If it’s just about manifest destiny from the perspectives of people who believe(d) in it, that’s fine. I’m trying to understand the appeal of it versus self-sufficiency.
It seems like something fueled by obsessive desire to subdue and embody a ‘supreme’ position, which I imagine comes from a sense of inferiority and a serious affinity for brutality.
by rednopal
2 Comments
Honestly, some of the best insight into what ordinary people were thinking can be gleamed in the diaries, letters and journals of women who, for the most part, were reluctantly dragged along on the westward journey.
Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey edited by Lillian Schlissel is a good place to start. The audiobook is very affecting as if they are reading to you from the past.
The Indifferent Stars Above by Daniel James Brown goes into the different reasons people followed Manifest Destiny and the amount of propaganda/misinformation around. Some people really wanted to be “supreme,” as you say, but there were also a lot of people who didn’t really understand the part they were playing in colonization. Very interesting!