Undoing Manifest Destiny: Settler America, Christian Colonists, and the Pursuit of Justice (L. Daniel Hawk) - Review
The doctrine of "Manifest
Destiny" has been a driving force in American history, beginning with the
arrival of the first European colonists and continuing to the present, as seen
in current American foreign policy regarding the Western Hemisphere and beyond.
It is an aspect of American Exceptionalism that has often received strong
theological support. The Euro-American push westward was often driven by a
postmillennial belief that led many European American colonists and their
descendants to view what they believed was a vast, largely uninhabited
landscape to be theirs to dominate and use as they pleased. Even though Indigenous
people inhabited this land, their presence was considered irrelevant, since
they didn't use the land as the colonists believed it should. So, from the
beginning, the Indigenous people were pushed off their lands, moving them
further westward until they were confined to small pockets of often unusable
land. Again, much of this was justified theologically.
Daniel Hawk, professor of Old
Testament and Hebrew at Ashland Theological Seminary, located in Ashland, Ohio,
has written a powerful, and I think a must-read book for Christians. His book,
titled Undoing Manifest Destiny: Settler America, Christian Colonists, and the Pursuit of Justice, addresses the impact that the “doctrine” of
Manifest Destiny has had on the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, and the
United States in particular. This important book serves in many ways as a companion
piece to another book that was recently published by IVP Academic, an
evangelical publisher, that addresses Indigenous biblical interpretation. That
book is titled Reading the Bible on Turtle Island: An Invitation to North American Indigenous Interpretation. In addition to this important book, I
will point the reader’s attention to the First Nations Version: An Indigenous Bible Translation of the New Testament (also published by IVP
Academic). I mention these latter two books that have been published by a
leading evangelical publisher, because White evangelicals have been significant
backers of the anti-DEI movement. So, I want to credit IVP for this effort.
In Undoing Manifest Destiny, Daniel
Hawk begins by setting his book in the context of the impact of the
Euro-American settlement of Ohio during the colonial period. He starts with the
story of a statue that watches over the city of Tiffin, Ohio, which sits along
the west bank of the Sandusky River. This statue portrays an Indian maid. It
was unveiled in 1926 to commemorate a young woman who aided an attachment of US
soldiers during the War of 1812 by showing them the location of a spring that the
soldiers could enclose in a stockade. This statue was designed to celebrate the
prosperity of the city, but Hawk asks why the city chose to honor this woman.
After all, before too long, Native Americans would be largely driven from Ohio
to make way for more White settlers. Why might Hawk begin his book with this
story? He reveals to us that Tiffin, Ohio, is his hometown. Therefore, his
ancestors are part of the story of Ohio's settler culture. Consequently, we
have the first chapter of Undoing Manifest Destiny, which Hawk titles
"The Indian Maid of Fort Ball." Through this story, he lays out how White
settlement has impacted Native Americans. Hawk writes of the book's purpose,
that he believes "that settler Christians like myself have an obligation to
dismantle the sinful structure that our Christian forebears established and
that persists to the present day" (p. 20). In unmasking the settler
narrative, Hawk reminds us of the impact of the doctrine of discovery and the
"creation mandate," both of which were used to support the
displacement of the Indigenous population.
After introducing in chapter one the
"doctrine of discovery" that has roots in papal decisions, along with
the "creation mandate" rooted in Genesis 1, Hawk moves on in chapter
two to further develop the meaning of these two ideologies that underlay the
settler narrative. In this chapter, titled "Discovering the Indian," he
reveals how the settlers supported the theft of native land by claiming
ownership by "warping Christian theology," suggesting that they were
extending Christendom by doing so. Why? Because the settlers believed these
lands were not controlled by Christian powers. He writes that "viewing
themselves as the rightful sovereigns of the land, the people and government of
the United States believed that they had the right to take land and subdue its Indigenous
occupants by any means necessary" (p. 49).
The next four chapters explore the
ways settlers and the United States government treated the indigenous peoples
of the land under US control. He starts with a chapter on "Extorting the
Indian," in which he reveals how the government took Indigenous land,
starting in the east and moving westward, using treaties (mostly left unkept),
legislation, and executive orders. That was only the beginning, because in the
next chapter (Chapter 4) Hawk speaks of "Exterminating the Indian." While
the previous chapter spoke of ways that the government sought to impose its
will on the Indigenous peoples, in this chapter, he tells the stories of how the
military and other forms of frontier violence were used to drive Indigenous
people off their lands, killing them if necessary. Here, we are reminded of the
many wars against native peoples from Sand Creek to Wounded Knee. Although he
doesn't mention it in the book, I grew up near the site of the Modoc Indian
War, in which a small group of Native Americans tried to resist efforts to
control their lives, so I know that history well. Chapter 5 speaks of
"Expelling the Indian," through removal and relocation. While the
"Trail of Tears" is the best known of these efforts, it is not the
only one. Again, we hear heartbreaking stories of dispossession and
displacement. But we are not done with efforts to displace Indigenous people in
the name of Manifest Destiny. Therefore, we move from “Expelling the Indian” to
"Erasing the Indian" (Chapter 6). In this chapter, Hawk describes the
efforts undertaken to "civilize the Indian" through the use of boarding
schools, along with banning Native American religious and cultural expressions,
including the dances that played an important role in Indigenous life. Each of
these chapters tells horrific stories that are part of the American story,
efforts often defended and extended by Christians. We are living at a time when,
in the interest of telling a “patriotic” history of the American people, such stories
are inconvenient at best and damning at the worst. Nevertheless, these are
stories that must be told because they are part of the American story. For
Christians, at the very least, these stories call for repentance on the part of
the descendants of settler America and Christian colonists.
We are not finished with this
effort to undo Manifest Destiny. So, we move on in Chapter 7 to the effort undertaken
for "Constructing the Indian." Here, Daniel Hawk introduces us to
"five mythic tropes." By that, he speaks of the ways settler America,
using "myth and symbol," ended
up erasing the "real Indigenous people from its memory and replaced them
with mythic figures that reinforced settler America's claim to the land"
(p. 165). This effort is part of the way the United States constructed itself
as a nation. To do this, mythic tropes were devised to support the effort. The
first trope spoke of "The Vanishing American." Here, the idea is that
the Indian would eventually disappear either through assimilation or death. In
whatever way this disappearance took place, Native Americans would disappear as
a distinct race of people. The second trope spoke of "The Ignoble
Savage." Here we have the myth that the Indigenous people were lawless, as
opposed to the settlers, who were governed by laws. From the days of the
Puritans, who saw themselves as an elect people, settler Christians viewed the Indigenous
people as living under the domain of Satan. On the other hand, we have the myth
of "The Noble Savage." This trope offers the opposite of the previous
one, which spoke of the ignoble savage, such that the “noble savage” involved Indigenous
people who were described with romantic and sentimental qualities. In this case,
we see an admirable figure, like the one pictured in the novel "The Last
of the Mohicans," who was destined to perish. The fourth trope speaks of
"The Indigenous Helper." Here, the primary figure is often a woman,
such as Pocahontas or Sacagawea. Hawk writes that “Whereas the Ignoble Savage
and the Noble Savage occupy separately, opposite poles of an axis, the
Indigenous Helper combines the settler/binary in her person. . . The assistance
she provides, along with her incorporation into the settler community,
symbolically acknowledges the settler’s right to the land and acquiesces to the
settler claims, their dreams, and their superiority” (p. 180-181). Finally, Hawk
introduces us to the myth of the "White Savage." This person also represents
the settler/Indigenous binary, but in a different way from the “Indigenous
Helper.” While the Indigenous Helper
affirms the positives of settler society, the "White Savage" embraces
the worst of the perceived qualities of the Indigenous people. In all cases,
the Indigenous people are perceived as savages, not as "real, present,
flesh-and-blood human beings." Rather, they are portrayed as "a
caricature constructed from the fabric of centuries-long settler expansion. By
constructing mythological Indian types, White settler America erased real
people, real cultures, and real communities from its vision with as much vigor
as it sought to erase them from the land" (p. 188).
In addition to this book, Undoing
Manifest Destiny, Daniel Hawk is the author of a commentary on the book of
Joshua, which describes the conquest of Canaan. In chapter 8, "Mirroring
the Conquest," he brings the two stories of conquest together as a mirror
to explore the ways the book of Joshua was constructed and how it is reflected
in the conquest of North America. It is interesting to learn that, as much as
Joshua mirrors American Manifest Destiny, this story was rarely used in support
of that effort. Perhaps, they knew that something was amiss in that biblical
story. So, the Indigenous people were never described as Canaanites.
Nevertheless, the connections are worth exploring to better understand how
settler Christians envisioned their conquest of the land, and perhaps still do.
The final chapter of Daniel Hawk’s
book, Undoing Manifest Destiny, is titled "Beyond Innocence." In
this chapter, Hawk calls on us, as readers, especially White settler Americans,
to engage in dismantling the settler narrative. In the context of this
discussion, Hawk takes note of the efforts by Donald Trump and his supporters,
including the Heritage Foundation, to recast American history in
"patriotic" fashion in ways that resist telling the full story
because it is unflattering. Despite these efforts, the job of dismantling
settler narratives remains with us. Some entities, including Christian
denominations, have undertaken this cause. He mentions the United Methodist
Church, but my own denomination (the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)) is
among the dozen or so denominations that have undertaken the effort to address
this history.
We cannot change the past, but we
can address it with honesty and with repentance. Repentance requires actions
that include repentance by the descendants of the settlers, including Christian
denominations that supported the doctrine of Manifest Destiny. We can be
thankful that Daniel Hawk took on this effort to address this history and speak
of its implications for the people of the United States, whether descendants of
settlers or Indigenous peoples. It is especially poignant that Daniel Hawk’s Undoing Manifest Destiny appears in the very year that the United States of America
celebrates its 250th anniversary as a nation, even if it may seem to
some inconvenient while efforts are underway to tell “patriotic” history that
ignores the story of Manifest Destiny.
Copies of Undoing Manifest Destiny can be purchased at your favorite retailer, including my Amazon affiliate bookstore and my Bookshop.org affiliate.
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