From “Undoing Manifest Destiny: Settler America, Christian Colonists, and the Pursuit of Justice” by L. Daniel Hawk
Many among the founding generation believed Providence was guiding the United States to establish a new nation of liberty, achievement, and civilization. In the words of John Adams, the United States was “destined beyond a doubt to be the greatest power on earth.” In the early decades of the nineteenth century, this belief received support from a belief that the Anglo-Saxon race was superior to all others, uniquely gifted, and destined to advance human progress, liberty, and humane values. It was a small step from this belief to the conviction that other races, namely Africans and Indigenous peoples, were incapable of advancing toward civilization; at best, they could rise no higher than menial laborers for the White empire. Other European races, perhaps, could be civilized. Non-European races could not.
The developing racial hierarchy thus explained, in settler eyes, the Indian’s baffling resistance to American civilization. That is, Indians were an inferior race, genetically predisposed to lawlessness, indolence, wastefulness, and violence. Indians thus constituted an impediment to human progress and the fulfillment of Anglo-Saxon destiny. They therefore had to be removed from the land. Many who held this view believed that the Indians would gradually die out, as had happened throughout history when a superior people overcame an inferior one. Destiny dictated, and history confirmed, that Anglo-Saxon civilization would thrive and expand, while Indigenous peoples would dwindle and die.