Assignment task:
Manifest Destiny, a phrase coined in 1845, is the idea that the United States is destined-by God, its advocates believed-to expand its dominion and spread democracy and capitalism across the entire North American continent. The philosophy drove 19th-century U.S. territorial expansion and was used to justify the forced removal of Native Americans and other groups from their homes. This idea was reinforced many times over before the term was ever used. For example in 1722, Rev. Samuel Stoddard in his written response concerning a nominal price paid to native American tribes to acquire land responded:
"Tho' we gave but a small price for what we bought, we gave them their demands. We came to their market and gave them their price, and, indeed, it was worth but little. And had it continued in their hands, it would have been [worth even less]. It is our dwelling [now and] on it, our Improvements that have made it [valuable]... Here was some part of the Land that was not purchased, neither was there need that it should ? it was [a vacant domicile] and so [we had a right to possess it] by virtue of GOD's grant to Mankind, [as stated in] Genesis I:28. 'And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.' The Indians made no use of it, but for Hunting. By GOD's first Grant Men were to subdue the Earth. When Abraham came into the Land of Canaan, he made use of vacant Land as he pleased: so did Isaac and Jacob."
Armed with the belief that a supreme higher power had ordained capture, and possession of various territories, European colonizers both purchased and through the "right of conquest" forcibly acquired land in the new world, expelling, exterminating, and excising the indigenous tribes.
Principles and ideas like Manifest Destiny, and the Right of Conquest were part of the foundation of the United States that not only brought into possession lands occupied by indigenous tribes, but also territories like Texas and California during the presidency of James Polk in 1845 from Mexico.
Question: Do these principles and their associated concepts provide us with a different lens by which to evaluate the actions that led to the settling of this country? Does America as a country owe a debt to those native American tribes, or do the ideas that under-gird the foundation of the United States absolve us from needing or having to make restitution?