U.S.-History-Sourcebook---Basic

http://www.ck12.org Chapter 4. Manifest Destiny and the Slavery Question

4.4 Manifest Destiny

Even while the United States were crowded along the Atlantic coast, Americans developed the idea that the nation
was destined to stretch across the continent. This idea was called ’Manifest Destiny.’ Examine the images below,
read the two texts by Joseph O’Sullivan, and try to determine why many Americans supported Westward expansion.

Map of the United States with the contiguous British & Spanish Possessions by

John Melish (1816)

Source: A map of the United States made by John Melish in 1816. According to the David Rumsey Collection,
this is “the first large scale detailed map made in the U.S. that showed the entire country from the Atlantic to the
Pacific.”(Figure below).

FIGURE 4.4

A map of the United States made by John

Melish in 1816

Map of the United States –Ormando Gray (1872)

Source: Map of the United States made by Ormando Willis Gray, published in Philadelphia in 1872.(Figure 4.5).

Section Questions:

1.Sourcing:When was Melish’s map made?

2.Contextualization:What territory was part of the United States at that point?

3.Close Reading:Compare Melish’s map to Gray’s 1872 map. What land did Melish include, even though it

was not part of the United States?