The ‘Manifest Destiny’ of the United States, Native Americans and the Rest of the World

by Raffaella Milandri©

In the 19th century, the concept of ‘Manifest Destiny’ came to the fore in the United States, a sort of belief in the natural superiority of what was then called the ‘Anglo-Saxon race’: to expand was considered a mission, to spread their form of freedom and democracy. For the proponents of Manifest Destiny, expansion was not only good, but also obvious (manifest) and inevitable (destiny).  All concepts linked to American exceptionalism and romantic nationalism, and precursors of American imperia-lism and Americanism. In addition to the obvious (indeed manifest) reflections on the fact that this concept survives even today, let us take a closer look at its nefarious influence. We will close by sticking to the theme of this column: the Native Americans, who are an excellent example for analysing contemporary politics and history. Alexis de Tocqueville said: ‘History is a gallery of paintings where there are few originals and many copies’.

Manifest Destiny

Let me give a brief geopolitical overview.

According to historian William Earl Weeks, underlying the concept of Manifest Destiny were three basic principles:

1)The assumption of the unique moral virtue of the United States;

2)The affirmation of its mission to redeem the world through the spread of republican democracy and more generally the ‘American way of life’;

3)The belief in the nation’s divinely ordained destiny to succeed in this mission.

Manifest Destiny, when it was born, remained highly divisive in politics, causing constant conflict regarding slavery in particular, but was also associated with the treatment of Native Americans. The concept became a major campaign theme during the 1844 presidential election, where the Democratic Party won and the phrase ‘Manifest Destiny’ was coined.

Historian Daniel Walker Howe sums up that ‘American imperialism did not represent an American consensus; it provoked bitter dissent within national politics’. Historian Frederick Merk also states that manifest destiny was a hotly contested concept within the nation. Author Reginald Horsman wrote in 1981 that this view also held that ‘inferior races were destined for subordinate status or extinction’ and was used to justify ‘the enslavement of blacks and the expulsion and possible extermination of Indians’.

The origin of the first point, later known as American exceptionalism, has often been traced back to America’s Puritan heritage, in particular John Winthrop’s famous City upon a Hill sermon of 1630, in which he called for the establishment of a virtuous community that would be a shining example to the Old World.

Henry Goulburn, one of the British negotiators in Ghent, observed, after understanding the American position on the acquisition of Indian lands:

‘Until I came here, I had no idea of the fierce determination in the heart of every American to extirpate the Indians and appropriate their territory.’

In 1859, Reuben Davis, a member of the Mississippi House of Representatives, articulated one of the most expansive visions of Manifest Destiny:

‘We could expand to include the whole world. Mexico, Central America, South America, Cuba, the West Indian Islands, and even England and France [we could] annex us without inconvenience … allowing them, with their local legislatures, to regulate local affairs in their own way. And that, Sir, is the mission of this Republic and its ultimate destiny’.

When President William McKinley supported the annexation of the Republic of Hawaii in 1898, he said: ‘We need Hawaii as much and more than California. It is a manifest destiny’. Albert J. Beveridge argued the opposite in his speech on 25 September 1900 at the Chicago Auditorium. 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 less than a blessing to any people and any land’.

The belief in the American mission to promote and defend democracy throughout the world, expounded by Jefferson and his ‘Empire of Liberty’, and continued by Lincoln, Wilson and George W. Bush (David, Charles Philippe; Grondin, David, 2006, ‘Hegemony Or Empire?: The Redefinition of Us Power Under George W. Bush’. Ashgate. pp. 129-130) continues to have an influence on American political ideology. Under President Theodore Roosevelt, the US role in the New World was defined in the 1904 Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine as an ‘international police power’ to secure American interests in the Western Hemisphere. Roosevelt’s corollary actually contained an explicit rejection of territorial expansion. In the past, Manifest Destiny was seen as necessary to enforce the Monroe Doctrine in the Western Hemisphere, but now expansionism had been replaced by interventionism as the core value associated with the Doctrine. Manifest destiny’ is sometimes used by critics of US foreign policy to characterise interventions in the Middle East and elsewhere. In this usage, ‘Manifest Destiny’ is interpreted as the underlying cause of what is denounced by some as ‘American imperialism’. Critics have condemned Manifest Destiny as an ideology used to justify dispossession and genocide against indigenous peoples.

Monroe Doctrine

The Monroe Doctrine and ‘Manifest Destiny’ formed a nexus of closely related principles and ideologies: historian Walter McDougall calls Manifest Destiny a corollary of the Monroe Doctrine because, while the Monroe Doctrine did not specify expansion, expansion was necessary to enforce the doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine is a US foreign policy position that opposes European (but not only) colonialism in the Western Hemisphere. It holds that any intervention in the political affairs of the Americas by foreign powers is a potentially hostile act against the United States. The doctrine, which now seems to have been extended to the entire planet, was central to American grand strategy in the 20th century.

The complete document of the Monroe Doctrine, drafted mainly in 1823 by the future President and then Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, is long and articulate, but its essence is expressed in two key passages. The first is the introductory statement, which asserts that the New World is no longer subject to colonisation by European countries:

‘The occasion has been deemed opportune to state, as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents (both, hence North and South America), by reason of the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be regarded as subjects for future colonisation by any European power.’

The second key passage, which contains a more comprehensive statement of the Doctrine, is addressed to the ‘allied powers’ of Europe; it makes it clear that the United States remains neutral towards existing European colonies in the Americas, but opposes ‘interpositions which would create new colonies among the newly independent Spanish American republics’.

It was not until the mid-20th century that the doctrine became a key component of American grand strategy. (Sexton, Jay, 2023, ‘The Monroe Doctrine in an Age of Global History’. Diplomatic History. 47 (5): 845-870).

With the start of the Cold War in 1945, the US felt it was more than necessary to protect the Western Hemisphere from Soviet influence. In the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, President John F. Kennedy cited the Monroe Doctrine to justify the US confrontation with the Soviet Union over the installation of Soviet ballistic missiles on Cuban soil.

President Donald Trump hinted at a potential use of the doctrine in August 2017, when he mentioned the possibility of military intervention in Venezuela, after his CIA Director Mike Pompeo stated that the nation’s deterioration was the result of interference from Iranian and Russian-backed groups. On 3 March 2019, National Security Adviser John Bolton invoked the Monroe Doctrine to describe the Trump Administration’s policy in the Americas, stating, ‘In this Administration, we are not afraid to use the word Monroe Doctrine… It has been the goal of American presidents, starting with President Ronald Reagan, to have a fully democratic hemisphere.’

Historians have noted that although the Doctrine contained a commitment to resist further European colonialism in the Americas, it did, on the other hand, have aggressive implications for American foreign policy, since there were no limitations on the United States’ own actions. Historian Jay Sexton notes that the tactics used to implement the Doctrine were modelled on those employed by European imperial powers during the 17th and 18th centuries. American historian William Appleman Williams, seeing the Doctrine as a form of American imperialism, described it as a form of ‘imperial anti-colonialism’. Noam Chomsky argues that, in practice, the Monroe Doctrine was used by the US government as a declaration of hegemony and a right of unilateral intervention over the Americas. But not only that.

We see, therefore, that these ideologies and doctrines coined in the early 19th century have continued – and will continue – to be used and influence the entire global political landscape.

It would be incredibly interesting at this point to delve into the concepts of American exceptionalism and Americanism, and perhaps make a comparison with the Doctrine of Discovery in other respects. I will only mention that American exceptionalism is the belief that the United States is distinctive, unique or exemplary compared to other nations. Proponents of this idea claim that the values, political system and historical development of the United States are unique in human history, often with the implication that it is destined and entitled to play a distinct and positive role on the world stage. But let us come to the Native Americans whose survival, with these ideological premises, we can well understand how difficult it has been.

Native Americans

Manifest Destiny had serious consequences for Native Americans, as continental expansion implied the occupation and annexation of their land. This eventually led to clashes and wars with various groups of native peoples through their removal (Indian Removal). The national policy was that Indians would join American society and become ‘civilised’, which would mean no more wars with neighbouring tribes or raids against white settlers or travellers, and a shift from hunting to farming and ranching. Proponents of civilisation programmes believed that the process of colonising the native tribes would greatly reduce the amount of land needed by the Natives, making more land available for white Americans to build homes and plantations and raise livestock. Thomas Jefferson believed that although the natives of America were intellectually equal to whites, they should either assimilate and live like whites or be inevitably pushed aside and ‘removed’, as was later done. According to historian Jeffrey Ostler, once assimilation was no longer possible, Jefferson would advocate the extermination of the natives. According to law scholar and professor Robert J. Miller, Thomas Jefferson ‘understood and used the Doctrine of Manifest Destiny in the course of his political career against the Indian tribes’.

 The idea of the ‘removal of the Indians’ gained traction in the context of Manifest Destiny and, with Jefferson as one of the leading political voices on the subject, amassed supporters who believed that American Indians would be better off away from white settlers. The removal effort was further solidified through the policies of Andrew Jackson, when he signed the Indian Removal Act in 1830.

As we know, the removal of the Natives west of the Mississippi was not enough: the settlers were pressing for new lands. Colville scholar Dina Gilo-Whitaker describes how, during the process of removal and subsequent westward expansion, promises of technology and abundant resources were made to indigenous peoples, while settlers actually began damming rivers, imposing railroads, and seeking natural resources and minerals by mining and excavating Native American lands.  According to historians Boyd Cothran and Ned Blackhawk, this influx of trade, industrialisation and development of transportation corridors killed surrounding livestock, caused damage to waterways and created ill health and disease for the Native people living in those regions. Historian Jeffery Ostler comments on some of the general theories about the decline of the Native American population due to these environmental factors. He shows that during this period, there were many forces ‘of destruction, including slavery, disease, material deprivation, malnutrition, and social stress’.

Following the forced removal of many indigenous peoples, Americans increasingly believed that Native ways of life would disappear with the expansion of the United States. As historian Reginald Horsman has argued in his influential study Race and Manifest Destiny, racial rhetoric increased during the era of Manifest Destiny. For example, this idea was reflected in the work of one of the first great American historians, Francis Parkman. Parkman wrote that after the French defeat in the Franco-Indian War, the Indians were ‘destined to melt away and disappear in the face of the advancing waves of Anglo-American power, now advancing westward unchecked and unopposed’. The policies to remove the Indians led to the current reservation system that assigned territories to individual tribes. According to scholar Dina Gilio-Whitaker, ‘the treaties also created reservations that would confine the natives to much smaller territories than they had been accustomed to for millennia, diminishing their ability to feed themselves’. As a result, ‘the changing lifestyle of native peoples in the 19th century allowed epidemic diseases to rage in their communities’ and ‘the result of changing subsistence patterns and environments contributed to the explosion of diet-related diseases such as diabetes, vitamin and mineral deficiencies, cirrhosis, obesity, gall bladder disease, hypertension, and heart disease’. The selfish concept of manifest destiny, the belief that US expansion was divinely ordained, justifiable and inevitable, was used to rationalise the removal of American Indians from their homelands. Americans declared that it was their duty, their manifest destiny, to take, settle and cultivate the land. Not surprisingly, the most active supporters of manifest destiny and advocates of Indian removal were those who practised land speculation.

Published originally in Italian in The AntiDiplomatico, 18 July 2024

“Nativi” column by Raffaella Milandri

https://www.lantidiplomatico.it/news-nativi/53237/