Introduction: For the rest of the semester, we are going to examine the content of an important period in U.S. history - the Era of Manifest Destiny. At the same time we will be learning content related to the era of Manifest Destiny, we will incorporate some of the methods about which we have already learned, as well as learn some new ways to help students have a deeper, more analytical, understanding of this important period in our history. Throughout this unit, we will focus on understanding the concept and the consequences of Manifest Destiny, especially for four groups of people - American Indians, Mexicans, Hawaiians, and American Samoans.

Discussion Goals:

1. To get a strong understanding of Manifest Destiny - the term and the concept.
2. To gain an understanding of the westward expansion process that took place in North America between 1800 and 1853
3. To examine the consequences of Manifest Destiny on Mexico and the Mexicans
4. To examine the consequences of Manifest Destiny on American Indians

Goal #1: To get a strong understanding of Manifest Destiny - the term and the concept

Methods Discussion: Using the Historical Literacy model we discussed earlier this semester, let's see if we can actually define the term Manifest Destiny. You may remember that we learned earlier that this is a great method to use when you are about to introduce a new topical unit of study. We are going to first try to define the two words in the term and then we are going to try to come up with a definition of Manifest Destiny within the historical context.

• Step 1: Working on your own, take two minutes to think about how you would define the vocabulary words - manifest and destiny.
• Step 2: Using the Think/Pair/Share method, turn to your partner and do the following:
  • Together, take 2 minutes to discuss, agree upon, and write your definitions of both words.
  • Together, take 4 minutes to examine the painting titled Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way by Emanuel Leutze (1861). See if you can find any clues in the painting to help you define the term Manifest Destiny.
• Step 3: Using your shared understanding of the words and what you see in the painting, take 5 minutes to define what you think is meant by the term Manifest Destiny. Write your definition down and be sure that one person in your pair is prepared to share it with the class.

Throughout this discussion, we will generally use this definition:

Manifest Destiny is the belief that Americans had the God-given right to expand westward, to spread democracy, and to conquer anything and anyone as they marched across the North American continent.

Now that we have a clear definitional understanding of Manifest Destiny, let's look at the chronological confines of the era. Manifest Destiny

• begins in the late 18th Century as Americans began to cut a pathway into the American west,
• continues as Americans begin their trek westward throughout the entire North American continent, and
• according to many historians, ends in 1890 when the federal government declared that a "frontier of settlement" no longer existed; the North American continent had been settled and was officially "civilized".

However, we will take a broader look at Manifest Destiny by examining how it will influence and shape the events of the period at the turn of the 20th Century which is often known as the Age of Imperialism. In so doing, I will argue that Manifest Destiny was in fact an earlier version of American imperialism. What differentiated the two eras of foreign policy was a simple matter of geography:

• From 1800 to 1853, Americans marched across continental North America, armed with our belief in Manifest Destiny and taking everything and everyone that stood in our way.
• From the end of the 19th Century forward, Americans marched across the Pacific, armed again with our belief in Manifest Destiny.

During the 20th Century, we generally did not politically colonize the people or lands we occupied as the European nations had in the 18th and 19th centuries. Instead, we brought "civilization," Christianity, democracy, and Western economic beliefs and practices to our "little brown brothers" in the Caribbean and the Pacific whom we believed would welcome us and our western principals with open arms.

Throughout this month-long discussion, we will discuss Manifest Destiny within the context of one overall theme: Progress is not always progressive.

Methods Discussion: Again using the Historical Literacy model, beginning with a vocabulary word - progress - and then continuing with an idea - that progress is not always progressive.

• Step 1: Working on your own, take one minute to think how you would define the vocabulary words - progress and progressive.
• Step 2: Using the Think/Pair/Share method, do the following:
  • Turn to your partner and take 2 minutes to agree upon your definitions.
• Step 3: Together, take 10 minutes to do the following:
  • Discuss what this idea means - that progress is not always progressive.
  • Decide whether or not you agree or disagree with the idea.
  • Discuss any possible events that may have happened in the 19th century to illustrate the idea that progress is not always progressive.
  • Think about any examples of events happening today that illustrate the idea that progress is not always progresive.
• Step 4: Be sure that one person in your pair is prepared to share your thoughts with the class.
• Be sure to keep your "Historical Literacy" method activity. This will go into your Portfolio.

While it appears that we have a clear understanding of Manifest Destiny and the theme we will be discussing, one of the major strategies behind Common Core is read, read, read - and in so doing, we must repeat, repeat, repeat. What this means is that we often have to use different types of strategies and learning methods to make sure all our students understand before moving on to the next topic. The Historical Literacy models used above largely focused on vocabulary words and phrases. The next method focuses on visual cues to help students understand Manifest Destiny.

Methods Discussion: Let's get a clear understanding of the concept of Manifest Destiny through a SIGHT method. To download a PowerPoint version of this SIGHT that includes teacher notes, Click Here

The famous 1872 painting by Jonathon Gast, American Progress, introduces the major ideas of Manifest Destiny:

• Americans would conquer the geography of the continent - and we see this as Lady Liberty moves westward, bringing hard working farmers and merchants to conquer the wilderness.
• Americans, with God on their side, would conquer all people who stood in their way - and we see this with the American Indians and the buffalo being pushed out of the picture and into the darkness and with their land being replaced goodness and light of modern Euro-Americans.
• Americans would spread all the benefits of Christianity and democracy - and we see this as Lady Liberty brings the telegraph, stagecoaches, trains, modern industrial towns, and the Bible to the frontier.
• Americans brought progress to an empty continent and savage people

All of these ideas were the essence of progress - American Progress. But was this progress? And if it was - for whom? One of things teachers often fail to bring up during discussions of Manifest Destiny is this discussion of progress - and discussions of Manifest Destiny are always told as an examnple progressive political, social, economic, and religious values.

Thus, when teaching the topic of Manifest Destiny, teachers need to get their students to think clearly about the following:

• Did the era of Manifest Destiny bring progress to American Indians who lost almost all of their land on the North American continent as well as their primary sustenance?
• Did the era of Manifest Destiny bring progress to Mexicans who lost one-half of all their lands?
• Did the era of Manifest Destiny bring progress to Hawaiians who lost control over their ancestral lands?
• Did the era of Manifest Destiny bring progress to other Pacific Islanders - especially American Samoans - who lost some of their political sovereignty over their lands?

So we have examined some written and visual ways to get a better understanding of the term Manifest Destiny. Now let's look at another methodological approach - using a primary document to help us get a better understanding of how Americans in general felt about the concept and consequences of Manifest Destiny.

On May 28, 1846, Senator Thomas Hart Benton gave a speech in front of the United States Senate that explained how the vast majority of Americans felt about westward expansion and their devotion to the ideas of progress embedded in the belief in Manifest Destiny. The speech was widely printed in the growing United States and generally praised by Americans.

Methods Discussion: Close Reading Strategy is another way to really examine a primary document - checking especially for a more detailed analytical understanding. This method is different from the DBQ. In a DBQ, you are using quotes and other types of EVIDENCE to address any questions being asked. In a close reading, you are first looking at the vocabulary and trying to understand it in the context of the reading, and then you are offering an educated opinion about the reading. Using a quote from Senator Benton not only illustrates the method, but it should give you a better understanding of how many Americans thought about Manifest Destiny. Using the handout, please do the following:

• Step 1: Working on your own, take 3-5 minutes to carefuly read this speech. As you read it, highlight any vocabulary words and phrases that are difficult to understand.

  "...Since the dispersion of man upon earth, I know of no human event, past or present, which promises a greater,and more beneficent change upon earth than the arrival of the van of the Caucasian race (the Celtic-Anglo-Saxon division) upon the border of the sea which washes the shore of eastern Asia...It would seem that the white race alone received the divine command, to subdue and replenish the earth! for it is the only race that has obeyed it - the only one that hunts out new and distant lands, and even a New world, to subdue and replenish...Three and a half centuries ago, this race, in obedience to the great command, arrived in the New world, and found new lands to subdue and replenish...The van of the Caucasian race now top the Rocky Mountains, and spread down to the shores of the Pacific.  In a few years a great population will grow up there, luminous with the accumulated lights of European and American civilization...The Red race has disappeared from the Atlantic coast: the tribes that resisted civilization met extinction.  This is a cause of lamentation with many.  For my part, I cannot murmur at what seems to be the effect of divine law.  I cannot repine that this Capitol has replaced the wigwam - this Christian people replaced the savages - white matrons [replaced] the red squaws - and such men as Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson, have taken the place of Powhattan, Opechonecanough, and other red men, howsoever respectable they may have been as savages.  Civilization, or extinction, has been the fate of all people who have found themselves in the track of the advancing Whites, and civilization, always the preference of the Whites, has been pressed as an object, while extinction has followed as a consequence of its resistance."  (Source:  Congressional Globe, May 28, 1846.)

• Step 2: Take out a piece of paper and write your name and "Close Reading" at the top. Write down the words/phrases that you found difficult and then try to use the context of the quote to guess what each word/phrase means.
• Step 3: Paraphrase in no more than 3 sentences what you believe are the most important points Senator Benton made about Manifest Destiny.
• Step 4: Using a Think/Pair/Share, work with a partner to come up with 3 sentences upon which you can both agree best explains Benton's quote.
• Step 5: Discuss how this quote does or does not highlight the theme for this unit that "Progrress is not always progressive.
• Be sure to keep your "Close Reading" method activity. This will go into your Portfolio.

With this solid understanding of the idea of Manifest Destiny and the American belief in Manifest Destiny, we can now begin to look at how Americans were able to conquer the entire continent in just 53 years.

End of first discussion

Goal #2: To gain an understanding of the expansion process that took place in North America between 1800 and 1853

Last time we met we had a strong introduction to the definition and concept of Manifest Destiny. So today we are going to begin with an assessment method that will give me some useful information to determine just how well you all understood that discussion.

Methods Discussion: A great way to determine how well your student understood yesterday's content or last night's homework as well as get a good idea of any questions they may have from yesterday's lesson is the Entry Slip. Possible questions for an Entry activity include:

• You are the teacher today. What three pop quiz questions will you ask your students about yesterday's lesson?
• What are the three most important things you understood about yesterday's lesson?
• What question or questions do you have about yesterday's lesson?
• Write one thing you learned from your homework last night.
• What question or questions do you have about last night's homework?
• A current event question that may be relevant to what you are studying. Can you think of one that may fit in with our discussion of Manifest Destiny?

These are just suggestions. For today, we are going to start with the Entry Slip. Please spend 5 minutes doing the following:

• Take out a piece of paper, write your name at the top.
• Address the following question in 1-2 paragraphs: Using your 19th Century mind, if you were alive in 1850, do you think you would have supported the ideas behind Manifest Destiny? Which of the major beliefs might you have supported and why? Which might you not have supported and why?
• Turn in your response.
• Be sure to keep your "Entry Slip" method activity. It will go into your Portfolio.

After students are done with their Entry Slips, they turn them in and you would read them that night to ascertain how well students understood the material. If a substantial number of your students did not understand it, then you have to revise your next day's lesson to present another method designed to help your students better understand Manifest Destiny.

Today we are going to take the idea of Manifest Destiny into the real world of geographical expansion. Since this discussion is key to understanding Manifest Destiny, we are going to take notes using the Squeeze Method.

Methods Discussion: The Squeeze Notetaking method was introduced in our discussion about teaching good history - in Goal #6 at http://users.humboldt.edu/ogayle/hist420/TeachingHistory2015.html. At that time, you all went through the first few steps of Squeeze Notetaking - ending with an exercise of taking notes for a 15-minute lecture and then squeezing your ideas according to the directions. Today, we are going to continue with Step 4 in the process - take squeeze notes for a longer lecture/discussion - 45 minutes. So, each of you, please do the following:

• Step 1: Students work individually during the lecture/discussion.  Using the Cornell note taking format, draw a line down your note taking paper.  Then, do the following during the 45-minute minute lecture/discussion:
  1. On the right-hand side of the line, write no more than 1-2 pages of notes - being sure to include the most important things you learned.
  2. At the end of the lecture/discussion, take 10 minutes to squeeze the most important information you learned into 2-4 sentences that you will write on the left-hand side of the line.
  3. Add to the left-hand side of the line any questions you have after writing your squeeze.
• Step 2: Share your squeeze and any remaining questions aloud.
• Be sure to keep your "Squeeze Note Taking" method activity. It will go into your Portfolio.

At the end of class, you will collect their one page on which they have written their summaries and squeeze, as well as any questions. You will read them that evening, make appropriate comments, and return to your students on the next class meeting. You will also have to revise your next day's lesson if it is clear that students are not either understanding the content or understanding the squeeze notetaking method. 

Now, let's get going with our lesson today as we witness the march across the North American Continent. As Americans moved west, they faced several enormous obstacles:

• Natural barriers - mountain ranges, deserts, grizzly bears, raging rivers.
• Indians - hundreds of Indian Nations - the vast majority of all Indian people - lived west of the U.S. border.
• Foreign Nations - as you can see on this map, at the beginning of the 19th century, the majority of the North American continent was claimed by France, Britain, Spain, Russia, and Mexico.

Despite these formidable obstacles, in just 53 years - from 1800 to 1853 - Euro-Americans moved confidently across the continent, conquering the natural barriers, Indian Nations, and the foreign nations. And they accomplished that task without any reliable transportation - no roads or trains - and without any type of communication - no telegraphs lines or phones.

So, just how did these newly-independent people come into geographical and political control of an entire continent in just 53 years? How did they go from controlling just under 1/3 of the continent in 1800 to gaining another 1/3 from the French, half of Mexico, and the remainder of the continental U.S. from Spain, Britain, and Russia?

Let's get an animated idea of this geographical process over an even greater time period, from 1750-2008 at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_evolution_of_North_America_since_1763#/media/File:Non-Native-American-Nations-Territorial-Claims-over-NAFTA-countries-1750-2008.gif. But to really understand the largest westward, northern, and southern movements to dominate much of North America, we need to look at the years 1800-1853 and the four avenue Americans used to obtain the lands: Purchase, Diplomacy, Appropriation, and War.

• Purchase. Americans bought some of the land. In fact we began our first westward movement with the purchase of land in 1803 and we completed our desire to bring the North American continent under U.S. control through a final land purchase in 1853.
  • Louisiana Purchase, 1803 -  Bought from France for $15 million.
    • With the introduction of this new land into the United States, a political belief known as The Doctrine of Discovery became part of our historical legacy. Consisting largely of two Papal decrees, the Doctrine was based upon two beliefs: First, Christians were the only civilized peoples and thus, they had the right to treat non-Christians as uncivilized and subhuman who had no rights to any land or nation. Second, Christians had a God-given right to take control of all lands through war, colonization, and slavery.
    • To learn more about the new land that was added to the United States, the federal government sponsored the Lewis and Clark Expedition. In 1804, Lewis and Clark left St. Louis with 32 soldiers, 10 civilians, and 3 interpreters - one who was a Shoshone teenager with a newborn baby. They traveled just under 2-1/2 years over 8,000 miles of unknown territory and only lost one person. While the official reason for the trip was a scientific expedition that would describe the flora, fauna, rivers, mountains, and people, in truth, President Jefferson had a bigger agenda: to isolate the powerful Sioux nation; to open the river from St. Louis to the Mandans, and to establish an American trading monopoly that would put the Indians out of business.
  • Gadsden Purchase, 1853 - Bought from Mexico for $10 million, the additional 29,640 square miles finalized the border of the continental U.S. During the course of discussing the possibility of building a transcontinental railroad, many southerners supported a line that would go from Texas to California over land lying below the southern border of Arizona and New Mexico territories. James Gadsden, a railroad developer, was sent to Mexico to purchase the land.
  • Alaska, 1867 - Bought from Russia, for $7.2 million or about two cents per acre. In the 17th century, Russian explorers first reached the land that eventually became the state of Alaska. For several centuries, Russia continued to occupy the territory. In the mid-19th century, the Russian government believed it could not defend the territory in case of war. Alhough the Russian government did not want to lose Alaska, it thought that it would be better to receive money for the territory from an ally than lose it in battle to an enemy.
• Diplomacy. Americans used diplomatic relations to negotiate for land.
  • Red River Basin - 1818. The United States signed the Convention of 1818 with Great Britain in order to settle some issues left open by the Treaty of Ghent, which four years earlier had ended the War of 1812. The new treaty stated that Britain and the United States would jointly occupy Oregon Territory and clarified the northern border of the Louisiana Purchase. The land acquired by the United States in the treaty, known as the Red River Basin, would ultimately become part of the states of Minnesota and North Dakota.
  • Maine - 1842. Since 1783 when the Revolutionary War was over, Americans and British had been disputing Maine's boundaries. This uncertainty became a problem in 1838 when Canadian loggers began logging and building a railroad in the area claimed by the state of Maine. Fighting broke out between Canadian and American lumberjacks. President Van Buren feared war and mobilized 50,000 men under the leadership of General Winfield Scott. The problem was not solved until the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842 in which half of the disputed territory was granted to the U.S. and the northeastern border was established with Canada.. 
  • Oregon - 1846.  After the War of 1812, U.S. and Britain agreed to jointly occupy Oregon.  The mutually-agreed upon Convention of 1818 fixed the border at the 49th parallel and renewed the joint tenancy agreement for 10 years.   In 1846, Britain offered to accept the 49th parallel as the U.S./Canadian border if Vancouver Island remained British.  Line of 1846 accepted by American.
• Appropriation.  Americans appropriated the land, or simply took the land  by force through the use of federal law.
  • Indian Lands (to be discussed later)
  • Hawaii (to be discussed later)
• War
  • Florida -1819. By 1817, the Spanish government in Florida had been unstable and problems increased with runaway slaves using Florida as a base to launch raids against American settlements. In December 1817, General Andrew Jackson received permission from the Secretary of War to lead a military expedition into southern Georgia to keep raiders from crossing into the U.S. Jackson, however, claimed he had received secret permission from President Monroe to invade. So he crossed into Spanish territory, destroyed peaceful Seminole villages, drove the Indians into swamps, invaded the Spanish capital at Pensacola, forced the governor to flee to Cuba, and arrested and executed two British citizens for conspiring with the Indians. In response, the U.S. negotiated the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819 in which Spain agreed to give up Florida in exchange for the U.S. releasing Spain from $5 million in damage claims resulting from pirate and Indian raids
  • Texas- 1845 (to be discussed later)
  • Mexico - 1848 (to be discussed later)

Methods Discussion - Squeeze Notetaking

• Take 10 minutes to read your notes and then write 2-4 sentences in the left column that illustrate the most important points you made in your notes.
• Using the Think/Pair/Share method, turn to a partner and take 5 minutes to come up with the best 2-4 sentences that get to the heart of what we discussed in today's lecture. Put these into the left column of your notes. Be prepared to share them with your classmates.
• Be sure to keep your "Squeeze Note Taking" method activity. It will go into your Portfolio.