122 A HISTORY OF AMERICA IN 100 MAPS
In 1839 newspaperman John O’Sullivan declared that
the United States was divinely ordained to spread its
civilization westward. O’Sullivan was not the first to
claim that American expansion was providential, but
he did introduce the phrase “Manifest Destiny.” If
there is a cartographic picture of this idea, here it is.
As the first map of the United States to encompass
the entire continent, it anticipates the territorial
expansion of the 1840s. Yet it was designed not by an
American but a Scotsman, and published more than
two decades before O’Sullivan coined the phrase.
John Melish emigrated from Scotland to
Philadelphia in 1810 to establish the nation’s first
commercial mapmaking firm. On earlier visits
he had traveled widely through the country, and
these experiences served him well in his new
business venture. Melish settled in Philadelphia at
an auspicious moment for the new nation, when
relations between the United States and Britain had
begun to deteriorate. Though there were multiple
sources of tension, the breaking point came when the
British repeatedly impressed American sailors into
the Royal Navy. Such insults prompted American war
hawks to demand retaliation, and in 1812 Congress
declared war against Britain.
The War of 1812 was widely opposed by
Federalists, who considered it little more than an
elaborate maneuver to advance the aims of the
Republican Party under President James Madison
(page 116). In the end, no territory was gained from
Britain, and the half-hearted American effort to
invade Canada was easily repelled. Yet Americans
had held their own against a superior British naval
force, and that was enough to qualify the conflict as a
second war of independence. The return of peace in
1815 sparked a sustained wave of patriotism.
In was in this moment of heightened nationalism
that Melish began to compile an ambitious new map
of the United States. The first edition included new
geographical information brought back by the Lewis
and Clark expedition (page 114). In the final edition
of the map (shown here), Melish also described the
western plains as the “Great Desert,” a phrase that
A CONTINENTAL FUTURE
John Melish, “Map of the United States,
with the contiguous British & Spanish
Possessions,” 1823
had just a year earlier appeared on Stephen Long’s
new map of the far west based on his own expedition
of 1819.
With its elaborate detail, high quality of
production, and up-to-date information, the map
instantly became one of the most sought-after
profiles of North America. It was used in the Adams–
Onís Treaty negotiations of 1819, which transferred
control of Florida from Spain to the United States.
It also helped to set the boundary between Spanish
California and the Oregon Territory at the forty-
second parallel north.
Yet the map’s enduring power derives not from
its role in contemporary statecraft, but from a larger
message. Melish initially designed the map to extend
to the Rocky Mountains, which formed the nation’s
western boundary. Yet somewhere in the process
of compiling it he changed his mind, and decided
to extend the map far beyond the boundaries of
the United States to the Pacific Ocean. Upon its
publication in 1816, Melish explained that his map
was a “picture,” one that showed “at a glance the
whole extent of the United States territory from sea to
sea.” Though much of the Far West was not yet part of
the United States, Melish found it more aesthetically
pleasing to include the entire continent, which
paralleled the “expansion of the human race
from east to west.”
By showing the whole continent, Melish
foreshadowed—and perhaps subtly influenced—the
nation’s westward trajectory, just as John Mitchell
had with his map of 1755 (page 94). For instance, he
outlined the reach of the Missouri Territory in green,
intentionally leaving its western boundary undefined.
Just two years later, the US and Britain negotiated
an agreement to jointly occupy the territory of
Oregon. The map, oddly, had anticipated the nation’s
westward reach.
Melish’s map was updated and reissued twenty-
five times. The final version included the new state
of Missouri, the admission of which in 1820 involved
an important and controversial compromise over
slavery. Missouri was admitted to the Union as a slave
state with the understanding that this institution
would be barred from all future states carved out of
the Louisiana Territory north of parallel 36° 30'. In
documenting this ominous agreement over slavery,
and encompassing the entire Far West, Melish’s
monumental map showed Americans not just where
they were, but also where they were heading.