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
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
3. Benjamin Franklin, Letter to Lord Kames, April 11, 1767
2. Expansion in the Early Republic
4. Richard Butler, A Commissioner’s View of the Ohio River Valley, 1785
5. Council of 1793, To the Commissioners of the United States, August 16, 1793
6. Jedidiah Morse, The American Geography, 1792
7. Fisher Ames, Letter to Thomas Dwight, October 31, 1803
8. Thomas Jefferson, Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1805
9. Tecumseh, Appeal to the Osages, 1811
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. Pathiñ-nañpaji, An Encounter Between Omaha Hunters and White Squatters in Iowa, 1853
16. Zenas Leonard, A Fur Trapper’s View of Manifest Destiny, 1839
17. United States Democratic Review, The Great Nation of Futurity, November 1839
18. Richard Henry Dana, Two Years before the Mast, 1840
19. Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Young American, 1844
4. Texas and Oregon
20. Manuel Mier y Terán, Letter to President Guadalupe Victoria, June 30, 1828
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, Jan 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. Walt Whitman, American Workingmen, Versus Slavery, September 1, 1847
31. Henry Clay, Speech at Lexington, November 13, 1847
32. New York Herald, Public Meeting in Favor of Annexing All of Mexico, January 30, 1848
33. Ramón Alcaraz et. al, Origin of the War with the United States, 1848
6. Expanded Horizons: Cuba, Hawaii, and Central America
34. La Verdad, Appeal to the Inhabitants of Cuba, April 27, 1848
35. Cora Montgomery, The Benefits of Annexing Cuba, 1850
36. James Buchanan, Pierre Soulé, and John Y. Mason, The Ostend Manifesto, 1854
37. Currier and Ives, The ‘Ostend Doctrine,’ Practical Democrats Carrying Out the Principle, 1856
38. T. Robinson Warren, Traveling through the Pacific, 1859
39. Young Sam, Nicaragua Ho!, January 1856
40. Martin Delany, Political Destiny of the Colored Race on the American
Continent, August 24,1854
41. Mary Seacole, A Jamaican’s View of Americans in Panama, 1857
7. Sectionalism trumps Expansionism
42. William Walker, The War in Nicaragua, 1860
43. George Sydney Hawkins, Hostility to Southern Interests, May 31, 1858
44. William Waters Boyce, Why Southerners Should Oppose Territorial Expansion, January 15, 1855
8. Manifest Destiny Reevaluated and Redeemed
45. George Crofutt, American Progress, 1873
46. Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins, Trouble on the Paiute Reservation, 1865
47. Albert J. Beveridge, The March of the Flag, 1898
APPENDIXES
A Chronology of Manifest Destiny and American Territorial Expansion (1620-1902)
Questions for Consideration
Selected Bibliography
Index