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This is an accepted version of this page This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 25 January 2025. Cultural belief of 19th-century American expansionists For other uses, see Manifest Destiny (disambiguation). American Progress (1872) by John Gast is an allegorical representation of the modernization of the new west. Columbia, a personification of the United States, is shown leading ...
Manifest Destiny was a justification for expansion and westward movement, or, in some interpretations, an ideology or doctrine that helped to promote the progress of civilization. Advocates of Manifest Destiny believed that expansion was not only good, but that it was obvious and certain.
Manifest destiny had serious consequences for Native Americans, since continental expansion implicitly meant the occupation and annexation of Native American land, sometimes to expand slavery. This ultimately led to confrontations and wars with several groups of native peoples via Indian removal .
The term is used more often in the European and North American contexts, but the concept has been applied to other continents including Africa, Asia and South America. In North American history, continentalism became linked to manifest destiny and involved merging continental expansion with international growth.
Indian Agent Benjamin Hawkins demonstrating European methods of farming to Creek (Muscogee) on his Georgia plantation situated along the Flint River, 1805. The most important facet of the foreign policy of the newly independent United States was primarily concerned with devising a policy to deal with the various Native American tribes it bordered.
Several European countries attempted to found colonies in the Americas after 1500. Most of those attempts ended in failure. The colonists themselves faced high rates of death from disease, starvation, inefficient resupply, conflict with Native Americans, attacks by rival European powers, and other causes.
In the 1800s, ideologies such as manifest destiny, which held the view that the United States was destined to expand from coast to coast on the North American continent, fueled U.S. attacks against, and maltreatment of, Native Americans.
Widespread contemporary acceptance of the policy, due in part to the popular embrace of the concept of manifest destiny, has given way to a more somber perspective. Historians have often described the removal of Native Americans as paternalism , [ 11 ] [ 12 ] ethnic cleansing , [ 13 ] [ 143 ] [ 144 ] or genocide .