Talk:Manifest destiny

Entire first section is incorrect

There is no mention of the racial and religious basis of Manifest Destiny. Additionally, the idea that Manifest Destiny was always contested and "never became a national priority" is insane. Writing the article this way makes it seem as though the writer is a white supremacist.

If Manifest Destiny was never a national priority, how do we have 50 states? What did Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson do and say about expansion?

Also, citing Frederick Merk is disgusting. Merk is nowhere near reputable, essentially denying the reality of the settlers who expanded into the West and instead blaming a "small minority". This is no surprise from someone trained under Frederick Jackson Turner, a historian who theorized the frontier thesis which tried to justify American settler colonialism.

The beginning of this article should include better references instead of this written by the old and disconnected Harvard "historians". Shikkato (talk) 22:48, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Do you have some reliable sources for the above statements to offer? Andre🚐 00:14, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Also, please read WP:DUE in WP:NPOV. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 22:28, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Well, I made an edit fixing all of these issues, before even reading this paragraph just today. Good to see others seeing the same issues.

However, @The_ed17 is unsure of complete removable of racial basis. Can we talk here ed?

- The core point of Manifest Destiny across all of the sources appears to the *The border of the nation itself* expanding westward, that is why I quote "United States" without settlers, and much less white settlers. Simply settlers of any race does not appear to be commonality across all sources.

- The link is not duplicate, one is 19th Century US History, and the other link is the Nation itself (The nation whose borders are set to expand as per Manifest Destiny), same as our double-link on "Annexation of Texas" and "Republic of Texas", one is a historical coverage the other is the political entity itself.

I agree with your source mentioning the nature of "White", the vast majority of settlers were White. This is a great topic of discussion. But I think the introductory paragraph is to be agreed upon by all sources.

Can we move towards a resolution where we have a paragraph mentioning all individual persons who appealed to White supremacy as a justification for Manifest Destiny, and also note those who believed or once believed in Manifest Destiny yet were staunch abolitionists and believed in fundamental equality of whites and some (or all) other races (Quincy Adams being abolitionist, Jefferson disagreeing that whites were superior by nature). Manifest Destiny was used heavily during integration of Free States, and California was a crucial Free State with massively increasing population. Npip99 (talk) 18:50, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Linking to United States is an MOS:OVERLINK problem, and the article body makes clear that this was a belief held by white Americans no matter what their beliefs. Pinging Wtmitchell as a person who commented above (Andrevan appears to be blocked). Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 07:52, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

I'm just responding to the ping here. I've not been blocked as far as I know, nor should I be. I came here by way of an interest I have developed in Philippine history, particularly the 1896-1946 timeframe, by way of the Benevolent assimilation article. That probably led to me watchlisting this article and my comment above when it popped up there. IMO, this white-supremacy stuff is simply racism, probably driven by monkey-troop tribalism. It used to be acceptable and accepted in large parts of the US (see e.g. this, which used to be quoted in this article). Nowadays the racism pendulum in popularly-held American values has swung in the other direction. IMO, that deserves prominent mention in this article -- perhaps a section on it -- but keeping to NPOV in that would not be easy. I am not motivated to spend much time or energy working on that. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 00:46, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

==============================

@The_ed17 On the discussion,

> that this was a belief held by white Americans no matter what their beliefs

Who believes in it and what the belief is are two different things. Just talking about the belief itself.

So, to your point of changing "United States" to "White".

- First, even if it was 1790 when the only naturalized American Citizens were White, the use of "white" in the first defining sentence is still wrong ~ You can't just use "White" when "American Citizen" is actually the point, even if American Citizens happen to be White. We can't just go around all of Wikipedia and replacing references to homogeneous nationalities with their races instead. The issue if self-evident, the claim that the definition of "Manifest Destiny" is "white settlers moving west", that definition is 100% satisfied by France pulling Quebecois and establishing a French colony along the west coast, which is an absurd definition, no Democrat or Whig would agree the destiny has been manifested in that situation. The correct definition is "Manifest Destiny is American Citizens moving west". Even if the word "American Citizen" was only slightly accurate than "white", then we should use "American Citizen" for NPOV; however, in this case it's not just slightly more accurate but that the alternative is entirely incorrect.

- And, beyond that, it's not 1790, and American Citizenship was not exclusive by white race. There was a growing population of freedmen accumulating in the North at this time and the North actively pushed for the west to become free states, and essentially succeeded by every measure (Almost the entire far west had never experienced slavery of any kind).

=====================

Against the primary claim that "Using 'White' is self-evident from the body of the article itself",

- "White" is mentioned 4 times in relation to John C. Calhoun, the most controversial and ardent defender of Slavery in the Senate at the time and constantly resisted by Clay and Webster over his racial policies. My point is that "White" is agreed upon by some and disagreed by others, so the definition of Manifest Destiny is to be the intersection of both beliefs and then we later discuss differing viewpoints.

- "White" is mentioned 2 times in relation to Homestead Act of 1862, which was explicitly passed by Lincoln to be open to all people willing to settle the land regardless of race for the express purpose of allowing blacks to settle IN the case that the North emancipates the slaves (After which post-war Homestead Acts in the South itself were the primary way in which emancipated blacks received land)

- "White" is mentioned 1 time in regard to Alaska, which is not Manifest Destiny

- "White" is mentioned 6 times in relation to Jefferson's quotes from 1785-1803, which as mentioned above is 40 years before the events in question.

- 2 of those times are uncited "national policy" claims whose only reference is Jefferson

-> Therefore, I don't believe that the mention of "white" in the article itself substantiates the proposed edit.

=====================

In essence, the debate is summarized:

- Manifest Destiny isn't defined by settlers, it's defined on US territory expanding westward.

- But, even if we say the definition is settlers, "Whites" who are not American Citizens, do not count as Manifest Destiny. So "White" is not the category that defines Manifest Destiny.

- And, Even the claim that it is white-only did not hold true. 93% of blacks were in bondage as of 1840, and yet the 7% of freedmen are *explicitly* part of the conversation in nearly every single effort to move west.

- See American pioneer for the description of those who settled the West as part of Manifest Destiny.

-----

- We can definitely have a paragraph on White-only Settler beliefs. Yes, many supporters of slave states moving west believed it should be only Whites to settle west, but they were the minority, and they lost by every measure in settling the west in that way. We should have a paragraph in the article titled "Settlers as Whites" quoting specific people (Calhoun, Andrew Jackson) in their beliefs that it was reserved only for whites and that other races should be enslaved/not included. And include specific people (Quincy Adams, Jefferson, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster) and their quotes relating to freedmen in the western frontier and (E.g. Jefferson) integrating Natives into agrarian society as U.S. Citizens (Which was never realized until 1924). The lack of that paragraph existing is a separate matter.

- Even if white-only beliefs were the overwhelming majority opinion (Which they weren't), the Wikipedia first-sentence definition should only be consensus, any dissent would make the agreed-upon definition to be race-neutral the with white-only idea being a particular opinion of that subset of individuals.

- The status quo is in the way it was originally written for over 20 years; with no new citations or novel evidence it was changed to "white" in Oct 2023 and the article has been in constant turmoil ever since over NPOV. Ideally it is the opposing side to argue for the change (Claim that it's self-evident from the article itself is debated above); However, we can put that aside and ignore issue of status quo for this topic. Npip99 (talk) 14:00, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

=================

On the topic of "94.204.105.141"'s edit for the First Section:

- Native American / American Indian are preferred over Indigenous American in the topic of American History.

- Issues of the three quotes:

- The three quotes given are not quotes of _Both_ William Earl Weeks and Robert J Miller, so the description is an inaccurate attribution.

- Using two Historians is also an issue in and of itself.

- They're also not quotes of Miller either, they're summaries.

- William Earl Weeks' summary of three points is not controversial and universal across all Historian descriptions (Including Miller and Horsman), and most importantly, is universal across all individuals of the time period, which is important for the agreed-upon basic tenets that describe the concept.

- Robert J Miller makes great points on the topic of white nationalism and it should be grouped up with Reginald Horsman's Race and Manifest Destiny: The Origins of American Racial Anglo-Saxonism on that very topic. Both Miller and Horsman discuss the relationship between white nationalism and Manifest Destiny and the nature of contemporaneous individuals who foresaw a future where the west is to be an extension of the Old South.

- Disagree that even Miller agrees that his discussion of white nationalist views are themselves basic tenets of Manifest Destiny, upon reference to his book Native America, Discovered and Conquered: Thomas Jefferson, Lewis & Clark, and Manifest Destiny.

- "succeed and fulfill" is redundant, "succeed" was fine.

- The use of quotation marks is by definition "in his own words", you do not need to add "in his own words" (As noted, this is an issue with how quotes were used for Miller)

- "concept of this belief" is overly verbose, either use "concept" or "belief", both are fine but both words aren't adding any meaning.

- The first paragraph of the first section defined the term itself, thus those sentences should succinctly describe all natures of the concept across both Democrats and Whigs who believed in the concept.

- - Those 3 sentences were removed in your edit on the basis of repetition, but the intent is for there to be an introductory 3 sentences wherein the overall concept is delved into in-detail across multiple paragraphs in the third section. The 3 sentences that were removed were succinct and dense, while the later sections are extremely detailed (As they should be).

========================

UPDATE: 94.204.105.141 gave an edit that fixes most of these issues.

- "Succeed and fulfill" is still redundant for no reason, either "succeed" or "fulfill" would be fine on their own.

- The phrase "inherent superiority" is still an issue due to being overly emotive. See MOS:QUOTEPOV, if it's overly emotive it must be quoted (And in this case, it can't be quoted because the historian didn't use those words). The preferred phrasing should be the NPOV/Neutral phrase "unique moral virtue" which also matches the historian's words.

- I'll leave the article as-is and await consensus from other editors however. Npip99 (talk) 17:04, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

On your edit that eliminated the reference to settler-colonialism "and its manifestation directly led to the settler-colonial displacement of Native Americans." You state the reason is "It wasn’t only done on the expense of American Indians, it was also practiced on Mexico and Texas."

Texas and Mexico were formed from the lands of American Indian nations in the southwest by descendants of colonist from Europe that already have histories of Indian displacement. Indians had relationships with Mexico and Texas that were super ceded when they were annexed by the United States government in its policy for Manifest Destiny as discussed later in the article sections on Mexico, Texas, and Impact on Native Americans, and so it makes sense for this brief reference in the beginning paragraph for the reader. Indians suffered further displacement such as in the Long Walk of The Navajo as well in those territories so it makes sense to include the context that the United States government held this position over this territory whether it was taken directly from Indian nations or from sovereign states that it annexed the territory of.

Also considering that there is no reference to the wiki article on settler colonialism in this article, it makes sense since the displacement and conflicts that arose from manifest destiny are used as a case study of settler-colonialism which is why there was a citation.

Please reply with the specific issue(s) you have with this reference being here or how you think it should be better structured into the article. CodedGiraffe (talk) 20:54, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

When I meant the US annexed lands of Mexico and the republic of Texas,I meant to say the US went with direct war with those nations government rather than with tribes, that doesn’t go to say the US didn’t go to war with tribes as well for states such as Indiana and Ohio. Also there is enough information on the page of “era of continental expansion” about the annexation of the lands in the west and of the settler-colonial displacement and annexation of american Indian lands so there is no use of putting them at the top as someone did the same thing when adding information about the 1845 annexation of Texas by democrats even though it was mentioned in paragraph 3. 94.204.105.141 (talk) 23:56, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Removal of outdated paragraph/Smithsonian claims

Hi, @Vanamonde93:. I wanted to inform you that I partially reverted your edit of the sockpuppet. Particularly this paragraph:

The United States has to-date not undertaken any truth commission nor built a memorial for the genocide of indigenous people. It does not acknowledge nor compensate for the historical violence against Native Americans that occurred during Manifest Destiny and territorial expansion to the west coast. American museums such as the Smithsonian Institution do not dedicate a section to the genocide. In 2013, the National Congress of American Indians passed a resolution to create a space for the National American Indian Holocaust Museum inside the Smithsonian but it has been ignored.

A lot of this is outdated. There's been several truth commissions — at least a state level — surrounding the treatment of indigeneous communites in the past five years. The ethnic cleansing of Native Americans also now plays a prominent role at the Smithsonian Institution. (Particularly since 2017) Just making sure you don't object to the removal.

Thanks! KlayCax (talk) 10:01, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

I don't know that we necessarily need to outright remove outdated information, especially if it reflects a once-longstanding position. Instead, we could add onto the reversed stances. Otherwise, I think we have some heavy recentism bias. eg, we could add "Until 2017, the Smithsonian did not..."

The United States policy and state policies are different things– it's not incorrect to say that the country has not undertaken a truth commission, especially if we add the context that some individual states have. Wracking ^💬 20:12, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

No part of history should be removed because it's "outdated". That's why we're in the situation we're in currently. 2600:6C58:7FF0:4390:7844:FE2F:E28E:1C (talk) 02:16, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

NPOV

I'm no expert on any of this, but I just took a look at the two talk page sections immediately above and that made me wonder how severe the NPOV problems in this article might be. More attention to WP:DUE might be part of a solution. Trying to get a little bit of a handle on this led me to information I had not previously been aware of -- in particular, this, which led me to this which quoted Kevin Gover, described there as the assistant Interior Department secretary who heads the Bureau of Indian Affairs as saying: "This agency participated in the ethnic cleansing that befell the Western tribes,[...] This agency set out to destroy all things Indian. The legacy of these misdeeds haunts us." It looks to me as if the Native Americans section of this article needs work to address this. The articles named there as See also articles probably also need a look. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 16:48, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Wtmitchell,

I agree with you. There's a lot that could be done here. If I remember correctly, in June of last year a few new users attempted to make some of the changes you're discussing. The issue is that an anonymous IP reverted a lot of them wholesale and then @LutonDi, a sockpuppet connected to a racist user whose main goal is calling into question any colonial violence against Native peoples, came in and removed a lot more. Some of the new users' edits needed revision (as many new users' first cracks do), but they were removed outright in many cases. The sources added by the new user might be worth re-adding or skimming for more information. --Hobomok (talk) 19:41, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

I took a look at the edit history for the 250 most recent edits. There was a lively period involving two new editors who, from their contribs page look like potential good contributors who dropped out after frustration trying to improve this page (see contribs by MishkaMouse and ARCH 2022 -- neither has ever been blocked). That period began with MishkaMouse's 17:31, June 10, 2022 edit of this article and, from a look at the edit summaries, seems to have continued up through July 29. It involved quite a few editors (I saw my own userid in there a few times). This is the aggregate diff of those edits, but it might be useful for someone who knows a lot more about this topic than I to go through those edits one by one for attempted contribs that might be useful but that didn't make it through the back&forth there. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 23:34, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

BRD discussion: Proposal for removal of a See also wikilink

This is a WP:BRD discussion. WP:GTL says that the See also section of an article contains wikilinks to other articles relevant to the article topic and that the question of relevance is a matter of editorial judgement. Here, two editors have differing judgements about this case.

A wikilink to March to the West (Brazil) was added here to the See also section. I AGF-reverted the addition here questioning its relevance. My reversion was undone here with an assertion that the relevance is instantly obvious.

According to MOS:FIRST, the initial sentence of an article identifies the article subject in plain English. The initial sentence of this article reads, "Manifest destiny was a cultural belief in the 19th-century United States that American settlers were destined to expand across North America". The wikilink at issue is to an article about Brazil. Its initial sentence reads, "The March to the West (Portuguese: Marcha para o Oeste) was a public policy engendered by the government of Getúlio Vargas during the Estado Novo (1937-1945) in order to develop and integrate the Center-West and North regions of Brazil, which until that moment had a low population density, quite different from what occurred in the Brazilian coastal region." The relevance of the linked article to the subject of this article is not instantly obvious to me. I propose that this link be removed from the See also section. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 20:11, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Having seen neither objection not discussion, I'm removing this wikilink. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 13:18, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

@Wtmitchell It appears to me that the article is relevant to Manifest Destiny, as it was the movement of Brazilian settlers to the Western portions of Brazil and the forced displacement of indigenous communities already living in those regions. ~ F4U (talk • they/it) 00:26, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

See also section

WP:GTL says that links in the See also section should be relevant and limited to a reasonable number, that inclusion is a matter of editorial judgment, and (quoting) "Editors should provide a brief annotation when a link's relevance is not immediately apparent, when the meaning of the term may not be generally known, or when the term is ambiguous."

I opened this discussion after seeing the addition of a See also link to the Lebensraum article. The relevance of that article to this one is not at all clear to me after a look at it. Some other currently linked articles where relevance to this article is not obvious to me are

• Discovery doctrine
• Liberal internationalism
• New Frontier
• New Frontier
• Wilsonianism
• Young America movement

It seems to me that some or all of these could be candidates for removal and those not removed need clarification re relevance. Discussion? Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 14:49, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Having seen no othr discussion about this, I have gone ahead and remove all the items I mentioned except Young America movement. I'll be traveling for the next few days, and won't be able to participate further re this;. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 20:22, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Wtmitchell, I just saw this message! I had added Lebensraum in the See also section after the above discussion regarding whether March to the West should be included in that section. As the concept of Lebensraum was inspired by Manifest Destiny, I thought it was appropriate to include it in the See also section. I'd agree with removing all of the articles that you've linked expect for the Young America movement. It looks like the political movement vouched for expansion of the United States, so it could be an interesting related article BaduFerreira (talk) 17:47, 16 October 2023 (UTC)Hi @Wtmitchell, I just saw this message! I had added Lebensraum in the See also section after the above discussion regarding whether March to the West should be included in that section. As the concept of Lebensraum was inspired by Manifest Destiny, I thought it was appropriate to include it in the See also section. I'd agree with removing all of the articles that you've linked expect for the Young America movement. It looks like the political movement vouched for expansion of the United States, so it could be an interesting related article BaduFerreira (talk) 17:47, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

No disagreement, but I've removed it again per MOS:NOTSEEALSO as I see that it is wikilinked and clarified in the Legacy and consequences section of the article. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 02:23, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Keep it-- scholars in fact call it Manifest Destiny in Brazil: see Sternberg, Hilgard O’Reilly. “‘Manifest Destiny’ and the Brazilian Amazon: A Backdrop to Contemporary Security and Development Issues.” Yearbook. Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers, vol. 13, 1987, pp. 25–35. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25765677. Rjensen (talk) 03:23, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Image of the battle Battle Molino del Rey

I disagree with these two edits [1], [2] and believe we should retain the image of the Battle Molino del Rey. The editor's edit summary says: "drop highly misleading illustration--this battle and its locality did not involve expansion (expansion = Texas, Arizona-New Mex. & California, which could use an illustration". I don't see it as misleading. The Mexican–American War was all about expansion and forcing Mexico to sell land they did not want to sell. By attacking Mexico City, the U.S. was able to win the war and force the sale. If it were not for Manifest Destiny, all those lives might have been saved.
@Rjensen: Please restore the image to the status quo before you made the change per WP:BRD.--David Tornheim (talk) 08:32, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

I am trying to solve two problems. 1) a small problem: the Gast painting is clearly marked "School Book" and not just "Book"--there is no need for a footnote to explain that School Books = learning and knowledge. It just clutters and makes long article longer. (And it hints at an old debate when viewers thought it she carried a Bible and was bringing religion). 2) a bigger issue: an unsourced claim that is false: the small battle near Mexico City was NOT part of Manifest Destiny and no reliable source links it. Polk's war was fought to expand into California & protect Texas (and also Arizona-New Mexico) and it's highly misleading to suggest the goal was to take over heavily populated central Mexico. The illustration in a prominent position at the tpop of the article suggests to readers a false goal. Furthermore, it is unlike the highly informative Gast illustration: this one is very hard to read and see what is happening. And its imaginary--it's by Adolphe Jean-Baptiste Bayot a French artist in Paris who was not present. Rjensen (talk) 08:49, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

Edit warring

The edit-warring on this article needs to stop. I have already reported one editor to WP:AN/I. I prefer not to discuss editor behavior here. I am only mentioning it here, because I am concerned that one of the editors is aware of the warnings. --David Tornheim (talk) 23:30, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

LEDE regarding Native Americans expulsion

@Tollens: Thank you for restoring the important material in the WP:LEDE saying in a rather tame way how Manifest Destiny was used to justify the genocidal behavior of settlers to expel Native Americans from land the colonial settlers 'discovered'. --David Tornheim (talk) 00:09, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Doctrine of Discovery

Shouldn't the Doctrine of Discovery (also [3],[4]) play a more prominent role in the article? When I searched for the term "discover", it did not show up in the WP:LEDE at all and did not come in the text until ~2,000 words down in the article. There are countless hits when I searched for both "Manifest Destiny" and "Doctrine of Discovery" on Google scholar. --David Tornheim (talk) 00:21, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Yes, with qualifications. The doctrine of discovery was a religious concept; manifest destiny was political policy. Separation of church and state implies the doctrine could not be used to justify the policy. (— 𝐬𝐝𝐒𝐝𝐬 — - talk) 02:21, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Large deletion in Filibusterism

I don't see any need to delete so much material in Filibusterism. Please explain why you want to remove so much material. It looks to me like this material has been in the article since at least 17:21, 20 March 2021. A significant portion was in the article as early as late 2006. --David Tornheim (talk) 02:04, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

In terms of Manifest Destiny, it makes one short point: some people who disliked slavery opposed filibusters to spread slavery and they came to oppose Manifest Destiny. I kept tyhat point-- all the other stuff is stuffing that distracts from Manifest Destiny--the more time readers spend on this section the less time they will have to spend on more important sections. Rjensen (talk) 02:10, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't think we need to decide how people should spend their time on the article. The section is informative and the bulk of it has been there over 10 years. I see no reason to delete it now, when there was no objection to it before. --David Tornheim (talk) 07:27, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Seen from a different perspective: perhaps much of that material about the connection between filibustering and manifest destiny could be used to improve the filibuster article. There seems to be a logical place for it there, creating a new sub-section of the History section. (— 𝐬𝐝𝐒𝐝𝐬 — - talk) 08:50, 27 February 2024 (UTC)