Manifest Destiny
Manifest Destiny, an event of Westward Expansion from the Wild West
In the 19th century US, Manifest Destiny was a belief that was widely held that the destiny of American settlers was to expand and move across the continent to spread their traditions and their institutions, while at the same time enlightening more primitive nations. And the American settlers of the time considered Indians and Hispanics to be inferior and therefore deserving of cultivation. The settlers considered the United States to be the best possible way to organize a country so they felt the need to remake the world in the image of their own country.
Many Americans believed that God blessed the growth of American nation and even demanded of them to actively work on it. Since they were sure of their cultural and racial superiority, they felt that their destiny was to spread their rule around and enlighten the nations that were not so lucky. The settlers firmly believed in the virtue of American people and the mission to impose their virtuous – mainly Puritan – way of life on everybody else. This rhetorical background served to explain the acquisition of territories or reasons to go to war, such as the war with Mexico in 1840s.
Outside the United States, the effects of manifest destiny were seen in U.S. intervention in the Spanish-American war when Spain ceded the Philippine Islands, Puerto Rico and Guam to the U.S. This was an expansion of U.S. territory as colonies rather than states and was another demonstration of growing U.S. imperialism.
The term of ‘Manifest Destiny’ first appeared in a newspaper article on the annexation of Texas in edition from July/August of the United States Magazine and Democratic Review in 1845. The author, John L. O’Sullivan used it to describe what majority of Americans at the time believed was their mission from God: to expand to west and bring the United States government to unenlightened people.