Manifest destiny was a phrase that represented the belief in the 19th-century United States that American settlers were destined to expand westward across North America, and that this belief was both obvious ("manifest") and certain ("destiny"). The belief was rooted in American exceptionalism and Romantic nationalism, implying the inevitable spread of the Republican form of governance. It was one of the earliest expressions of American imperialism in the United States of America.
American Progress (1872) by John Gast is an allegorical representation of the modernization of the new west. Columbia, a personification of the United States, is shown leading civilization westward with the American settlers. She is shown bringing light from east to west, stringing telegraph wire, holding a school book, and highlighting different stages of economic activity and evolving forms of transportation. On the left, Indigenous Americans are displaced from their ancestral homeland.
The Battle of Río San Gabriel, was a decisive battle action of the Mexican–American War (1846–1848) as part of the US conquest of California.
The Battle of San Jacinto, was the final battle during the Texas revolution (1835-1836) which resulted in a decisive victory for the Texian army.
John L. O'Sullivan, sketched in 1874, was an influential columnist as a young man, but he is now generally remembered only for his use of the phrase "manifest destiny" to advocate the annexation of Texas and Oregon.
American pioneers also known as American settlers were European American, Asian American and African American settlers who migrated westward from the Thirteen Colonies and later the United States of America to settle and develop areas of the nation within the continent of North America.
Daniel Boone Escorting the American Settlers Through the Cumberland Gap by George Caleb Bingham (1851–52)
American pioneers building the flatboat Adventure galley at Sumrill's Ferry on the Youghiogheny River during March 1788.
