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Manifest Destiny

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Six hands holding a sword with an eagle on the hilt.

The Democratic Promise of Manifest Destiny

All Americans with some education are aware that Manifest Destiny was one of the Bad Things in our past and very few know any more about it than that.
by Hamilton Craig via Compact on March 25, 2025
Members of the Grand Army of the Republic and the Daughters of Union Veterans gather in Colorado in the 1930s.

Veterans Visit an Idealized West

A gathering of Union veterans in 1883 sheds light on the country's vision of the American West—as a space for reconciliation and a prize won by the war.
by Cecily Nelson Zander via The Civil War Monitor on February 3, 2025
Brawny arm tattooed with Capitol building and fighter jets.

The Return of American Exuberance

Trump's foreign policy is not as unprecedented as it seems.
by Adam Rowe via Compact on January 20, 2025
A herd of bison running.

Speaking Wind-Words

Tracing the transformation of the Great Plains to the widespread belief in “manifest destiny,” and weighing the power of words to shape landscapes.
by Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder via Emergence Magazine on August 17, 2023
US Army soldiers sitting behind bison heads taken from poacher Ed Howell.

Why the US Army Tried to Exterminate the Bison

And then took credit for "saving" them.
by Coleman Lowndes via Vox on August 2, 2021

Hitler's American Dream

The dictator modeled his racial campaign after another conquest of land and people-America's Manifest Destiny.
by Timothy Snyder via Slate on March 8, 2017
A photograph of Henry A. Crabb.

Henry A. Crabb, Filibuster, and the San Diego Herald

A Californian politician's disastrous expedition to seize Mexican land, and how newspapers spun the story.
by Diana Lindsay via San Diego History Center on January 1, 1973
Cover of "America, América" by Greg Grandin.

The Dialectic Lurking Behind the Brutality

Greg Grandin’s new book tells the story of US expansionism and its complex relationship with the rest of the New World.
by Ieva Jusionyte via Los Angeles Review of Books on April 23, 2025

Donald Trump on Mount Rushmore Would Make More Historical Sense Than You Think

That doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.
by Matthew Davis via Slate on March 13, 2025
Donald Trump half-obscured by the American flag.

Emperor Trump’s New Map

The president who built his fan base on isolationism is pivoting to a kind of imperialism that the U.S. hasn’t seen in decades.
by Franklin Foer via The Atlantic on January 23, 2025
Mountainous Alaska landscape.

Trump’s Push to Control Greenland Echoes US Purchase of Alaska From Russia in 1867

The tale of how and why Russia ceded its control over Alaska to the U.S. 150 years ago is actually two tales and two intertwining histories.
by William L. Iggiagruk Hensley via The Conversation on January 8, 2025
Illustration imagining Karl Marx sitting on a ranch in Texas.

Marx Goes to Texas

Drawn to communities of German socialist expatriates in the area, Marx once considered making his way to Texas.
by Ryan Moore via Protean on August 11, 2024
John Gast's 1872 painting "American Progress," in which Miss Columbia, a personification of the enlightening United States, is depicted leading pioneers over the western plains.

Two Years That Made the West

In a momentous couple of years, the young United States added more than a million square miles of territory, including Texas and California. 
by Elliott West via American Heritage on July 3, 2024
The Gateway Arch in St. Louis.
partner

Walt Disney Presents Manifest Destiny

On the St. Louis theme park that never made it past the drawing board.
by Devin Thomas O’Shea via HNN on April 30, 2024
From left: A red and white sign protesting Critical Race Theory, groups of people stand in a parking lot

(White) Christian Roots of Slavery, Native American Genocide, and Ongoing Efforts to Erase History

15th century dogma connects the genocide and land dispossession of Native Americans with the enslavement and oppression of African Americans throughout history.
by Robert P. Jones, Bradley Onish via Religion Dispatches on October 2, 2023
Design drawing for the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial Competition, 1947.
original

A Gateway to the Past

The Arch in St. Louis stands as a monument to contradictory histories.
by Ed Ayers on September 13, 2023
Lady Columbia drawing from 1890.

Before Lady Liberty, There Was Lady Columbia, America's First National Mascot

The forgotten figure symbolized the hopes—and myths—of the early United States.
by Cari Shane via Smithsonian on August 30, 2023
Senator McCarran greeted by a group of men in front of a plane.

What Nevada Stole from Its Indigenous People

Senator Pat McCarran’s vision for the desert carried a tradition of dispossession into the mid-20th century.
by Taylor Rose via Zócalo Public Square on April 3, 2023
Painting depicting the U.S. Army and American Indians signing the Treaty of Greenville, 1785.

How the (First) West Was Won: Federalist Treaties that Reshaped the Frontier

Treaties with Britain, the Confederated tribes, and Spain revealed that America was still dependent on the greater geopolitics of the Atlantic World.
by Brady J. Crytzer via Journal of the American Revolution on December 29, 2022
Manifest Destiny painting by Emanuel Leutze

No, Liberal Historians Can’t Tame Nationalism

Historians should reject nationalism and help readers to avoid its dangers.
by Eran A. Zelnik via The Activist History Review on November 8, 2022
A woman lights a candle at a memorial for the Buffalo shooting victims, May 2022.
partner

The Mass Shooting in Buffalo Reflects Deeply Rooted American Ideas

Until we grapple with our history, white supremacist terrorism will keep happening.
by Jesse Curtis via Made By History on May 16, 2022
Illustration of black calvary officers with a Native American, circa 1874

Is This Land Made for You and Me?

How African Americans came to Indian Territory after the Civil War.
by Alaina E. Roberts via Lapham’s Quarterly on May 26, 2021
William Walker

The Manifest Destiny Marauders Who Gave the “Filibuster” Its Name

Long before Southern Democrats filibustered Civil Rights legislation, “filibusteros” were conquering slave territories for the United States.
by John Patrick Leary via The New Republic on March 5, 2021
Illustration of a coastline with indications of industry and farming

Human History and the Hunger for Land

From Bronze Age farmers to New World colonialists, the stories of struggle to claim more ground have shaped where and how we live.
by Francisco Cantú via The New Yorker on January 11, 2021
An illustration of a kid imagining going to space.

Selling the American Space Dream

The cosmic delusions of Elon Musk and Wernher von Braun.
by David Beers via The New Republic on December 7, 2020
Formal photograph of Ulysses S. Grant.

Public Monuments and Ulysses S. Grant’s Contested Legacy

It is fair to ask whether Grant’s prewar experiences define the entirety of his character, and who sets the bar for which public figures deserve commemoration.
by Nick Sacco via Muster on July 7, 2020
Book cover of the Three Cornered War, featuring a southwestern desert landscape.

A Different Civil War in the Southwest

A riveting new book shows how the Civil War in the West was both strategically important and lacking in the moral contours of the broader war.
by Sam Kleiner via Los Angeles Review of Books on June 10, 2020

Slavery, and American Racism, Were Born in Genocide

Martin Luther King Jr. recognized that Imperial expansion over stolen Indian land shaped and deepened the American Revolution’s relationship to slavery.
by Greg Grandin via The Nation on January 20, 2020

Can Colonial Nations Truly Recognise the Sovereignty of Indigenous People?

The Lakota, like other groups, see themselves as a sovereign people. Can Indigenous sovereignty survive colonisation?
by Pekka Hämäläinen via Aeon on October 2, 2019

Donald Trump Brings Back Manifest Destiny

And good for him. Nations have always competed for strategically placed land and resources.
by James P. Pinkerton via The American Conservative on August 28, 2019
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