Manifest Destiny was the 19th century belief that American settlers were destined to expand across North America from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast. This expansion had both positive and negative impacts. Positively, it created a large bicoastal country connected by new roads and railroads promoting industry. However, it also had heavy costs, including the deaths of many Native Americans and Mexicans, as well as enabling the expansion of slavery that intensified tensions leading to the Civil War.

1. Manifest
Destiny
By Renée McClanahan

2. What is Manifest Destiny?
• The attitude adopted by Americans during the expansion of the United
States that consisted of feeling as though it was their right to claim
land across the Americas. They believed claiming the land was both
justifiable and inevitable.

3. What About
Positive
Impacts?
Manifest Destiny created a bicoastal
country. It stretches from California
to Maine. The distance is more than
3,000 miles across.
It brought a sense of unity amongst
the citizens, as they were able to
repetitively crush the Native
American tribes, and Spanish and
Mexican Armies that also vied for
the land.
Many roads and railroads were
constructed that promoted the rise
of an industrial society.

4. Negative Impacts?
Manifest Destiny ended with the
deaths of many Native Americans,
Spanish, and Mexicans. It is argued
that it was the main tipping point that
caused the Civil War as it enabled
southern plantation owners to seize
more land.
With the rise of railroads and the
potential for industrial power that
they brought, the North and South
battled for control of the railway
systems.
The expansion of southern
plantations also brought about the
expansion of slave trade, which in turn
brought around the attempted
succession of Southern states through
a dispute over which of the recently
formed states would back slavery and
which would not.

6. Typical Depiction of Manifest Destiny

7. An Accurate Depiction of Manifest Destiny

8. Depiction of Trail of Tears

9. Americans Expanding Westward