Manifest Destiny: Reporting Both Sides
Brielyn Howard
The movement of Manifest Destiny had many components, each serving people in different ways. Main reasons of this large movement through America was religion and a sense of mission and adventure. Settlers had just begun to populate the new country, and many were excited to explore and conquer the whole land. Manifest Destiny reflected both the prides that characterized American Nationalism in the mid 19th century, and the idealistic vision of social perfection through God and the church. Both fueled most of the events, motions and historical events of the time. Individually, the components created separate reasons to conquer new land. But together, they exemplified Americas ideological need to dominate from sea to shining sea.
The Settlers Side:
The Manifest Destiny was based on the idea that America had a divine providence, and had a future that was destined by God to expand its borders, with no limit to area or country. Traveling and expansion were part of the spirit of Manifest Destiny, a belief that it was God's will that Americans spread over the entire continent and to control and populate the country as they see fit. Many expansionists conceived God as having the power to sustain and guide human destiny. "It was white man's burden to conquer and christianize the land" This was a sort of materialistic, religious and utopian destiny. Other travelers saw Manifest Destiny as the historical inevitability of American domination of North America from pole to pole. It was an altruistic way to extend our American liberty to new realms, as the American spirit was running high. North West expansion started with the American fur trappers. In their search for new reserves of beaver, they blazed new trails and passages through the mountains. In doing so, they traversed new and fertile valleys of the Far West. Their exaggerated stories and accounts of their travels publicized the newly found region of the West and aroused interest in people contemplating agricultural possibilities. It also gave the land an air of romance and adventure. By the 1840's, expansion was at it highest, there were new trails plowing through the new nation. Thirty thousand graves mark these trials of the ambitious pioneers, but in the wake of continual death and hardship, the allure of Manifest Destiny continued to drive expansionists further.
Manifest Destiny was the reason for the revived interest in territorial expansion. With a sense of mission, people were tempted by the boundless tracts and sparsely settled land lying just beyond the borders of their country. There was also the growing desire to develop trade with the Far East and lastly, there was a lurking fear that the security of the United States might be impaired by foreign intervention in areas along its borders. The easiest way to assure safety and destroy these possibilities was to conquer land beyond its borders.
The Dark Side:
For the immense positive energy and atmosphere created by manifest destiny, there was also a very dark side that implanted into American History. Nothing could be darker than the plight of the American Indian. While the positive side of Manifest Destiny was a surge of enthusiasm that was pushing West, the negative side was the belief that the white man had the right to destroy anything and anyone who challenged their full domination. Tracing the path of Manifest Destiny across the West would eventually end in mass destruction of tribal organizations, confinement of Indians to reservations, and a full blown genocide. This side of Manifest Destiny revealed the white man's true evil, and true eagerness to accomplish a goal that was set no matter what obstacle blocked their path. The large-scale annihilation and movement of Native American onto Indian reservations reached its peak in the late 19th century. The U.S. government intended to destroy tribal governments and break up Indian reservations under, what was then considered, the progressive Manifest Destiny Doctrine. “The only good Indian is a dead one” was the common belief among settlers, and Indians lives, along with the wildlife once roaming through the nation was destroyed, as the white man's reign continued on. The settlements that extended across the Western territories promised the American dream: the freedom and independence of a seemingly limitless land. This produced an ongoing attitude that nothing was going to stand in the way of this progress. With a belief that Manifest Destiny gave them a right and power to do so, many simply settled, planted and farmed Indian land and continued to slaughter wildlife and destroy the land around them as they expanded.
“They made many promises, more than I can remember,
but they kept only one; They promised to take our land.
and they did."
-Chief Joseph
but they kept only one; They promised to take our land.
and they did."
-Chief Joseph
Below is a simple map created to demonstrate what our country looked like during Manifest Destiny.