Myths of Conquest

Mythology and Its Place in History

Chapter 7 · Myths of Conquest: Manifest Destiny & Colonial Mythologizing

Chapter 4 traced one national myth from a single named author to a measurable present-day effect. This chapter widens the lens: a legitimizing myth for territorial conquest with roots stretching back nearly 600 years before its most famous American name was even coined — and, unlike the Lost Cause, one with a real, dated, formal renunciation that arrived only very recently.

The Doctrine's Real, Deep Roots

Two Real Papal Bulls, 1455 and 1493

Pope Nicholas V's Romanus Pontifex (1455) granted Portugal a trade monopoly over West Africa and explicitly authorized the enslavement of local populations. Pope Alexander VI's Inter Caetera (1493), issued in the wake of Columbus's first voyage, provided the religious and legal justification for Spain to claim newly "discovered" lands — territory understood, by the doctrine's own logic, as available for Christian European powers to claim precisely because its inhabitants weren't Christian. Together with related bulls, these became known collectively as the Doctrine of Discovery: a genuine, centuries-old religious and legal framework, not a later invention retroactively applied.

Imported Directly Into American Law

Johnson v. M'Intosh, 1823 Chief Justice John Marshall's Supreme Court opinion imported the Doctrine of Discovery directly into US federal law, ruling that "discovery" by a European nation conferred title to land against rival European claimants — a title that could then be perfected through actual possession. This wasn't a metaphorical use of a 300-year-old religious idea; it was a real, binding legal precedent, and it became the documented legal basis for dispossessing Native peoples of their own land across the following century and beyond.

The Word Itself: 1845

John L. O'Sullivan, The United States Magazine and Democratic Review

In an essay arguing for the annexation of Texas, editor John O'Sullivan wrote of America's own "manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions" — a phrase buried halfway through his third paragraph that went on to name an entire era. O'Sullivan used the same framing again that year to argue for annexing the Oregon Country. Within three years, the same underlying logic — a providentially sanctioned right to expand — helped justify the Mexican-American War (1846–1848), which added vast new territory to the United States.

The Doctrine of Discovery had supplied the legal machinery three centuries earlier; Manifest Destiny gave that same underlying claim a popular, providential name Americans could invoke directly. A widely reproduced 1872 painting, John Gast's American Progress — commissioned by a travel-guide publisher and distributed nationally in guidebook prints — gave the idea its own visual shorthand: a glowing personification of America moving west, bringing light, a schoolbook, and telegraph wire, while Native Americans and buffalo recede into darkness ahead of her.

Real, Contemporaneous Dissent — Not Just Later Hindsight

Unlike some myths this course has examined, Manifest Destiny had real, documented critics at the time, not only in retrospect.

Lincoln's "Spot Resolutions," 22 December 1847

President Polk had justified war with Mexico by claiming Mexican forces had "invaded our territory and shed American blood upon America's soil." A young Whig congressman named Abraham Lincoln introduced eight formal resolutions demanding Polk identify the exact spot where that blood was first shed — and prove it was genuinely on soil the United States rightfully held, rather than disputed or Mexican territory. Lincoln and fellow Whigs argued directly that Polk had provoked the war deliberately, in part to open new territory for the expansion of slavery.

Thoreau's Jail Cell, 1846

Henry David Thoreau refused to pay his Massachusetts poll tax for years, specifically in protest of slavery and the Mexican-American War, which he and other abolitionists saw as a deliberate vehicle for expanding slave territory. Arrested and jailed overnight in 1846 (released the next day after someone, likely his aunt, paid the tax on his behalf), the experience became the direct seed of his 1849 essay "Civil Disobedience" — meaning one of the most influential texts on political resistance in American letters traces directly back to real, personal opposition to this exact myth's own real-world consequences.

The Real, Dated Formal End — 568 Years Later

The Vatican, 30 March 2023 Following sustained pressure from Indigenous groups and government leaders including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — and building directly on Pope Francis's own July 2022 apology in Canada for the Church's role in residential schools — the Vatican issued a formal statement declaring the Doctrine of Discovery "not part of the teaching of the Catholic Church," and stating outright that the 15th-century papal bulls behind it had been "manipulated for political purposes by competing colonial powers in order to justify immoral acts against indigenous peoples." A doctrine first issued in 1455 was formally, institutionally repudiated 568 years later.

A direct structural echo of Chapter 2 This is the same shape as Emperor Hirohito's 1946 Humanity Declaration: a centuries-deep legitimizing doctrine, formally renounced by the very institution that had originated it, only once the political conditions that once made the doctrine useful had genuinely, irreversibly changed. A founding myth rarely ends quietly on its own — it ends when the institution that built it decides, under real, documented pressure, to say so.

Running the Toolkit

Toolkit Question	How It Applies Here
Who benefits?	Colonial and later American territorial expansion — and, per Lincoln and Thoreau's own contemporaneous argument, the specific extension of slave territory
How was it transmitted?	Religious doctrine, then binding legal precedent (Johnson v. M'Intosh), then popular political rhetoric (O'Sullivan) and mass-reproduced visual art (Gast)
Is there a euhemeristic reading?	Not applicable — like Chapter 4's Lost Cause, this myth has fully documented human authors at every stage, with no legendary figure standing in for one
What does the physical record say?	The papal bulls, the Supreme Court opinion, O'Sullivan's own essay, and the 2023 Vatican statement are all real, dated, surviving documents — no archaeology required

What This Does — and Doesn't — Establish

A claim this evidence supports	A claim it does not support
The Doctrine of Discovery genuinely functioned as real, binding legal precedent in the United States, not merely as background ideology	Every American who believed in Manifest Destiny was consciously citing 15th-century papal bulls — most likely never encountered that specific lineage at all
Real, prominent contemporaries (Lincoln, Thoreau) publicly opposed the myth's own real-world application at the time, not only in retrospect	Opposition was widespread or politically decisive — the war and the annexations proceeded regardless
The Vatican's 2023 statement is a real, dated, formal institutional repudiation	A repudiation of the doctrine's own teaching undoes its real, centuries-long practical consequences on the ground

Questions to Sit With

Reflection 1

The Doctrine of Discovery lasted, in some form, from 1455 to 2023 — 568 years. What do you think makes a legitimizing doctrine this durable, compared to Chapter 4's Lost Cause myth, which is already facing real, sustained historiographical challenge after less than 160 years?

Reflection 2

Lincoln and Thoreau both opposed the war for reasons tied to slavery's expansion, not primarily out of concern for Mexican or Indigenous land rights as such. Does knowing a historical figure's actual, complete motivation change how much credit their dissent deserves?

Reflection 3

A formal institutional repudiation, like the Vatican's 2023 statement, changes an institution's own stated teaching but not the historical land seizures already carried out under the doctrine's authority. What do you think a repudiation like this can, and can't, actually accomplish?

Quick Reference — Chapter 7

The Doctrine of Discovery traces to real 15th-century papal bulls — Romanus Pontifex (1455) and Inter Caetera (1493) — providing religious/legal justification for European claims over non-Christian-inhabited land
Chief Justice John Marshall imported the doctrine directly into binding US federal law via Johnson v. M'Intosh (1823), the real legal basis for dispossessing Native peoples
John O'Sullivan coined "manifest destiny" in 1845 arguing for Texas annexation, extending it the same year to Oregon; the same underlying logic helped justify the 1846–1848 Mexican-American War
Real, contemporaneous dissent existed: Lincoln's December 1847 Spot Resolutions directly challenged Polk's own war justification, and Thoreau's 1846 jailing over tax resistance directly produced "Civil Disobedience" (1849)
The Vatican formally repudiated the Doctrine of Discovery on 30 March 2023 — a real, dated, 568-years-later institutional end, structurally echoing Chapter 2's 1946 Humanity Declaration

What's Next

Chapter 8: Modern Political Mythology: Propaganda & the 20th Century.