When was the manifest destiny introduced?

Answer 1

The so-called manifest destiny was a term coined by a journalist, John L O' Sullivan in an article he wrote in 1854. He used it to refer to a movement that had taken root within the Second Great Awakening. Religious adherents to this idea were Protestants that believed the settlement of the US's western frontiers were preordained by Providence and that it was their duty to settle the West and spread democracy as far as the eye could see.The problem with this idea was that the settlement of the West was done by settlers interested in the gold of California, 1849ers, and silver in Nevada.

Critics tend to use the "manifest destiny" as way to discredit the natural spread of people moving westward. Just as the territory ceded by Great Britain which gave the new Americans the territory it claimed from the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi River.

This territory was being settled right after the Revolutionary War. The 1803 Louisiana Purchase also expanded the western frontiers to almost twice the size of America at that time.

The Homestead Act passed during the US Civil War added new reasons to move west as the Federal government basically gave the territories away free if settlers met certain requirements.

Sadly, this began to force Native Americans off their land and whatever treaties they had made with Washington DC were basically ignored.

Answer 2

Manifest Destiny was a belief, not a written document, prevalent during the mid-19th Century.