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Maraline Ellis Salem-‐Keizer School District 2013-‐2014

Manifest Destiny and Westward Expansion

Source #1 The Components Of Manifest Destiny The notion of Manifest Destiny had many components, each serving people in different ways. 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 much of the reform energy of the time. Individually, the components created separate reasons to conquer new land. Together they exemplified America’s ideological need to dominate from pole to pole. The Religious Influence To some, the Manifest Destiny Doctrine was based on the idea that America had a divine providence. It had a future that was destined by God to expand its borders, with no limit to area or country. All the 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.” For example, the idea that the Puritan notion of establishing a "city on a hill" was eventually secularized into Manifest Destiny-‐-‐a sort of materialistic, religious, utopian destiny. A Sense Of A Mission While some were driven by what they considered God's will, others saw Manifest Destiny as the historical inevitability of American domination of North America from sea to sea. It was an altruistic way to extend American liberty to new realms. North West expansion started with the American fur trappers. In their search for new reserves of beaver, they blazed new trials 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. The Santa Fe Trail went from Independence to the Old Spanish Trail, which went into Los Angeles. The Oxbow Route headed from Missouri to California. Others headed out on the Oregon Trail to the Pacific Northwest. In 1845, approximately 5,000 people traveled the Oregon Trail to Oregon's Willamette Valley. The Oregon Trail was the longest of the pioneer trail that went West. It traversed more than 2,000 miles' trough prairie, desert, and rugged mountain land from Independence, Missouri to the Northwest. In its short life, 300,000 settlers traveled this trail, marking their path by the landmarks first identified by Lewis and Clark. Thirty thousand graves mark the trial of these pioneers. In the wake of continual death and hardship the allure of Manifest Destiny continued to drive expansionist interests. Beginning with the first wagon in 1831, to the formation of the territorial government in 1848, Manifest Destiny was responsible for making America grow. 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. Going West would eventually open new trade routes. Last but not least, there was a renewed fear that the security of the United States might be impaired by foreign intervention


in areas along its borders. The easiest way to conquer those fears was to conquer land beyond its borders and expand American territories. The Dark Side For all the positive atmosphere and grand spirit Manifest Destiny created, it also created the dark side of American History, non darker than the plight of the American Indian. While the positive side of Manifest Destiny was a surge of enthusiasm and energy for pushing West, the negative side was the belief that the white man had the right to destroy anything and anyone -‐-‐ namely Indians -‐-‐ who got in the way. Tracing the path of Manifest Destiny across the West would highlight mass destruction of tribal organizations, confinement of Indians to reservations, and full blown genocide. The dark side of Manifest Destiny revealed the white man's belief that his settlement of the land and civilization of its native peoples was preordained. The settlements that extended across the Western territories promised the American dream: the freedom and independence of a seemingly limitless land. This, coupled with the Agrarian spirit produced an attitude that nothing was gong to stand in the way of progress, the progress of Manifest Destiny. In the name of this doctrine, Americans took whatever land they wanted. With a belief that Manifest Destiny gave them a right and power to do so, many simply settled, planted and farmed Indian land. 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 arrogance that flowed from the Manifest Destiny philosophy was exemplified when Albert T. Beveridge rose before the U.S. Senate and announced:

"God has not been preparing the English-‐speaking and Tectonic peoples for a thousand years for nothing but vain and idle self-‐admiration. No! He has made us the master organizers of the world to establish system where chaos reigns... He has made us adepts in government that we may administer government among savages and senile peoples. Theodore Roosevelt, John Cabot Lodge, and John Hay, each in turn, endorsed with a strong sense of certainty the view that the Anglo-‐Saxon [Americans] was destined to rule the world. Such views expressed in the 19th century and in the early 20th century continues to ring true in the minds of many non-‐Indian property owners. The superiority of the "white race" is the foundation on which the Anti-‐Indian Movement organizers and right-‐wing helpers rest their efforts to dismember Indian tribes.”

http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/essays/1801-‐1900/manifest-‐destiny/the-‐components-‐of-‐manifest-‐destiny.php


Source #2 Stabbing Westward: An Analysis of John Gast’s “American Progress” Posted on November 30, 2012 http://2012english120.wordpress.com/2012/11/30/stabbing-‐westward-‐an-‐analysis-‐of-‐john-‐gasts-‐american-‐progress/ By Jake Colberg

John Gast’s “American Progress”

In the nineteenth century the young new nation of the United States had great aspirations for its future. As a result, westward expansion was an appealing thought, and the idea of manifest destiny was a common mindset among early Americans. With this ideology so common among people at the time, the West wasn’t only thought of by some as a great opportunity to start anew. It was also viewed as a serious economic opportunity for people seeking to exploit the hopeful thoughts of others. As a result of this, propaganda began surfacing portraying the West and the American expansion west in a very positive light. John Gast’s painting “American Progress” is an example of this (it was printed in traveling guides at the time), and – through different displays of symbolism – it portrays Western expansion by Americans as a glorious and righteous thing. In reality, however, expansion may not have been as just as the painting makes it seem. The painting is set on an American landscape, with the right half of the painting representing eastern America, and the left half of the painting representing western America. The first thing to notice about the painting is the variations in light seen when comparing the east and the west. The rightmost edge of the painting is bright, but as the painting shifts left it begins to grow darker, with the furthest left edge being marked by a foreboding sky adorned with storm clouds. Similarly, the gentle rolling hills of the east give way to jagged mountains as the painting moves left into the west. From these landscape features alone, Gast creates the idea that the East is warm and welcoming, while the West is dark and ominous. This creates a platform which, upon Gast’s introduction of characters into the painting, plays a great deal on the viewer’s emotions. The next thing to notice is the dominating figure in the middle of the painting. The figure is a woman who resembles an angel, and the light aforementioned clearly exudes from her. She appears to be moving westward, illuminating the way as she goes. Amy Greenberg writes: “It is the benign domestic influence of [her] allegorical figure, […] Gast seems to indicate, that is responsible for the smooth and uplifting transformation of wilderness into civilization.”[1]


When looking at the painting, this claim certainly seems to hold true. The painting features covered wagons, then stagecoaches, then trains, all moving west. This presents the idea of technological advancement being brought further West as American folk continue to settle the frontier, a thought which was very widespread at the time. By incorporating these common ideals into “American Progress,” Gast immediately established common ground with any American viewing the painting at the time. By creating the heavenly woman in the center, who bears the innovative telegraph wire in her left hand, Gast introduces the main argument of the painting: the idea that it was the heavenly duty of Americans to expand the country all the way to the Pacific Ocean. This idea surely resonated with people at the time. This aggressive use of pathos is most likely the main reason many Americans at the time connected with the argument the painting presented. The opinions people shared about American Indians in the nineteenth century played a significant role in the perspective people took regarding the Indians’ inclusion in the image. In the nineteenth century Indians were thought of as mere savages, and driving them out of an area of land may have been considered an example of cleansing in some American’s eyes. Looking at “American Progress” today, however, one can’t help but feel sympathy for the Indians shown fleeing on the left side of the painting. Rather than coming across as savages fleeing from the progress settlers were bringing with them, they appear to be troubled people fleeing in a desperate attempt to maintain the way of life they were accustomed to. Similarly, the farmers depicted at the bottom of the painting may be viewed in a negative light today as well. Rather than being brave individuals taming the land, they might instead be viewed as selfish individuals destroying the habitat and forcing animals out of their natural homes. Overall, however, “American Progress” presented a very effective argument at the time it was created. John Gast effectively played off the American emotions present at the time regarding patriotism and manifest destiny, and by incorporating American innovations such as telegraph lines into the image he paired the idea of expanding westward settlement with the idea of innovation. The painting truly “hints at the past, lays out a fantastic version of an evolving present, and finally lays out a vision of the future,” and though it may lack in some aspects of logical argument, it presents a great example in which “a static picture conveys a dynamic story.”[2] [1] Greenberg, Amy S. Manifest Manhood and the Antebellum American Empire. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2005. [2] Sandweiss, Martha A. “John Gast, American Progress, 1872.” Picturing US History. City University of New York.


Source #3 Tecumseh, 1811 “Sleep Not Longer” Have we not courage enough remaining to defend our country and maintain our ancient independence? Will we calmly suffer the white intruders and tyrants to enslave us? Shall it be said of our race that we knew not how to extricate ourselves from the three most dreadful calamities—folly, inactivity, and cowardice? But what need is there to speak of the past? It speaks for itself and asks: Where today is the Pequod? Where the Narragansetts, the Mohawks, Pocanokets, and many other once powerful tribes of our race? They have vanished before the avarice and oppression of the white men, as snow before a summer sun. In the vain hope of alone defending their ancient possessions, they have fallen in the wars with the white men. Look abroad over their once beautiful country, and what see you now? Naught but the ravages of the paleface destroyers meet our eyes. So it will be with you Choctaws and Chickasaws! Soon your mighty forest trees, under the shade of whose wide spreading branches you have played in infancy, sported in boyhood, and now rest your wearied limbs after the fatigue of the chase, will be cut down to fence in the land which the white intruders dare to call their own. Soon their broad roads will pass over the grave of your fathers, and the place of their rest will be blotted out forever. The annihilation of our race is at hand unless we unite in one common cause against the common foe. Think not, brave Choctaws and Chickasaws, that you can remain passive and indifferent to the common danger, and thus escape the common fate. Your people, too, will soon be as falling leaves and scattering clouds before their blighting breath. You, too, will be driven away from your native land and ancient domains as leaves are driven before the wintry storms.

Sleep not longer, O Choctaws and Chickasaws, in false security and delusive hopes. Our broad domains are fast escaping from our grasp. Every year our white intruders become more greedy, exacting, oppressive, and overbearing. Every year contentions spring up between them and our people and when blood is shed we have to make atonement whether right or wrong, at the cost of the lives of our greatest chiefs, and the yielding up of large tracts of our lands. Before the palefaces came among us, we enjoyed the happiness of unbounded freedom, and were acquainted with neither riches, wants, nor oppression. How is it now? Wants and oppression are our lot; for are we not controlled in everything, and dare we move without asking, by your leave? Are we not being stripped day by day of the little that remains of our ancient liberty? Do they not even kick and strike us as they do their blackfaces? How long will it be before they will tie us to a post and whip us, and make us work for them in their cornfields as they do them? Shall we wait for that moment, or shall we die fighting before submitting to such ignominy? Have we not for years had before our eyes a sample of their designs, and are they not sufficient harbingers of their future determinations? Will we not soon be driven from our respective countries and the graves of our ancestors? Will not the bones of our dead be plowed up, and their graves be turned into fields? Shall we calmly wait until they become so numerous that we will no longer be able to resist oppression? Will we wait to be destroyed in our turn, without making an effort worthy of our race? Shall we give up our homes, our country, bequeathed to us by the Great Spirit, the graves of our dead, and everything that is dear and sacred to us, without a struggle? I know you will cry with me: Never! Never! Then let us by unity of action destroy


them all, which we now can do, or drive them back whence they came. War or extermination is now our only choice. Which do you choose? I know your answer. Therefore, I now call on you, brave Choctaws and Chickasaws, to assist in the just cause of liberating our race from the grasp of our faithless invaders and heartless oppressors. The white usurpation in our common country must be stopped, or we, its rightful owners, be forever destroyed and wiped out as a race of people. I am now at the head of many warriors backed by the strong arm of English soldiers. Choctaws and Chickasaws, you have too long borne with grievous usurpation inflicted by the arrogant Americans. Be no longer their dupes. If there be one here tonight who believes that his rights will not sooner or later be taken from him by the avaricious American palefaces, his ignorance ought to excite pity, for he knows little of the character of our common foe. And if there be one among you mad enough to undervalue the growing power of the white race among us, let him tremble in considering the fearful woes he will bring down upon our entire race, if by his criminal indifference he assists the designs of our common enemy against our common country. Then listen to the voice of duty, of honor, of nature, and of your endangered country. Let us form one body, one heart, and defend to the last warrior our country, our homes, our liberty, and the graves of our fathers. Choctaws and Chickasaws, you are among the few of our race who sit indolently at ease. You have indeed enjoyed the reputation of being brave, but will you be indebted for it more from report than fact? Let no one in this council imagine that I speak more from malice against the paleface Americans than just grounds of complaint. Complaint is just toward friends who have failed in their duty; accusation is against enemies guilty of injustice. And surely, if any people ever had, we have good and just reasons to believe we have ample grounds to accuse the Americans of injustice; especially when such great acts of injustice have been committed by them upon our race, of which they seem to have no manner of regard, or even to reflect. They are a people fond of innovations, quick to contrive, and quick to put their schemes into effectual execution no matter how great the wrong and injury to us; while we are content to preserve what we already have. Their designs are to enlarge their possessions by taking yours in turn. Do you imagine that that people will not continue longest in the enjoyment of peace who timely prepare to vindicate themselves, and manifest a determined resolution to do themselves right whenever they are wronged? Far otherwise. Then haste to the relief of our common cause, as by consanguinity of blood you are bound; lest the day be not far distant when you will be left single-‐handed and alone to the cruel mercy of our most inveterate foe.


Source #4

Red Cloud, chief of the largest tribe of the Teton Sioux Chief, 1870, speaking at a reception in his honor in New York City

MY BRETHREN AND MY FRIENDS who are here before me this day, God Almighty has made us all, and He is here to bless what I have to say to you today. The Good Spirit made us both. He gave you lands and He gave us lands; He gave us these lands; you came in here, and we respected you as brothers. God Almighty made you but made you all white and clothed you; when He made us He made us with red skins and poor; now you have come.

When you first came we were very many, and you were few; now you are many, and we are getting very few, and we are poor. You do not know who appears before you today to speak. I am a representative of the original American race, the first people of this continent. We are good and not bad. The reports that you hear concerning us are all on one side. We are always well-‐disposed to them. You are here told that we are traders and thieves, and it is not so. We have given you nearly all our lands, and if we had any more land to give we would be very glad to give it. We have nothing more. We are driven into a very little land, and we want you now, as our dear friends, to help us with the government of the United States.

The Great Father made us poor and ignorant—made you rich and wise and more skillful in these things that we know nothing about. The Great Father, the Good Father in Heaven, made you all to eat tame food—made us to eat wild food—gives us the wild food. You ask anybody who has gone through our country to California; ask those who have settled there and in Utah, and you will find that we have treated them always well. You have children; we have children. You want to raise your children and make them happy and prosperous; we want to raise and make them happy and prosperous. We ask you to help us to do it.

At the mouth of the Horse Creek, in 1852, the Great Father made a treaty with us by which we agreed to let all that country open for fifty-‐five years for the transit of those who were going through. We kept this treaty; we never treated any man wrong; we never committed any murder or depredation until afterward the troops were sent into that country, and the troops killed our people and ill-‐treated them, and thus war and trouble arose; but before the troops were sent there we were quiet and peaceable, and there was no disturbance. Since that time there have been various goods sent from time to time to us, the only ones that ever reached us, and then after they reached us (very soon after) the government took them away. You, as good men, ought to help us to these goods.

Colonel Fitzpatrick of the government said we must all go to farm, and some of the people went to Fort Laramie and were badly treated. I only want to do that which is peaceful, and the Great Fathers know it, and also the Great Father who made us both. I came to Washington to see the Great Father in order to have peace and in order to have peace continue. That is all we want, and that is the reason why we are here now.

In 1868 men came out and brought papers. We are ignorant and do not read papers, and they did not tell us right what was in these papers. We wanted them to take away their forts, leave


our country, would not make war, and give our traders something. They said we had bound ourselves to trade on the Missouri, and we said, no, we did not want that. The interpreters deceived us. When I went to Washington I saw the Great Father. The Great Father showed me what the treaties were; he showed me all these points and showed me that the interpreters had deceived me and did not let me know what the right side of the treaty was. All I want is right and justice. . . . I represent the Sioux Nation; they will be governed by what I say and what I represent. . . .

Look at me. I am poor and naked, but I am the Chief of the Nation. We do not want riches, we do not ask for riches, but we want our children properly trained and brought up. We look to you for your sympathy. Our riches will . . . do us no good; we cannot take away into the other world anything we have -‐ we want to have love and peace. . . . We would like to know why commissioners are sent out there to do nothing but rob [us] and get the riches of this world away from us?

I was brought up among the traders and those who came out there in those early times. I had a good time for they treated us nicely and well. They taught me how to wear clothes and use tobacco, and to use firearms and ammunition, and all went on very well until the Great Father sent out another kind of men—men who drank whisky. He sent out whisky-‐men, men who drank and quarreled, men who were so bad that he could not keep them at home, and so he sent them out there. I have sent a great many words to the Great Father, but I don't know that they ever reach the Great Father. They were drowned on the way, therefore I was a little offended with it. The words I told the Great Father lately would never come to him, so I thought I would come and tell you myself

And I am going to leave you today, and I am going back to my home. I want to tell the people that we cannot trust his agents and superintendents. I don't want strange people that we know nothing about. I am very glad that you belong to us. I am very glad that we have come here and found you and that we can understand one another. I don't want any more such men sent out there, who are so poor that when they come out there their first thoughts are how they can fill their own pockets.

We want preserves in our reserves. We want honest men, and we want you to help to keep us in the lands that belong to us so that we may not be a prey to those who are viciously disposed. I am going back home. I am very glad that you have listened to me, and I wish you good-‐bye and give you an affectionate farewell.


Source #5

Crazy Horse, or Tashunka-‐uitco, led the Lakota resistance to the U.S. Army and the forced movement of his people onto reservations in the 1860s and 1870s. He helped lead a victorious coalition of Native Americans against Custer's soldiers at the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876 and held out against U.S. troops until 1877. After surrendering, he moved to the Red Cloud Agency, a reservation in Nebraska. There he was arrested for attempting to leave in order to visit his sick wife; while he was still in custody, Crazy Horse was murdered by military guards. I was not hostile to the white man. Sometimes my young men would attack the Indians who were their enemies and took their ponies. They did it in return. We had buffalo for food, and their hides for clothing and our tepees. We preferred hunting to a life of idleness on the reservations, where we were driven against our will. At times we did not get enough to eat, and we were not allowed to leave the reservation to hunt. We preferred our own way of living. We were no expense to the government then. All we wanted was peace and to be left alone. Soldiers were sent out in the winter, who destroyed our villages. [He referred to the winter before when his village was destroyed by Colonel Reynolds, Third Cavalry.] Then "Long Hair" [Custer] came in the same way. They say we massacred him, but he would have done the same to us had we not defended ourselves and fought to the last. Our first impulse was to escape with our squaws and papooses, but we were so hemmed in that we had to fight. After that I went up on Tongue River with a few of my people and lived in peace. But the government would not let me alone. Finally, I came back to Red Cloud agency. Yet I was not allowed to remain quiet. I was tired of fighting. I went to Spotted Tail agency and asked that chief and his agent to let me live there in peace. I came here with the agent [Lee] to talk with the big white chief, but was not given a chance. They tried to confine me, I tried to escape, and a soldier ran his bayonet into me. I have spoken.


Source #6

George Custer, My Life on the Plains, excerpts from Chapter 1

It is to be regretted that the character of the Indian as described in Cooper's interesting novels is not the true one. But as, in emerging from childhood into the years of a maturer age we are often compelled to cast aside many of our earlier illusions and replace them by beliefs less inviting but more real, so we, as a people, with opportunities enlarged and facilities for obtaining knowledge increased, have been forced by a multiplicity of causes to study and endeavor to comprehend thoroughly the character of the red man. So intimately has he become associated with the Government as ward of the nation, and so prominent a place among the questions of national policy does the much mooted Indian question occupy, that it behooves us no longer to study this problem from works of fiction, but to deal with it as it exists in reality.

Stripped of the beautiful romance with which we have been so long willing to envelop him, transferred from the inviting pages of the novelist to the localities where we are compelled to meet with him, in his native village, on the war path, and when raiding upon our frontier settlements and lines of travel, the Indian forfeits his claim to the appellation of the noble red man. We see him as he is, and, so far as all knowledge goes, as he ever has been, a savage in every sense of the word; not worse, perhaps, than his white brother would be, similarly born and bred, but one whose cruel and ferocious nature far exceeds that of any wild beast of the desert.


Source #7 Sitting Bull, Lakota Chief, 1890 Friends and Relatives: Our minds are again disturbed by the Great Father's representatives, the Indian Agent, the squaw men, the mixed-‐bloods, the interpreters, and the favorite ration chiefs. What is it they want of us at this time? They want us to give up another chunk of our tribal land. This is not the first time or the last time. They will again try to gain possession of the last piece of ground we possess. They are again telling us what they intend to do if we agree to their wishes. Have we ever set a price on our land and received such a value? No, we never did. What we got under formal treaties was promises of all sorts... We are dying off in expectation of these promises... Therefore, I do not wish to consider any proposition to cede any portion of our tribal holdings to the Great Father. If I agree to dispose of any part of our land to the white people I would feel guilty of taking food away from our children's mouths, and I do not wish to be that mean. There are things they tell us that sound good to hear, but when they have accomplished their purpose they will go home and will not try to fulfill our agreements with them. What treaty that the whites have kept has the red man broken? Not one. What treaty that the white man ever made with us have they kept? Not one. When I was a boy the Sioux owned the world; the sun rose and set on their land; they sent ten thousand men to battle. Where are the warriors today? Who slew them? Where are our lands? Who owns them? What white man can say I ever stole his land or a penny of his money? Yet, they say I am a thief. What white woman, however lonely, was ever captive or insulted by me? Who has ever come to me hungry and unfed? Who has ever seen me beat my wives or abuse my children? What law have I broken? Is it wrong for me to love my own? Is it wicked for me because my skin is red? Because I am Lakota, because I was born where my father dies, because I would die for my people and my country?


Discussion Questions Manifest Destiny and Westward Expansion

1. What is meant by Manifest Destiny? What was this ideology used to justify?

2. How is George Armstrong Custer portrayed in popular history? Has reading his own words changed your view of him? Explain.

3. How are Native Americans portrayed in popular history? Has reading their words changed your view of them? Explain.

4. Make a case for the removal of Native Americans from the Western Plains to reservations.

5. Make a case for the Native Americans’ right to remain on the Western Plains.


Political, Economic, and Social Reasons for Manifest Destiny

Political Reasons Economic Reasons Social Reasons

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Documents

Manifest Destiny and Westward Expansionellissabbatical.weebly.com/uploads/2/1/0/0/21005546/...Maraline(Ellis( Salem-Keizer(School(District( 2013-2014(Manifest)Destiny)and)Westward)Expansion)