation and annexation of Native American land, sometimes to expand slavery. This ultimately led to confrontations and wars with several groups of native peoples via Indian removal.^{[95][96][97][98]} The United States continued the European practice of recognizing only limited land rights of Indigenous peoples. In a policy formulated largely by Henry Knox, Secretary of War in the Washington Administration, the U.S. government sought to expand into the west through the purchase of Native American land in treaties. Only the Federal Government could purchase Indian lands and this was done through treaties with tribal leaders. Whether a tribe actually had a decision-making structure capable of making a treaty was a controversial issue. The national policy was for the Indians to join American society and become "civilized", which meant no more wars with neighboring tribes or raids on white settlers or travelers, and a shift from hunting to farming and ranching. Advocates of civilization programs believed that the process of settling native tribes would greatly reduce the amount of land needed by the Native Americans, making more land available for homesteading by white Americans. Thomas Jefferson believed that, while the Indigenous people of America were intellectual equals to whites,^[99] they had to assimilate to and live like the whites or inevitably be pushed aside by them.^[100]

According to historian Jeffrey Ostler, Jefferson believed that once assimilation was no longer possible, he advocated for the extermination of Indigenous people.^[101]

On 27 February 1803, Jefferson wrote in a letter to William Henry Harrison:

"but this letter being unofficial, & private, I may with safety give you a more extensive view of our policy respecting the Indians... Our system is to live in perpetual peace with the Indians, to cultivate an affectionate attachment from them, by everything just & liberal which we can do for them within the bounds of reason, and by giving them effectual protection against wrongs from our own people. The decrease of game rendering their subsistence by hunting insufficient, we wish to draw them to agriculture, to spinning & weaving... when they withdraw themselves to the culture of a small piece of land, they will perceive how useless to them are their extensive forests, and will be willing to pare them off from time to time in exchange for necessaries for their farms & families. At our trading houses too we mean to sell so low as merely to repay us cost and charges so as neither to lessen or enlarge our capital. this is what private traders cannot do, for they must gain; they will consequently retire from the competition, & we shall thus get clear of this pest without giving offence or umbrage to the Indians. in this way our settlements will gradually circumbscribe & approach the Indians, & they will in time either incorporate with us as citizens of the U.S. or remove beyond the Mississippi."^[102]

Noted by Law Scholar and professor Robert J. Miller, Thomas Jefferson "Understood and utilized the Doctrine of Discovery [aka Manifest destiny] through his political careers and was heavily involved in using the Doctrine against Indian tribes."^[103] Jefferson was "often immersed in Indian affairs through his legal and political careers" and "was also well acquainted with the process Virginia governments had historically used to extinguish Indian [land] titles".^[103] Jefferson used this knowledge to make the Louisiana purchase in 1803, aided in the construction of the Indian Removal Policy, and laid the ground work for removing Native American tribes further and further into eventual small reservation territories.^{[103][32][101]} The idea of "Indian removal" gained traction in the context of manifest destiny and, with Jefferson as one of the main political voices on the subject, accumulated advocates who believed that American Indians would be better off moving away from white settlers.^[102] The removal effort was further solidified through policy by Andrew Jackson when he signed the Indian Removal Act in 1830.^[104] In his First Annual Message to Congress in 1829, Jackson stated with regards to removal:

I suggest for your consideration the propriety of setting apart an ample district west of the Mississippi, and without the limits of any state or territory now formed, to be guaranteed to the Indian tribes as long as they shall occupy it, each tribe having a distinct control over the portion designated for its use. There they may be secured in the enjoyment of governments of their own choice, subject to no other control from the United States than such as may be necessary to preserve peace on the frontier and between the several tribes. There the benevolent may endeavor to teach them the arts of civilization, and, by promoting union and harmony among them, to raise up an interesting commonwealth, destined to perpetuate the race and to attest the humanity and justice of this government."

After major exploration and colonization to the western parts of the United States, resources and industry were needed to support such colonies.^[59] Colville scholar Dina Gilo-Whitaker outlines how during this process, promises of innovative technologies and abundant resources were made to indigenous people as the settlers effectively began damming rivers, imposing railways, and seeking natural resources and minerals through mining and excavation of Native American lands.^[59] According to historians Boyd Cothran and Ned Blackhawk, this influx of trade, industrialization, and development of transportation corridors killed surrounding livestock, caused waterway damage, and created sickness and disease for the Native American peoples living in those regions.^[60]

Across The Continent, an 1868 lithograph illustrating the westward expansion of white settlers

Historian Jeffery Ostler comments on some of the general theories about native American population decline due to these environmental factors. He shows that, over the course of this period, there were many forces "of destruction, including enslavement, disease, material deprivation, malnutrition, and social stress."^[101]

Following the forced removal of many Indigenous Peoples, Americans increasingly believed that Native American ways of life would eventually disappear as the United States expanded.^[105] Humanitarian advocates of removal believed that American Indians would be better off moving away from whites. As historian Reginald Horsman argued in his influential study Race and Manifest Destiny, racial rhetoric increased during the era of manifest destiny. Americans increasingly believed that Native American ways of life would "fade away" as the United States expanded. As an example, this idea was reflected in the work of one of America's first great historians, Francis Parkman, whose landmark book The Conspiracy of Pontiac was published in 1851. Parkman wrote that after the French defeat in the French and Indian War, Indians were "destined to melt and vanish before the advancing waves of Anglo-American power, which now rolled westward unchecked and unopposed". Parkman emphasized that the collapse of Indian power in the late 18th century had been swift and was a past event.^[106]

Indian removal policies led to the current day reservation system which allocated territories to individual tribes. According to scholar Dina Gilio-Whitaker, "the treaties also created reservations that would confine Native people into smaller territories far smaller than they had for millenia been accustomed to, diminishing their ability to feed themselves."^[59] According to author and scholar David Rich Lewis, these reservations had much higher population densities than indigenous homelands. As a result, "the consolidation of native peoples in the 19th century allowed epidemic diseases to rage through their communities."^[107] In addition to this "a result of changing subsistence patterns and environments-contributed to an explosion of dietary-related illness like diabetes, vitamin and mineral deficiencies, cirrhosis, obesity, gallbladder disease, hypertension, and heart disease."^[107]

Spanish–American War

A cartoon of Uncle Sam seated in restaurant looking at the bill of fare containing "Cuba steak", "Porto Rico pig", the "Philippine Islands" and the "Sandwich Islands" (Hawaii)

In 1898, the United States intervened in the Cuban insurrection and launched the Spanish–American War to force Spain out. According to the terms of the Treaty of Paris, Spain relinquished sovereignty over Cuba and ceded the Philippine Islands, Puerto Rico, and Guam to the United States. The terms of cession for the Philippines involved a payment of the sum of $20 million by the United States to Spain. The treaty was highly contentious and denounced by William Jennings Bryan, who tried to make it a central issue in the 1900 election. He was defeated in landslide by McKinley.^[113]

The Teller Amendment, passed unanimously by the U.S. Senate before the war, which proclaimed Cuba "free and independent", forestalled annexation of the island. The Platt Amendment (1902) then established Cuba as a virtual protectorate of the United States.^[114]

The acquisition of Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines after the war with Spain marked a new chapter in U.S. history. Traditionally, territories were acquired by the United States for the purpose of becoming new states on equal footing with already existing states. These islands were acquired as colonies rather than prospective states. The process was validated by the Insular Cases. The Supreme Court ruled that full constitutional rights did not automatically extend to all areas under American control.^[115]

According to Frederick Merk, these colonial acquisitions marked a break from the original intention of manifest destiny. Previously, "Manifest Destiny had contained a principle so fundamental that a Calhoun and an O'Sullivan could agree on it—that a people not capable of rising to statehood should never be annexed. That was the principle thrown overboard by the imperialism of 1899."^[116] Albert J. Beveridge maintained the contrary at his September 25, 1900, speech in the Auditorium, at Chicago. He declared that the current desire for Cuba and the other acquired territories was identical to the views expressed by Washington, Jefferson and Marshall. Moreover, "the sovereignty of the Stars and Stripes can be nothing but a blessing to any people and to any land."^[117] The nascent revolutionary government, desirous of independence, resisted the United States in the Philippine–American War in 1899; it won no support from any government anywhere and collapsed when its leader was captured. William Jennings Bryan denounced the war and any form of future overseas expansion, writing, "'Destiny' is not as manifest as it was a few weeks ago."^[118]

In 1917, all Puerto Ricans were made full American citizens via the Jones Act, which also provided for a popularly elected legislature and a bill of rights, and authorized the election of a Resident Commissioner who has a voice (but no vote) in Congress.^[119] In 1934, the Tydings–McDuffie Act put the Philippines on a path to independence, which was realized in 1946 with the Treaty of Manila. The Guam Organic Act of 1950 established Guam alongside Puerto Rico as an unincorporated unorganized territory of the United States, provided for the structure of the island's civilian government, and granted the people U.S. citizenship.

Environmental consequences

Many studies suggest environmental changes that directly impact Indigenous communities as a result of European settlement, according to Colville scholar Dina Gilio-Whitaker, when manifest destiny reached California and Oregon, "Waters were diverted, interrupting farming practices: ancient food sources are eliminated: tribal self-determination was compromised with dams built on treaty adds: entire ecosystems were altered, interrupting cultural practices and dividing families: trauma inflicted by disruptions contributed to failing health conditions in tribal communities."^[59]

Further, "sudden loss of salmon-based economies and spiritual traditions was a seismic shock to cultures and psyches of the people who collectively call themselves Salmon People." "Specifically, 'The Karuk are a fishing people who have sustainably managed their Klamath River fishery through the use of ceremony and harvest techniques for tens of thousands of years. Since the arrival of non-Indians in the 1850s, however, the salmon populations have been damaged by overfishing and the degradation of their habitat." "Scholars such as environmental sociologist Kari Norgaard have shown that these issues continue into the present moment: "Ron Reed served as the Karuk tribal representative for the relicensing process. Reed became convinced that the lack of healthy food, specifically the loss of salmon, was directly affecting the health of his people, leading to high rates of diabetes, heart disease, and a decreased life expectancy."^[128]

Other environmental changes as a result of European settlement were discovered as a result of the pre-industrial era, according to historian Boyd Cothran, "It coincided with a national timber boom and the concurrent near exhaustion of the Great Lakes forests, leading American businesses to clamor for access to the vast timber stands located on many western Indian Reservations."^[129]

Biomolecular archaeologist Eric J. Guiry has shown that this deforestation had increasingly negative effects on Great Lakes ecosystems: 'in comparison with the industrial era..."Aquatic disruptions in great lakes have been linked to timber extraction through the loss of ecological resources. "Results show that, in comparison with the industrial era, the nitrogen cycle and trophic structure of the Great Lakes ecosystems remained remarkably stable until the 1830s, despite millennia of Indigenous agricultural and other land management, decades of European settlement, and climatic fluctuations. After this time, increased logging from forestry and agriculture induced soil erosion caused an unprecedented and abrupt bottom-up shift throughout the entire aquatic ecosystem of Lake Ontario."^[130]

Citations

Sources

Journal articles

• Victor, Frances Fuller (August 1869). "Manifest Destiny in the West" . Overland Monthly. 3 (2).
• Dunning, Mike (2001). "Manifest Destiny and the Trans-Mississippi South: Natural Laws and the Extension of Slavery into Mexico". Journal of Popular Culture. 35 (2): 111–127. doi:10.1111/j.0022-3840.2001.00111.x. ISSN 0022-3840. Fulltext: Ebsco.
• Pinheiro, John C (2003). "'Religion Without Restriction': Anti-catholicism, All Mexico, and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo". Journal of the Early Republic. 23 (1): 69–96. doi:10.2307/3124986. ISSN 0275-1275. JSTOR 3124986.
• Sampson, Robert D (2002). "The Pacifist-reform Roots of John L. O'Sullivan's Manifest Destiny". Mid-America. 84 (1–3): 129–144. ISSN 0026-2927.

Books

• Brown, Charles Henry (January 1980). Agents of Manifest Destiny: the lives and times of the filibusters. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-1361-4.
• Burge, Daniel J. (2022). A Failed Vision of Empire: The Collapse of Manifest Destiny, (1845–1872). University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-1496228079
• Burns, Edward McNall (1957). The American idea of mission: concepts of national purpose and destiny. Rutgers University Press.
• Cheathem, Mark R. and Terry Corps, eds. Historical Dictionary of the Jacksonian Era and Manifest Destiny (2nd ed. 2016), 544 pp
• Fresonke, Kris (2003). West of Emerson: the design of Manifest Destiny. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-23185-6.
• Gould, Lewis L. (1980). The Presidency of William McKinley. Regents Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-0206-3.
• Graebner, Norman A. (1968). Manifest destiny. Bobbs–Merrill. ISBN 978-0-672-50986-5.
• Heidler, David Stephen; Heidler, Jeanne T. (2003). Manifest Destiny. Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-313-32308-9.
• Hofstadter, Richard (1965). "Cuba, the Philippines, and Manifest Destiny". The paranoid style in American politics: and other essays. Knopf.
• Horsman, Reginald (1981). Race and Manifest Destiny: The origins of American racial Anglo-Saxonism. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-94805-1.
• McDonough, Matthew Davitian. Manifestly Uncertain Destiny: The Debate over American Expansionism, 1803–1848. PhD dissertation, Kansas State University, 2011.
• Merk, Frederick, and Lois Bannister Merk. Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History: A Reinterpretation. New York: Knopf, 1963.
• May, Robert E. (2002). Manifest Destiny's underworld: filibustering in antebellum America. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-2703-1.
• Miller, Christopher (1985). Prophetic Worlds: Indians and Whites on the Columbia Plateau. University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-98302-7.
• Morrison, Michael A. (1999). Slavery and the American West: The Eclipse of Manifest Destiny and the Coming of the Civil War. UNC Press Books. ISBN 978-0-8078-4796-1.
• Smith, Gene A. (2000). Thomas Ap Catesby Jones: commodore of Manifest Destiny. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-55750-848-5.