Manifest Destiny
Topic: Settler Colonialism: Native Peoples of America and Australia · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
Manifest Destiny was a nineteenth-century American belief that God meant the USA to spread across the whole of North America. The phrase became popular from 1845. It gave a religious and patriotic reason for moving west and taking land from native peoples and from Mexico. Settlers believed their farms, laws and way of life were superior. This meant they saw no need to ask the natives for their consent.
Example
In the 1840s, the USA took much of its south-west from Mexico through war. Supporters of Manifest Destiny cheered this expansion. Native peoples living in these lands were pushed onto reservations (areas set aside for them).
Don't confuse with
- Frontier: the frontier was the shifting western edge of settlement, which ended in 1892. Manifest Destiny was the belief used to justify pushing that edge forward.