Manifest Destiny and American Territorial Expansion
A Brief History with DocumentsSecond Edition ©2018
The new edition of Amy Greenberg’s Manifest Destiny and American Territorial Expansion continues to emphasize the social and cultural roots of Manifest Destiny when exploring the history of U.S. territorial expansion. With a revised introduction and several new documents, this second editi...
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The new edition of Amy Greenberg’s Manifest Destiny and American Territorial Expansion continues to emphasize the social and cultural roots of Manifest Destiny when exploring the history of U.S. territorial expansion. With a revised introduction and several new documents, this second edition includes new coverage of the global context of Manifest Destiny, the early settlement of Texas, and the critical role of women in America’s territorial expansion. Students are introduced to the increasingly influential transnational concept of settler colonialism, while maintaining a central focus on the ideological origins, social and economic impetus, and territorial acquisitions that fueled U.S. territorial expansion in the nineteenth century. Readers of the revised edition will also find an updated bibliography reflecting both the historiography of American expansion and its transnational context, as well as updated questions for consideration.
Table of Contents
Foreword
Preface
List of Maps
Part One: Introduction: The "Free Development" of a North American Empire
The Ideological Origins of Manifest Destiny
Territorial Expansion in the Early Republic
Factors Driving Early Expansionism
U.S. Expansion in a World Context
Expansionism and Indian People
Social Transformations and the Birth of Aggressive Expansionism
Opposing Voices
Andrew Jackson and the March to the Southwest
The Overland Trail
Annexation and War with Mexico
Filibustering: Taking Matters into Their Own Hands
Sectionalism Checks Manifest Destiny
After the Civil War: Manifest Destiny Reevaluated and Redeemed
Part Two: The Documents
1. Ideological Origins
1. William Bradford, Of Plimoth Plantation, 1650
2. John Winthrop, A Modell of Christian Charity, 1630
2. Expansion in the Early Republic
3. Richard Butler, A Commissioner’s View of the Ohio River Valley, 1785
4. Council of 1793, To the Commissioners of the United States, August 16, 1793
5. Jedidiah Morse, The American Geography, 1792
6. Fisher Ames, Letter to Thomas Dwight, October 31, 1803
7. Thomas Jefferson, Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1805
8. Tecumseh, Appeal to the Osages, 1811
9. John Quincy Adams, Diary Entry, November 16, 1819
3. Pushing West
10. Andrew Jackson, State of the Union Address, December 6, 1830
11. Black Hawk, Encroachment by White Settlers, 1832
12. Memorial and Protest of the Cherokee Nation, June 22, 1836
13. Lyman Beecher, A Plea for the West, 1835
14. Harriet Martineau, On Land-Lust in America, 1837
15. Pathin-nanpaji, An Encounter between Omaha Hunters and White Squatters in Iowa, 1853
16. Zenas Leonard, A Fur Trapper’s View of Manifest Destiny, 1839
17. Richard Henry Dana, Two Years before the Mast, 1840
18. Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Young American, 1844
4. Texas and Oregon
19. Manuel Mier y Teran, Letter to President Guadalupe Victoria, June 30, 1828
20. Mary Austin Holley, Texas, January 8, 1833
21. Robert J. Walker, Letter in Favor of the Reannexation of Texas, January 8, 1844
22. Daniel Webster, Letter to the Citizens of Worcester County, Massachusetts, January 23, 1844
23. James K. Polk, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1845
24. Uncle Sam’s Song to Miss Texas, 1845
25. United States Democratic Review, Annexation, July-August 1845
26. Robert Winthrop, Arbitration of the Oregon Question, January 3, 1846
5. War for Empire
27. James K. Polk, Diary Entry, June 30, 1846
28. Jane Swisshelm, Protesting the Mexican War, 1880
29. Godey’s Lady’s Book, Life on the Rio Grande, April 1847
30. Henry Clay, Speech at Lexington, Kentucky, November 13, 1847
31. New York Herald, Public Meeting in Favor of Annexing All of Mexico, January 30, 1848
32. Ramon Alcaraz et al., Origin of the War with the United States, 1848
6. Expanded Horizons: Cuba, Hawaii, and Central America
33. La Verdad, Appeal to the Inhabitants of Cuba, April 27, 1848
34. Cora Montgomery, The Benefits of Annexing Cuba, 1850
35. James Buchanan, Pierre Soule, and John Y. Mason, The Ostend Manifesto, 1854
36. Currier and Ives, The "Ostend Doctrine": Practical Democrats Carrying Out the Principle, 1856
37. T. Robinson Warren, Traveling through the Pacific, 1859
38. Young Sam, Nicaragua Ho!, January 1856
39. Martin Delany, Political Destiny of the Colored Race on the American Continent, August 24, 1854
40. Mary Seacole, A Jamaican’s View of Americans in Panama, 1857
7. Sectionalism Trumps Manifest Destiny
41. William Walker, The War in Nicaragua, 1860
42. George Sydney Hawkins, Hostility to Southern Interests, May 31, 1858
43. William Waters Boyce, Why Southerners Should Oppose Territorial Expansion, January 15, 1855
8. Manifest Destiny Reevaluated and Redeemed
44. George A. Crofutt, American Progress, ca. 1873
45. Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins, Trouble on the Paiute Reservation, 1865
46. Reverend George Grant, Destiny of the British Provinces, 1877
47. Albert J. Beveridge, The March of the Flag, September 16, 1898
Appendixes
A Chronology of Manifest Destiny and American Territorial Expansion (1620-1902)
Questions for Consideration
Selected Bibliography
Index
Authors
Amy S. Greenberg
Amy Greenberg (Ph.D., Harvard University) is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of History and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Pennsylvania State University and an academic editor of the Cornell University Press book series, "The United States in the World." She is the author of three books: the award-winning A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico, Manifest Manhood and the Antebellum American Empire, and Cause for Alarm: The Volunteer Fire Department in the Nineteenth-Century City.
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