Surveys, Illustrations and Paintings: Framing Manifest Destiny in the Early American

Republic
Author(s): Ryan Mead
Source: Review (Fernand Braudel Center) , 2012, Vol. 35, No. 1 (2012), pp. 31-60
Published by: Research Foundation of State University of New York for and on behalf
of the Fernand Braudel Center

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Surveys, Illustrations and Paintings
Framing Manifest Destiny in the
Early American Republic

Ryan Mead

T he history of the modern world-system is not just a history of

the ceaseless accumulation of capital (Hopkins 1982) or the
continuous production of nature (Moore 2011), but is also the his-
tory of the consistent production of space as it relates to both.
Space, through these relations, has been identified with absolute
geometric space and is defined by manmade images. While many
have conceived of landscape painting as the "dreamwork of em-
pire" (Mitchell 2002) or commodified land (Berger 1972), maps
have not only been used for state building within the European
core (Escolar 2003), but also to promote its expansion in both ex-
ploitive colonialism (Mundy 1996; Edney 1997) and settler colo-
nialism (Carter 1988). Through such imaginings, the land incorpo-
rated and peripheralized into the capitalist world-economy was not
just politically and economically exploited, but material landscapes
also became transformed, as the land was re-imagined.
We can see this transformation in North America, especially in
the United States. The colonial history of the area was a massive
reordering of space by British, French, and Spanish agencies that
subdued both the land and its peoples, while competing against
each other. After the American Revolution ended with the Treaty
of Paris in 1783, the newly formed and extremely feeble United
States government worked to transform both space and landscape,
initially in the Northwest Territory, present day Ohio, through sur-
veying these newly acquired, publicly "owned" lands, in a bid to
sell land to potential settlers-the "birth" of a new nation mixed
with a push by state agencies to expand its territory. This trans-
formed the space of the Northwest Territory, and also created a
shift in attitudes toward the wilderness, a transformation that laid

REVIEW, XXXV, 1, 2012, 31-60 31

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32 Ryan Mead

the groundwork for the historically specific expansion known as

Manifest Destiny, and also separated the idea of "nature" and "so-
ciety" in a national context.
In a recent roundtable discussion published in Landscape The-
ory, Rachel Ziady DeLue emphasizes the interrelations between
landscape painting and cartography in the early American repub-
lic. She states:
Landscape painting in America in the nineteenth century
was a form of mapmaking. It was understood, and shaped
by, the explosion of cartography. It was also the case that
painters made maps for their paintings. Paintings were, in
fact, experienced cartographically. So sometimes an interest
in cartography is not a move away from painting, as much as
it is an extension of it (Cosgrove, DeLue, et al. 2008: 129).
DeLue's comments have multiple reverberations as they pertain
to how various landscape images of the material environment are
constructed and the relations between them. They also question
how such images guide and organize social actors within the land-
scapes in question and how those same landscapes become embed-
ded in the larger capitalist world-economy.
This article extends her arguments. First, this article examines
the theoretical framework, especially the concepts of "space" and
"landscape" and their interconnectedness. Secondly, a discussion
follows of the initial survey of the Northwest Territory and the
"Seven Ranges Plat," that resulted from this survey. Thirdly, carto-
graphic expressions of the United States during this time will be
related to the changing tastes of landscape aesthetics, showing how
such relations worked in separating "nature" from "society," and in
framing the concept of Manifest Destiny.

THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL

CONSIDERATIONS

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s there was a call by multiple so-
cial scientists, especially geographers, to take space more seriously
(Lefebvre 1991; Soja 1980). These authors claimed that space was
seen as empty and geometrical. It was the space of Euclid, Alberti,
and Newton. Furthermore, it was the space of advanced capitalism,

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FRAMING MANIFEST DESTINY IN THE EARLY AMERICAN REPLUBLIC 33

a space where all objects cannot only be referenced, but also coor-
dinated and mapped. Space was something "out there" and some-
thing to be observed. Such scholars began proposing new ways of
looking at space. Henri Lefebvre, in particular, noted that space
is not something that pre-exists social relations, but is something
made and remade through social relations. Space is therefore ac-
tively produced (Lefebre 1991: 26). He proposed a conceptual triad
to think about such space. The first component of this triad is spa-
tial practices "which embrace [s] production and reproduction and
the particular locations and spatial sets characteristic of each for-
mation" (1991: 33). Such practices, Lefebvre notes, imply cohesion
of members of society in their relationship to that space. The sec-
ond component is representations of space, which he defines as rep-
resentations "tied to the relations of production and to the 'order'
which those relations impose, and hence to knowledge, to signs,
to codes, and to 'frontal' relations" (1991: 33). Representations of
space therefore make sense of that space in a historically specific
way and translate that sense to the given members of that society.
The last component is representational spaces, which are seen as "em-
bodying complex symbolisms, sometimes coded, sometimes not,
linked to the clandestine or underground side of social life, as also
to art" (1991: 33). These spaces, as the geographer David Harvey
notes, "are part and parcel of the way we live in the world" (2006:
279). They are therefore a lived space, a personal space, a space
developed through our own experiences, expressed in aesthetics,
and in our feelings and emotions.
Lefebvre has made an important contribution in how social
scientists look at space today, but he leaves out something impor-
tant in how space is produced, and related to the larger structures
of the capitalist world-economy, that is, the material environment
and the obstacles this environment poses in constructing space, as
well as the new possibilities it offers. Lefebvre's spatial triad works
in the construction of landscapes. The term landscape is highly
charged with a history that transcends multiple disciplines. In the
humanities, especially in art history, landscape has traditionally
been theorized as a specific genre (Gombrich 1972), but has more
recently been theorized through its linkages with commodification
(Berger 1972) and empire (Mitchell 2002). In the social sciences
it has been theorized as a site specific morphology made up of
two interrelating halves, the material site and its cultural expres-

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34 Ryan Mead

sion (Sauer 1967), a "way of seeing" (Cosgrove 1984), a cultural text

(Cosgrove and Daniels 1988; Duncan, 1990), as well as through theo-
ries that bring together the morphological with the symbolic, especial-
ly through its relations to a larger capitalist system (Mitchell 1996).
Landscape combines the material and symbolic qualities of the
site through social action, encompassing the ways in which people
relate in making that space, how they represent that space, and how
they live in that space. As the institutions of capitalism became more
developed, not only did space as a social product become concealed
as both transparent and natural, as Lefebvre notes (1991: 27-29),
but the concept of landscape separated what was "social" from what
was "natural." This contributed to more easily establishing relations
of commodification and posing such relations as natural. Land-
scape, in this sense, as Raymond Williams notes, implies both sepa-
ration and observation (1973: 120). Such a separation works in the
visual representation and perception of nature, and in our cognitive
understanding and material relationships with it. In a later essay,
Williams notes the implications for thinking of nature as something
"out there." By promoting nature as separate, society is spared look-
ing at the complex relationships it shares with "nature," and how
our impact on the supposedly "natural" is also an impact on the sup-
posedly "social" (1980: 83-84). By "simplifying" this relationship in
terms of visual representations, dominant powers, such as the state,
can manipulate the land, and the social relations embedded within
the material landscape. James C. Scott notes how such manipula-
tions can be beneficial for the state, stating:
Not only did the regularity of the grid create legibility for
the taxing authority, but it was a convenient and cheap way
to package land and market it in homogenous units. The
grid facilitated the commoditization of land as much as the
calculation of taxes and boundaries. Administratively, it
was also disarmingly simple. Land could be registered and
titled from a distance by someone who possessed virtually
no local knowledge (1998: 51).
The naturalization of power relations through such simplification
and bifurcation legitimated social relations, and naturalized the
way in which people think and act inside the environment.
The United States' universal grid framework for mapping land
under its political jurisdiction exemplifies and applies this simpli-
fication. It was universal in that it didn't take any sort of mate-

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FRAMING MANIFEST DESTINY IN THE EARLY AMERICAN REPLUBLIC 35

rial topography or social relations into account. It was developed

through purely geometric abstraction. Around such a development
we witness the historical rise of specific landscapes (e.g., towns
and farms) developing through its form, and a swiftness in both
implementation and use. Hildegard Binder Johnson once stated
that the grid and the accompanying bureaucratic agencies such as
land offices and newspapers made possible the simple transfer of
land through both speculation and sale, therefore "contributing
to the speed of westward movement" (1976: 20). While this is no
doubt true, its accuracy is narrow. This study, like Johnson's, works
through an analysis of representations of space and how they re-
late to the construction of specific landscapes, and it in no way at-
tempts to ignore both the spatial relations, as well as the "feelings"
of that lived space.
The surveying of the Northwest Territory was the initial step in
the construction of this universal framework and it undoubtedly
contributed to the high-speed western movement and settlement
by settlers, but it is a story with more dimensions. The surveying
performed by geographer Thomas Hutchins, initiated by Thomas
Jefferson's resolution, was not just the mapping of an uninhabited,
empty space "out there." Instead it was a complex process involving
the surveyor's actions and methods, and the actions of the United
States military and the encroaching settlers. These entities were
increasingly coming into conflict in this area with growing Indian
confederacies which were politically and economically incorporat-
ed in the capitalist world-economy in very different ways. Such link-
ages with the system as a whole, as well as their historical relations
with surrounding Indian tribes and European powers (French and
British) worked in establishing distinct "ways of seeing" and ways of
producing space as various interconnected landscapes, landscapes
that were incompatible with encroaching United States agencies.

SURVEYS, MAPPING, AND THE VIOLENT

CONSTRUCTION OF THE WEST

Recent scholarship has shown that the practices of mapmaking

and the resulting maps are not objective practices (Harley 1988;
Winichakul 1994; Edney 1997; Craib 2004). Such practices are seen
as a weapon of imperialism (and the capitalist relations that such
practices come under), in dispossessing populations of their land,

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36 Ryan Mead

and their historical relations to that land. Furthermore, maps be-

came tools through which new relations were formed. They became
tools that determined movements by subject populations, and sur-
veilled such movements. Finally, they became ways that legitimated
the new relations to this land as natural and objective. The link-
age between maps and objectivity has always been recognized as
historical, but its actual material history origins have been cloudy.
We can see the linkages between visual representation based on
"objective" criteria, such as mapping since the Renaissance, espe-
cially with the development of linear perspective (Edgerton 1975:
92-107); others have claimed that the apex of mapping as an objec-
tive practice separated from any form of aesthetics happened in
the mid-twentieth century with the geographer Arthur Robinson
(Crampton 2010: 53-58). Instead, this relationship is long-term,
beginning in the Renaissance and continuing up until today, with
a series of medium-term fluctuations. One such fluctuation can be
seen in the Enlightenment project.
The Enlightenment project adopted the premise that objective,
scientific observation, rationality, and the "domination" of nature
emancipate humans from both want and need (Harvey 1989: 12).
When combined with dominant power relations in the economic
and political spheres, this "domination" of nature simplifies the
landscape and violently displaces other ways of seeing, experienc-
ing, and relating to it. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
century, with the westward push by early American speculators and
settlers, the United States government began a process that would
lead to the forceful expulsion of the area's previous inhabitants,
and the visual recording of the impacted areas as "pristine," one
in which Americans were destined to expand through and develop
economically, politically, and culturally. Even though this concept
of "manifest destiny" wasn't fully established until the mid-nine-
teenth century, it began with these early military/scientific west-
ward journeys.

The Seven Ranges Survey in Both Concept and Practice

The Treaty of Paris in 1783 ended the American Revolution,

and legitimated the United States within the larger interstate
system. This treaty brought with it an expanded territory in the
Northwest-ceded by the British-and negative consequences: a so-

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FRAMING MANIFEST DESTINY IN THE EARLY AMERICAN REPLUBLIC 37

cially divided republic and massive foreign debt. In order to abol-

ish this debt, while at the same time to expand settlements, the
newly formed United States government, after great debate, 1 es-
tablished the Northwest Ordinances of 1785 and 1787. These ordi-
nances were designed to establish principles that would extend the
revolutionary doctrine to the western territories, and provide ways
for these areas to establish local governments that could be incor-
porated into the state. These ordinances also provided guidelines,
authored by Thomas Jefferson and modified by James Monroe, to
survey and parcel these western lands into distinct townships and
plots that would be for sale to migrating settlers.
The survey plans were "rational," resting on specific abstract
and geometric functions. Adapting early Renaissance theories of
perspective-based drawings, such as those by Leon Batista Alberti,
with theories of the "possessive individual" relations to the land
proposed by John Locke (MacPherson 1962), Jefferson applied a
checkerboard grid to the land. A grid could be expanded indefi-
nitely, and be applied to "universal" measurement standards. A
national grid, included one divided into "hundreds" (or ten geo-
graphical miles squared) was based on universal equality, not
custom or tradition Qohnson 1976: 43). Such a proposal, Karen
Rogers argues, is in line with Jefferson's revolutionary principles
and Enlightenment outlook. Rogers states:
The outstanding formal qualities of Jefferson's grid-the
fact that all of the lots are equal in size and shape; that
the overall grid diagram forms a continuous, even fabric
within which it is, in theory, impossible to isolate, segregate
or privilege any part; and the fact that the grid is open and
unbound-can all be interpreted as intended to ensure that,
in terms of access to land, "equal Liberty as well religious
as civil may be universally extended to all good People ..."
(2005: 39-40).

1 The major debate centered on the fact that states like Virginia, North Carolina,

Massachusetts, Connecticut, Georgia, and New York all possessed previous treaties,
granting them lands within the western territories. Landless states, especially Mary-
land, disputed these states' claims and demanded these lands be ceded to the federal
government. To make this threat valid, Maryland refused to sign the Articles of Confed-
eration until these lands were ceded (Horsman 1970; Pattison 1957: 6-10; Rakove 1989:
8). Other issues were the question of Indian cessions, whether western states would
become more powerful than eastern states, and how to best construct a land policy to
bring in federal revenue.

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38 Ryan Mead

Combined with the equality of space, such a proposal falls in line

with Jefferson's sense of Republicanism and his opposition to the
sale of public land. He viewed land not as a commodity but as a
resource for national development. His goal was the dispersal of
public lands at a cheap price to be bought up and worked by small
yeoman farmers (Cosgrove 1984: 178).
In March 1784 Jefferson was appointed head of a committee
to create ways to obtain lands from Indian tribes, and how to best
survey and govern these lands. When Jefferson's Committee sub-
mitted its proposal "An Ordinance Establishing a Land Office for
the United States," to Congress on April 25, 1784, it received four
votes from the twenty-three delegates (Pattison 1957: 37). Despite
multiple objections from varied fronts, 2 a revised ordinance was
passed that accepted Jefferson's proposals regarding a prior sur-
vey, rectangular townships and lots, and a low price for land, as
well as the tenets for the universal grid (Cosgrove 1984: 179).
In 1785 Congress assembled a team that incorporated mem-
bers from each state led by a military engineer, Thomas Hutchins,
to survey the seven ranges area in the Northwest Territory, or what
is now eastern Ohio. Hutchins and his team departed in Septem-
ber, but suspended operations due to reports of Indian attacks in

2 Jefferson's ideal of the small yeoman farmer and the concentration of govern-

ment on the local level highlighted early debates as to how the developing nation-state
should be constructed and how these new lands should relate to the federal government
(Rogers 2005: 40). But what method of surveying should be incorporated? The New
England land system was based upon the township selling land with pre-determined
boundaries that forced the buyer to purchase both good land and bad land together.
The Southern land system, on the other hand, let the purchaser pick out the land
before purchasing. This system allowed all the good land to be bought up first, and
required land of little value to be brought into the public domain (Pattison 1957: 39).
Jefferson sought to integrate aspects of both systems. The imposition of a grid meant
that good land had to be taken with the bad, a proposal that was sure to appease the
northern delegates. On the other hand, Jefferson's proposal incorporated the south-
ern system of the sale of land prior to the survey, appeasing the southern delegates
(Rogers 2005: 47). Even with such concessions, Congress still was not satisfied. North-
ern delegates rejected the grid on the basis that their system forced the selling of good
land with the bad, and predicated limits through natural boundaries. They also pushed
for smaller townships, the sale of land by the town only, and surveys to be done before
the purchase. The southern delegates opposed prior surveys and supported the sale
of land by lots (47-48). Individuals like George Washington believed the imposition of
this system would be costly to the government to defend due to sparse and scattered
settlements (Rogers 2005: 48;Johnson 1976: 41).James Monroe felt that the new west
would be too strong in Congress, overshadowing the power of the original colonies
(Pattison 1957: 31).

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FRAMING MANIFEST DESTINY IN THE EARLY AMERICAN REPLUBLIC 39

the area. The surveying team retreated and began operations the
following year (Pattison 1957: 128-29). When they resumed sur-
veying in 1786 they surveyed more land than in 1785, but again,
cut short their work because of lack of security against Indian at-
tacks (134-35). Threats of Indian attacks aside, the quality of the
surveys, though adopting the latest in scientific and geometric em-
pirical techniques, did not mirror the reality on the ground. Many
of the surveyors were inexperienced with the land, and with the
surveying techniques (Rogers 2005: 51). 3 Additionally, methods of
measurements, despite ambitious claims, were not precise. William
Pattison notes many of these shortcomings: for instance, the lack
of precision of the surveying instruments and the surveyors' fail-
ure to take into account the curvature of the earth (1957: 144, 146)
resulted in inaccuracies in joining township corners (1957: 147).
Despite such problems, a plat of the Seven Ranges was produced
and presented to Congress (Figure 1).

Selling the Northwest Territory and its Larger,

More Long-Term Correlative Relations

Jefferson's republican sentiments favored the equal parceling

of land to be sold to individual yeoman farmers, however, this
ideal did not find a place in the political-economic situation of the
United States at the time. Land surveys were done so that the gov-
ernment could sell land to build up the treasury and reduce debt.
However, the total cost of the survey was $14,876.45, three times
what Congress expected it to be. This land was to be auctioned in
New York City from September 21 to October 9, 1787, but only one
third of the land was sold, bringing in revenue of only $176,090.
The United States government realized only $60,000 of these funds
because Congress attempted to stimulate sales by accepting only
one-third of the purchase money as down payment. The cost of the
survey, and the cost of maintaining troops at the border, decreased
the government's revenues and forced the government to consider

3 Despite the talents of surveyors like Thomas Hutchins, Thomas Jefferson, and
George Washington, surveying in the American colonies was a selftaught discipline.
Whereas both George Washington, during the Revolutionary War, and Thomas
Jefferson, while President, emphasized the need for the institutionalizing of carto-
graphic training, it wasn't until 181 7 that Major Sylvanus Thayer of the Corps of Engi-
neer was appointed by the Secretary of War, John C. Calhoun, to develop a geography
program at the military academy at West Point (Friis 1965 ).

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40 Ryan Mead

this survey and the sale of land m the Seven Ranges as a failure
(Pattison 1957: 153 54, 156, 157).

Figure I
Thomas Hutchins Plat of the Seven Ranges (1785)

/.
,:

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FRAMING MANIFEST DESTINY IN THE EARLY AMERICAN REPLUBLIC 41

In an attempt to address these failings, Congress accepted pro-

posals by the newly formed Second Ohio Company. This company
offered Congress $1,000,000 in depreciated continental war cer-
tificates to buy up a large track of land southwest of the Seven
Ranges plot (Horsman 1970: 36). Moreover, Congress approved
the sale of 1,000,000 acres to Judge John Cleves Symmes between
the Great and Little Miami rivers. Even though Symmes had dif-
ficulty in making his payment, he still kept about 300,000 acres
(1970: 42-43). Both the Ohio Company and Symmes also hired
government surveyors who had worked on the Seven Ranges sur-
vey to value their land (Pattison 1957: 169-84).
These sales brought the federal government large amounts of
cash in a short period of time, and transformed Jefferson's yeoman
farmer ideal into a capitalist venture. Eric Hinderaker explains the
meaning of the transformation as not only a need for money, but
the shift of government and vision of the west to Federalist, rather
than Republican principles. He notes:
The change in policy was inspired partly by practical con-
cerns: the need for quick cash and the difficulty of coor-
dinating large-scale, government-funded surveying opera-
tions. But it was also defensible in more principled terms. It
embodied a Federalist vision for western development, one
that placed a premium not only on economic development
but also on the moral and social authority of gentlemen in
an undisciplined and chaotic region. Speculative ventures
like the Ohio Company promised to make large quantities
of land available to individual settlers relatively quickly, at
the same time that they empowered men of reputation and
honor to shape western society. The economic influence of
leading speculators was reinforced with the dignity of pub-
lic office, as many of them were appointed to territorial of-
fices and federaljudgeships (1997: 247).
This meant that the push west was not based on lofty ideals of the
yeoman farmer, but instead on imperial and capitalist ambitions
through the interrelations of state and capitalist agencies. Though
the dual processes of surveying and promoting these lands as emp-
ty, these agencies were able to promote them as unspoiled, thus ex-
ploitable. This was most clearly seen in the advertisements sent out
by the Ohio River Company. Their 1787 Explanation of the Map ...

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42 Ryan Mead

is a pamphlet endorsed by Thomas Hutchins which emphasizes the

qualities of the land, especially in relation to agriculture, resource
extraction, livestock, wild game, shipbuilding, mining, salt, and
so on (n.a. 1787). These advertisements and the geometric "blank
spaces" provided by the land surveys parceled off and commodi-
fied the land itself, and presented it as a "blank space," waiting to
be filled and transformed through the labor of men in relation to
market demands. Land became simplified in terms of geometric
measurement, with no concept of place and no concept of those
who came before (or who were still there), with specific promises
of the economic possibilities that such space offered to its buyer.
Throughout the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries
there came a multitude of government regulated surveys, as well
as exploratory missions whose goal was to simplify a diverse geo-
graphic and cultural landscape into plots that could be commodi-
fied and controlled from a distance. These projects were needed
for a number of reasons. A rapid population expansion was being
experienced in the seaboard states, and in the western territories.
According to military estimates in Richard White's account:
From October 10, 1786, until May 12, 1787, a total of 177
boats containing 2,689 persons passed Fort Harmar on
their way down the Ohio. From June 1, 1787 until Decem-
ber 9 of that same year, Harmar's officers counted 146 boats
and 3,196 persons. And then from December 9 to June 15,
1788, a total of 308 boats and 6,320 persons passed the fort
(1991: 418).
Looking at this migration on a larger scale we see even larger num-
bers. Kentucky, which before the American Revolution had little
or no white settlers, had 220,000 settlers by 1800. Ohio, which had
few or no white settlers immediately after the American Revolution
grew to 45,000 settlers by 1800 and over 500,000 settlers by 1820
(Wood 2009: 316). There was also an expansion in commerce and
trade throughout the nation. With the expulsion of Indian tribes
in the Ohio Valley, trade within this region grew from $2.6 million
in 1802 to $5.3 million in 1807 (Bergmann 2008: 163). This was
also the period in which PresidentJefferson purchased the Louisi-
ana territory from France, doubling the size of the United States.
With these developments, both national and international, came a
push for exploration and surveying. The United States government,

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FRAMING MANIFEST DESTINY IN THE EARLY AMERICAN REPLUBLIC 43

throughout the first years of the nineteenth century, implemented

projects to survey the Atlantic coast and to explore and map the
trans-Mississippi west. The government also institutionalized car-
tographic mapping and surveying. The Topographical Bureau was
established in 1818 and a geographic department was created at
West Point in 1818 to train future surveyors in standard and uni-
versalized methods (Friis 1965: 68-78). 4

Other Ways of Seeing in the Northwest Territory

The Northwest Territory during the period after the Revolu-

tionary War was not a "blank slate" waiting to be molded through
capitalist relations, but was an already inhabited cultural land-
scape which was becoming incorporated into the capitalist world-
economy, or at least being impacted by it. The inhabitants of these
lands had established ways of seeing and representing their land-
scapes, ones that differed from European conventions. The United
States' initial westward push in the late eighteenth century into the
Northwest Territory provides a telling example of violent clashes
between different groups of people, and how such clashes relate
to how landscape is perceived, represented, and transformed as a
result.
Transformation in this region has been noted by other schol-
ars. Immanuel Wallerstein points out that in the period 1733-1817,
the world-economy "began to incorporate vast new zones into the
effective division of labor it encompassed" (1989: 129). This proc-

4 These military and political institutions were interested in surveying the land-

scape through cartographic methods, and in illustrating both the landscapes and its
inhabitants (plants, animals, and humans). As military expeditions were deployed west
in order to explore and map, they were usually accompanied by illustrators to depict
such scenes. The pictures of these "unexplored" lands placed the United States and its
interests within the larger "natural history" framework, namely the classification system
developed by Carl Linnaeus in 1735 France. Such a system had far reaching effects; as
Mary Louise Pratt has noted, it was a system that not only spread quickly throughout
the known world, but also transformed the ways in which men saw and narrated nature
([1992] 2008: 25-26). Linnaeus' system, along with that of Comte de Buffon and Michel
Adanson, sought to classify plant and animal (including human) life based upon certain
attributes. These processes allowed for the classification of specimens and the produc-
tion of knowledge of an area, that is, a sort of cognitive landscaping, fundamental to
capitalist exploitation and settlement (Meyers 1986: 130). This was one of the main rea-
sons that trading companies provided free transport and accommodation to naturalists
(Pratt [1992] 2008: 33).

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44 Ryan Mead

ess rose from internal pressures within the world-economy, rather

than from the initiative of those areas being incorporated (1989:
129). Certain zones which had previously been external to the
world-economy, such as the Indian subcontinent or West Africa,
became gradually drawn within its sphere. This slow process incor-
porates external arenas into the capitalist world-economy because
production processes within these external arenas becomes inte-
gral to ever-changing "market conditions" (1989: 129-30). Such a
process happens in three different moments for the zone. First the
zone is defined as an external arena, secondly, the zone becomes
incorporated, and thirdly, the zone is peripheralized. The moment
of incorporation "involves 'hooking' the zone into the orbit of
the world-economy," and peripheralization involves the "continu-
ing transformation" of the institutions within the area as a means
to deepen capitalist development (Wallerstein 1989: 130). Wilma
Dunaway, on the other hand, defines the process as more interac-
tive, meaning it is not a top-down imposition from a dominant
colonizer to a passive indigenous people, but instead should be
seen as a dialectical process between social structure and human
agency (Dunaway 1996: 456). This process consists of transforma-
tions that "are determined by hegemonic forces in the capitalist
world-system," but whose social changes are never unilateral (1996:
467). Incorporation to Dunaway is therefore a "multifaceted strug-
gle at several antagonistic levels" (1996: 467). Jonathan Leitner,
however, uses the term "contested periphery." Basing his defini-
tion on P. Nick Kardulias, and temporally grounding it within the
North America fur trade between 1664 to 1754, Leitner defines the
"contested periphery" as not so much Indian nations being incor-
porated into a European system, and thus dominated from above,
but instead Europeans being forced to engage with the indigenous
populations on an equal level as a means of gathering commodities
such as fur (Leitner 2005: 234).
The reworkings of incorporation and peripheralization de-
scribed by Dunaway and White have their origins in Wallerstein's
conception, and in Richard White's seminal study of the pays d'en
haut (roughly the Northwest Territory), a study that centers on
the concept of the "middle ground." White defines the "middle
ground" as the place in between: "in between cultures, peoples,
and in between empires and the nonstate world of villages" (1991:
x). This is a place of equal grounding in terms of power and econ-

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FRAMING MANIFEST DESTINY IN THE EARLY AMERICAN REPLUBLIC 45

omy, as Leitner notes, and a place of misinterpreted meaning and

values, from which new, shared meanings grow. White points out
that Europeans did not have the standing in the area to dominate
and instead needed "Indians as allies, as partners in exchange, as
sexual partners, as friendly neighbors" (1991: x). In defining the
region in this way, White claims that it is a part of "a world system
in which minor agents, allies, and even subjects at the periphery
often guide the course of empires" while adding "this is an odd
imperialism and a complicated world system" (1991: xi).
The history of this area before as well as after the establishment
of the United States, according to White, Dunaway, and Leitner, is
therefore complex. This territory was incorporated into the mod-
ern world-system through the fur trade, but not in a traditional
dominator-dominated binary way. Instead this worked through a
myriad of alliances and linkages between different Indian tribes
and different European powers. The "middle ground," as White
notes, comes to an end when the local tribes no longer had the
power to force whites on to such a grounding. This came with
the arrival of the American republic. The Americans successfully
pushed the tribes and confederacies, the Algonquin and Iroquois,
off the land, and as White notes, worked to invent "Indians" and
forced them "to live with the consequences of this invention"; "Eu-
ropeans met the other, invented a long-lasting and significant com-
mon world, but in the end reinvented the Indian as other" (1991:
xi, xv). While White's concern was the reinvention of social rela-
tions through the development of identities, this article focuses on
the displacement of landscapes developed through this "middle
ground" by the visual practices noted above and through their ac-
companiment with military force.
The tribes in this area were made and remade through internal
warring with each other, and through their interrelations with the
French and the British, as proxies in the international fur trade
(White 1991; Leitner 2005). These tribes also played a major role
in the various eighteenth century struggles between Britain and
France as they related to hegemonic ascension. With the defeat
of the French in the Seven Years War in 1763, the British set up
a Proclamation Line that prohibited its North American settlers
from moving west. It made controlling the empire more feasible
and appeased its indigenous allies, particularly the Iroquois Con-
federacy, who were feeling the encroachment of eastern settlers

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46 Ryan Mead

(Wallerstein 1989: 202). Furthermore, this line divided the inter-

ests of the British metropole and the North American settlers, a
divergence that helped bring about the Revolutionary War (1989:
203). Although many of these Indian tribes sided with the Brit-
ish during the American Revolution, when the Treaty of Paris was
signed in 1783, they, not to speak of their interests, had not even
been mentioned in any of the peace talks (Brooks 2006: 87). Per-
haps not surprisingly, despite the language used in the Northwest
Ordinance, 5 as settlers, speculators, and surveyors began moving
across the now defunct Proclamation Line, especially in the north,
they were met with increased resistance from the Indian tribes.
The reasons for this resistance are multiple. The main reason
is the encroachment of Americans on different tribal lands. Also,
while the British were ordered to vacate their military posts with-
in the Northwest Territory by the Treaty of Paris, they did not,
and they used these posts to encourage Indian resistance towards
American encroachment (Horsman 1970: 35). Notwithstanding
John Jay's communication to Congress claiming multiple reports
of British support of Indian resistance and plots against the United
States (evidently with some basis), fears were greatly exaggerated
(Stewart 1989: 29). Whether the British actively supported Indian
resistance is not at issue here. What is of concern is that through-
out the 1780s and early 1790s, the United States and the Indian
nations of the Northwest Territory were engaged in heated battles
over the encroachment of American settlers and speculators. For
the majority of these campaigns, the United States military was
unsuccessful in thwarting Indian resistance until 1794-95. Gen-
eral Anthony Wayne's 1793-94 campaign against the Western Con-
federacy, a confederacy made up of multiple remnants of Indian
tribes in the area, brought about a reversal. With the defeat of the
Confederacy at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794 and the Treaty
of Greenville in 1795, these tribes ceded what is now southern and

5 As noted in footnote 2, one of the principal debates regarding the Northwest Or-

dinance had to do with the cession of lands from Indian tribes within the region. The
Northwest Ordinance of 1785 clearly states in the third article that: "the utmost good
faith shall always be observed toward the Indians, their lands and property shall never
be taken from them without their consent; and in their property, right and liberty, they
never shall be invaded or disturbed, unless in just and lawful wards authorized by Con-
gress; but laws founded in justice and humanity shall from time to time be made, for
preventing wrongs being done to them, and for preserving peace and friendship with
them" (quoted in Williams 1989: 125).

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FRAMING MANIFEST DESTINY IN THE EARLY AMERICAN REPLUBLIC 47

eastern Ohio to the United States (Horsman 1970: 49; Bergmann

2008: 159-60). 6
Another way to look at this conflict is to examine its impact on
the larger capitalist world-economy and the ways in which the land
was related to this larger economy. Since the seventeenth century,
this had been a fur trading area operated through multiple Indian
proxies (from numerous tribes) and various trading posts scat-
tered throughout the landscape, and served by established water-
ways. The encroachment of more settlers in the west set in motion
a transformation to a landscape based on agriculture and animal
husbandry. William Bergmann notes:
During the 1770s furs represented the primary commer-
cial venture. Itinerant Anglo-American hunters sold their
furs to regional traders or, if they could get better prices,
shipped their pelts to Spanish traders in the lower Missis-
sippi valley. After 1775 more emigrants began to move into
the region with the intent of creating businesses to support
the population of hunters as well as to establish permanent
settlements. Although hunting remained a significant com-
ponent of subsistence, agriculture and animal husbandry
played a greater role in productive labor. This shift did
more than create different labor practices; it also changed
the land. Whereas hunters relied on forests as a source for
their pelts, agricultural and pastoral settlers viewed those
same trees as obstacles to be cleared (2008: 143).
Furthermore, as Bergmann notes, many areas in the Ohio Valley
were designated as traditional hunting areas by the various Indian
tribes, but to the incoming settlers, they were viewed as unsettled,
thus "ripe for the taking" (2008: 146).
While Bergmann talks about the economic transformations of
the actual landscape, Lisa Brooks (2006) notes the political-cul-
tural ways these landscapes were perceived. The Northwest Terri-
tory was based on "trading post imperialism" (Leitner 2005) that

6 Richard White notes that the massive immigration to the valley during this time

caused multiple problems to the various tribal claims on lands, and to the American
government as well. Various groups of migrants, labeled as "white savages," raided Indi-
an lands, and squatted on both Indian and government land. The war in the region was
meant to take over portions of Indian lands by the United States government, and more
importantly to homogenize the complex variety of Indian nations into one group, while
at the same time disciplining the "white savage" to federal rule (White 1991: 418-20).

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48 Ryan Mead

required Indian proxies. The majority of the land, though heavily

impacted by market demands and European trade, was largely con-
trolled by various Indian tribes. Additionally, European control
over this area was never complete and always contested and com-
promised (White 1991; Dunaway 1996; Leitner 2005).
Concentrating on the 1780s and 1790s, especially in terms of
the Northwest Indian Wars, Brooks notes two diverging viewpoints
as to how these Indian tribes conceived the landscape, conceptions
based on traditional tribal attitudes. The first viewpoint was that
of the Mahican leader, Hendrick Auapumut, who emphasized the
Algonquian conception of space, which told of a "network of vil-
lages connected by rivers and relations" (2006: 99). As Aupaumut
traveled from tribe to tribe he visually expressed this conception
through his ancestors' "bag of peace," a bag that contained "all the
belts and strings they received of their allies of different nations"
(2006: 99). The Mohawk leader, Joseph Brant, emphasized a dif-
ferent conceptualization of space, one based on the Iroquois tradi-
tion. This version was more structured and hierarchical. Brooks
notes:
The confederacy longhouse consisted of six nations who
occupied particular geographic spaces, with clan identity
tying each person to maternal relations within the other
nations. Land was held in common, by all clans, and more
specifically by the clan mothers. Identity was defined by ma-
ternity: individuals belonged to the nation and clan of their
mother, while membership in the confederacy could only be
acquired by birth to an Iroquois woman or formal adoption
by a particular family, clan, or nation. The political life of
the confederacy was highly structured, with specific roles
assigned to individuals based on clan, nation, and aptitude.
Entire nations could be absorbed by the confederacy only
through formal incorporation into the longhouse and the
complex kinship structure it encompassed (2006: 99).
Brant used this historical idea to emphasize the Indian confedera-
cy based on the "dish with one spoon." The "dish with one spoon"
was a metaphor for the land that belonged to the confederacy in
common.
While Aupaumut and Brant emphasized solidarity (even though
it was solidarity defined in different ways) in defending their lands,

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FRAMING MANIFEST DESTINY IN THE EARLY AMERICAN REPLUBLIC 49

the United States military emphasized the division of Indian lands.

This is most clearly seen in 1793 when Secretary of War Henry Knox
instructed his commissioners to create separate treaties with the
various tribes as a way to break their union (Brooks 2006: 104). It
can be argued that this strategy underpinned the victory at Fall-
en Timbers and the cession of Indian land within that region to
the United States. Furthermore, the cession of land and the retreat
of Indian tribes westward fell in line with the ideals proposed in
Jefferson's universal grid, creating land as a "blank space" waiting to
be filled. Such a landscape could not be truly realized until its previ-
ous inhabitants were ousted from the area through military force.
Thus, the visual representation of the Northwest Territory
through surveys, maps, and illustrations was not a neutral exercise,
but highly charged politically, economically, and culturally. These
representations produced geometrically abstract spaces defined
through mathematical boundaries, and classified both land and
the plants, animals, and native inhabitants in it into categories.
However, these spaces and categories were not universal or nat-
ural, as Enlightenment thinkers like Thomas Jefferson believed,
but instead were constructs whose legitimation came at the price
of the violent disposal of other ways of seeing and representing
landscapes. The Indian tribes in the Great Lakes region serve as
. an example of the violent displacement of cultural landscapes, es-
pecially through ways of visually representing it; we can also say
the same thing about the poor white squatters who were expelled
by the military at this time, the women who settled the region,
or the African slaves who were brought to the region despite the
Ordinance principles. 7 What such dominant images did was to
organize space, and thus organize social relations between these
various groups of people. While these groups organized and dom-
inated, this domination was never complete. As Henri Lefebvre
notes, although some groups of people work to master and control
this produced space, they can never master it completely (1991:
26). This is especially apparent in the various rebellions of Indian
tribes throughout the nineteenth century, in slave rebellions and

7 Whether slavery was to be established in these territories was another topic heav-

ily debated within Congress. The sixth article of the Northwest Ordinance states "there
shall be neither slavery nor involuntary Servitude in the said territory" (quoted in
Williams 1989: 127); however, this article was hotly debated and slavery was permitted
in many of the newly formed states (Finkelman 1989: 61-63 ).

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50 Ryan Mead

runaway slaves (especially in relation to the construction of their

own spatial routes and landscapes defined by the Underground
Railroad), or the first wave of feminist movements in the mid- to
late-nineteenth century.
The Romantic Movement emerged in the early nineteenth cen-
tury within the core of the modern world-system as a specific type
of cultural response. As it worked against the Enlightenment proj-
ect, and industrial capitalism, it produced new conceptions of spac-
es, spaces that through their construction, in the words of Denis
Cosgrove, didn't so much critique industrial capitalism, but rather
"in fact mystified its implications for land and human life, which
proclaimed a moral order in nature while avoiding society" (1984:
234). The next section examines the emergence of the Romantic
Movement as a reactionary movement to Enlightenment values and
industrial capitalism, and how its projects, especially the pictur-
esque construction of sublime landscape paintings, mystified capi-
talist relations with the material environment, and through such
mystification, helped to legitimate such relations as they physically
transformed the western landscape.

THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF SUBLIME NATURE:

LEGITIMATING NATION AND EMPIRE IN
THE AGE OF ROMANTICISM

Raymond Williams, in his classic text, Culture and Society, dis-

pels the myth that Romantic artists, especially those in Great Brit-
ain, were opposed to worldly affairs and only concerned with aes-
thetics and nature. He notes that instead, they were some of the
most prolific critics of the social transformation happening at that
time, especially the rise of democracy and industrial capitalism
(1960: 33-34). Moreover, in noting their emphasis on these social
changes, Williams points out how the work of the Romantics can-
not be separated from the social transformations of art happening
at that time. He notes that the eighteenth century was a period of
a growing literate middle class, a phenomenon which influenced
both the relationship between the reader and writer, and commer-
cial publishing; the production and consumption of art at this time
was also increasingly subject to the market (1960: 35, 38). This
subjection can be seen through the growing specialization of art

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FRAMING MANIFEST DESTINY IN THE EARLY AMERICAN REPLUBLIC 51

in terms of genre, as well as the emphasis on the artist as an in-

dividual. The individualized artists, labeled as "geniuses" with a
"superior reality of art," began to view themselves, according to
Williams, as the agents for the "revolution of life" and harbingers
of culture (1960: 43-48).
While Williams concentrated on England during the late eigh-
teenth and early nineteenth century, we can see these transfor-
mations taking form within the United States, particularly in the
adaptation of the notion of the sublime by landscape artists in the
United States during the second quarter of the nineteenth century.
The sublime, according to Denis Cosgrove, was the central idea
within the Romantic Movement (1984: 226). This sublime though,
wasn't the sublime of the seventeenth or even early eighteenth
century, but instead a more refined sublime, one whose meaning
transformed in relation to the social transformations described by
Williams. Earlier conceptions of the sublime were ones of awe and
fear, conceptions that saw man as insignificant in relation to God.
This was an idea both revered and produced by specific types of
gentleman scholars (Novak 1980: 35). As industrialism grew, and
democracy took form and the middle class expanded throughout
Europe and the United States, that conception began to trans-
form in a way more suitable to mass consumption. It is argued that
this transformation was initiated by Edmund Burke in mid-eigh-
teenth England, when he linked "beauty" and "sublimity" together.
Cosgrove notes:
What Burke had done was to maintain the emotions associ-
ated with the sublime while altering the understanding of
their source. He had removed it from the object: the great
work of revelation or imagination, and given it to the hu-
man subject, not through mind but through senses. The
sublime was thereby rendered a common property of all
people since, unlike mind for which we have no empirical
measure by which to contradict a claim to superiority, the
five senses are manifestly shared by all (1984: 227).
The sublime in this sense was democratized, a concept to be shared
by all, or those rising middle classes who could afford its image.
The problem with these analyses of the sublime that Williams
and Cosgrove lay out is that even though they relate the artistic
and cultural world to larger transformations, they do not work in

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52 Ryan Mead

relating the conceptions of Romanticism or the sublime to the way

actual transformations in the landscapes played out in geographi-
cally and historically specific areas. 8 Enlightenment ways of seeing
had a dramatic impact on transforming the American landscape.
As noted, the emergence of the sublime in painting, especially with
artists like Thomas Cole and the Hudson River School, played a role
in establishing a conception of "nature" as something out there,
and in creating a hierarchy of beauty. Such imagery allowed for the
conservation of some forms of "nature," especially in park-scapes,
while increasing the appropriation and exploitation of most other
forms. Furthermore, as many scholars note, the sublime pushed
forward a sense of nationalism within the American populace, one
based on American land, rather than common ancestry (Novak
1980; Boim 1991; Miller 1993). This form of nationalism fueled
the concept of "manifest destiny," an ideology that intensified the
Anglo-American westward push that displaced both people, and
their competing ways of perceiving the landscape.
There were many factors in socially constructing this Ameri-
can form of sublimity in painting. American methods of drawing
and painting in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century
derived from European conventions (Cosgrove 1984; Meyers 1986;
Olwig 2002). This did not mean that artistic tastes correlated at
specific times. The notion of the sublime, especially in regard to
the wilderness, began to change in England during the mid-eigh-
teenth century; however, it took the United Sates a little longer to
make this transformation. The wilderness to Americans was usu-

8 It can be argued that in the following pages in Cosgrove's 1984 book, he relates

the idea of the pastoral to an emphasis on usevalue in the land, and the idea of the
sublime with exchangevalue (231-32), especially in showing how the "raw" power of
nature associated with the sublime can work in terms of industrialization. There are
multiple problems with this conception. First, Cosgrove only emphasizes the fascina-
tion with the sublime and how it can be incorporated into capitalism, while doing little
to critique the ways Romantic artists used the sublime themselves. Secondly, Cosgrove,
in emphasizing "culture" on one hand, and "industrial capitalism" on the other, sees
capitalism as an economic system. This goes back to his emphasis earlier in his book
where he takes an Orthodox Marxist stance in relating capitalism to a specific mode of
production, namely wage labor, instead of looking at capitalism as a historical system,
one in which the political, economic, and cultural aspects work through each other in
the constant production of nature (Moore 2011) or a historical system encompassing a
variety of different types oflabor (Wallerstein 1974). In this sense, culture should not be
conceived as in a separate box related to industrial capitalism, but instead intertwined
with it, being shaped by it, while simultaneously shaping it.

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FRAMING MANIFEST DESTINY IN THE EARLY AMERICAN REPLUBLIC 53

ally associated with wild animals, evil spirits, and ungodly natives
(Nash [1967] 1982: 23-30; Nygren 1986: 3). That said, the most
popular forms of landscape imagery in North America throughout
the eighteenth century was the pastoral and the improved land-
scape (Nash [1967] 1982: 30-33; Nygren 196: 17). These views most
often correlated with those of William Giplin, an Anglican cleric,
who emphasized the picturesque in terms of landscape representa-
tion (Nygren 1986: 18-20; Bermingham 2002: 87-93). While these
views fell out of favor in Britain, they were popular in the United
States.
By the early nineteenth century, this began to change. With a
growing population, westward expansion into the Northwest Ter-
ritory, and the Louisiana Purchase, American art began to trans-
form its image of the wilderness. This was first shown through
articles and poems, but was soon evident in the visual arts as well
(Nygren 1986: 39). As the nineteenth century progressed, images of
wilderness became tamed and poetic. This can be seen in the land-
scape paintings of Washington Allston, Charles Codman, Joshua
Shaw, and many others. These early landscapes, as Edward Nygren
points out were not "poetic visions," but instead "poetic views" that
combined "a subjective interpretation of nature with a degree of
literalism" (1986: 71). These artists created a shift away from the
literal world of the Enlightenment, whose goals were to observe
and classify nature, and to present it as is, to the poetic world of
the Romantics, who idealized nature through aesthetics.
This transformation was intensified with the establishment of
artistic institutions throughout the cities of the United States. In
1802, the American Academy of Fine Arts was established in New
York City, and in 1805, in Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Academy
of Fine Arts was founded. These academies were needed, Nygren
notes, because of the growth of interest in art (1986: 42), but what
is more important is how these institutions impacted the art world.
Exhibitions at these institutions opened the work of contemporary
European artists, and older artists to the populace. Likewise, these
institutions and a growing number of art collectors increased de-
mand for more contemporary American art, thus supporting a
growing crop of artists, many of whom were landscape painters
(1986: 41-42).
The early American nineteenth century therefore witnessed
the dual processes of the taming of the wilderness and the growing

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54 Ryan Mead

popularity of its depiction, especially through the sublime. This is

important in terms of actual landscape transformation. First, this
separated "nature" from "society." The wilderness had been an un-
pleasant image fraught with danger for many Americans before the
nineteenth century, now it was tamed through increased frontier
expansion, settlement, and surveying. The Romantic Movement,
and its emphasis on the sublime, deified the wilderness. This is
what Nygren referenced when he mentioned "poetic visions" over
"poetic views." These "visions," many scholars have noted were
both religious and nationalistic. William Cronon notes that as the
nineteenth century progressed the sublime became domesticated,
and transformed "nature" from being a place of "religious experi-
ence" to becoming a "church," and this went hand-in-hand with the
increase in tourism (1996: 10-12). These parallel processes of do-
mestication and popularization relate to a rising middle class and
the democratization of art, and to diverging conceptions of the
"natural" landscape. This growing middle class, as consumers of
art, is usually associated with urban areas; arts organizations are
most often located in cities. Indeed, landscape artists, especially
sublime artists, like Thomas Cole, reside in the city, as do their
patrons. These urban influences dictate ideas about "country" and
"nature," ignoring those who dwell there (1996: 15), and can be
related to a contradictory tendency within the landscape genre at
this time. On one hand, artists seem to be calling for the preserva-
tion of "nature," but on the other hand, by dealing with the wealthy
strata of society who purchase their works, they help transform the
landscape to the needs of capital (Boime 1991: 7-8).
As Romantic artists indulged their taste for the sublime in land-
scape paintings in the second quarter of the nineteenth century,
many scholars have noted the linkages between this form of art
and nationalism, especially as it relates to religious revival, most
notably the Second Great Awakening Qackson 1979; Novak 1980;
Boime 1991; Miller 1993). According to these scholars, the forma-
tion of American nationalism differed from the European model.
European nationalism could be derived from harkened calls to
an ancient and common ancestry, but America had no such past.
American settlers migrated from various parts of Europe. The
American Revolution had left deep social divides within the newly
forming union. The colonial structure was based upon various in-
dependent states, not one centralized government. America had
largely destroyed and/or dispossessed the nation's previous inhab-

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FRAMING MANIFEST DESTINY IN THE EARLY AMERICAN REPLUBLIC 55

itants through biological and military means, and had destroyed

its social history. In order to build the bonds of nationalism, em-
phasis was placed on the environment and its depiction. Basing her
theory on Benedict Anderson's (2006) conception of "imagined
communities" and their creation through print culture, Angela
Miller argues that such communities in the United States could be
formed through painting. Using American sublime landscapes as
her example, Miller writes:
Like the written word, images were circulated through
prints and periodicals with a national readership or in oil
paintings available to more limited, metropolitan audienc-
es. They developed their own national audience, engender-
ing a set of common experiences and creating a set of refer-
ence points shared by people otherwise unconnected. This,
in theory at least, was their cultural work. The democratic
drive to lower the barriers of high culture-the culture, in
this instance, of oil paintings-meant that paintings as well
as prints could now be enlisted in the cause of a shared
identity that transcended class lines. Images were thus cen-
tral to the formation of American nationalism (1993: 8).
As access to paintings became increasingly available to the middle
classes through the opening of museums and exhibitions and as
actual works of art were reproduced through mechanical means
in periodicals, landscape painting took on a new significance in
constructing a national consciousness.
Anibal Quijano and Immanuel Wallerstein wrote that the con-
stitution of the United States as a nation developed simultaneously
with its rise as an imperial and hegemonic power (1992: 555). With
the landscape painting as an element in this development, we can
therefore see it in terms of imperialism as well. We have already
observed this in terms of how images were employed as a tool to
dispossess the tribes of the Northwest Territory. Scholars such as
Albert Boime (1991) and Roger Cushing Aikin (2000) note how the
development of landscape paintings served the doctrine of "mani-
fest destiny" and its relationship to imperialism. In emphasizing
the bird's eye view perspective of many of these paintings, Boime
theorizes what he calls the "magisterial gaze":
It presupposes the spectator as sightseer on the ledge or
crest subjugating the boundless reality to a disciplined scru-

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56 Ryan Mead

tiny and simultaneously taking a reading from this orienta-

tion that is profoundly personal and ideological at the same
time. The panoramic perspective becomes a metonymic
image-that is, it embodies, like a microcosm, the social and
political character of the land-of the desire for dominance
(1991: 21).
This dominance brings with it not only a displacement of other
ways of seeing and shaping the landscape, but "new" ways, ways
that are predicated on national development and imperial ambi-
tion, and on the endless accumulation of capital within the context
of the nation-state and interstate system.

CONCLUSION

Accumulation and its relationship to incorporation and pe-

ripheralization relates not just to deepening capitalist expansion
on top of nature, but through nature. Capitalism is not so much a
world-economy, but as Jason Moore calls it, a world-ecology (Moore
2011). This concept is best illustrated through the interrelations
of capitalist accumulation, national development, the social pro-
duction of space and the historical transformations of landscape,
especially as resulting from the production and dissemination of
visual representations. In short, the production of images has abet-
ted the transformation of landscapes in relation to specific social
transformations.
Medium-term fluctuations bringing about nationalism, indus-
trialism, and cultural movements, should not be seen as separate
events that can be linked together in specific ways, but instead,
should be viewed as instances in interweaving processes that are
constantly reconstructed in specific times and places, processes
that work in the formation of the larger whole. We can see simi-
larities and differences with the visual and material projects taking
place within the United States and elsewhere in the world-system.
Matthew Edney writes of similar processes in colonial India (1997),
while Paul Carter emphasizes Australia (1988). Raymond Craib de-
scribes these processes during Mexican nationalization during the
late nineteenth century (2004), while Thongchai Winichakul con-
centrates on Thailand (1994). While these scholars emphasize the
visual construction of national or colonial spaces within the larger

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FRAMING MANIFEST DESTINY IN THE EARLY AMERICAN REPLUBLIC 57

world-system, other scholars show how specific groups used the

constructed spaces as a means to create their own spaces of resis-
tances within specific landscapes (Scott 1990, 2009; Adorno 1986;
Harris 2003; O'Hearn 2009).
Such studies have become a means to "demystify spatial rela-
tions" and to "reveal the social relations which lie beneath their
ideological blanket" (Soja 1980: 224). Furthermore, they have
shown how various interrelations creating multiple types of space
work within specific landscapes. The social sciences have histori-
cally favored the conception of "material spaces"; however, it may
be particularly useful to analyze how such spaces work within the
Lefebvrian spatial triad and how that triad works within and
through specific landscapes both in their formation and transfor-
mation. Landscape studies not only emphasize such spatial rela-
tions, but also their relationship within the landscape in question,
and the larger whole.

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