Talk:Manifest destiny

It is worthy of note that Donald Trump, in the 2020 State of the Union address, referred to America's 'manifest destiny.' There's no indication of what he meant, or whether he understood what that means in the first place. ^{— Unsigned, by: 174.91.71.60 / talk}

Brazilian conquest of Amazon?

I removed the mention to the "The American expansion across central continental North America is comparable in scale to [...] the Brazilian conquest of Amazonia". There was never a "Brazilian conquest of Amazonia". The vast majority of the current Brazilian Amazonic territory was Portuguese way before the Independence. The territorial expansion was actually a Portuguese enterprise. There was not even a remotely Brazilian identity then. Only minor gains happened after the Independence (therefore, not comparable in scale to the expansion toward central North America), but they happened under circumstances that actually resemble the stealing of Mexico's territory. Curiously, the article fails to mention that the Manifest Destiny doctrine also justified that territorial expansion.

Anyway, the article is (or should be) not about large territorial gains, but about the ideology justifying it. There was surely a moral, religious and virtuous justification to the Portuguese incursion into South America and to the ensuing massacres, but it was just old-fashioned vanilla colonialism: the desire to extract the most possible natural resources from the area and just maybe settle it. Yay, it was sold as glorious, the "white man's mission" and et cetera. But, as I said, the colonist nations were not expanding their uniquely sacred and God-blessed homelands. I have read Portuguese epics glorifying their seafaring and their adventures, but I don't remember seeing any hint of having an "irresistible mission from God" to earn Lebensraum to their uniquely virtuous and agrarian-loving Nation ("The Lusiads" actually draws heavily on Pagan references. Compare it to the Great Awakenings). There was a indeed a religious justification, but, at least IMO, was limited to preaching to the natives and saving their souls. It would be interesting to compare the Manifest Destiny to the "White Men's Burden" and the excuses other peoples used to convince themselves that massive land robbery is a moral imperative (including "Aryan" superiority). The article, however, never touches this subject and simply states that a lot of countries massively increased their territories taking land from "savages". But how is it related to the doctrine?

Getting back to my previous point, the only expansions of actual Brazil into the Amazon Rainforest was on Bolivian territory. They were not, like the examples on the page, conducted against people seen as savages and on unclaimed land. It was the acquisition of a relatively small territory from an independent, self-governing and recognized nation, European-style. It was thus not at all similar to the USA westward expansion, but had much in common to the Mexican-American conflict. There were filibustering, truly crazy men and swindling. Brazil swapped some very remote and hard-to-work land with Bolivia via the Treaty of Ayacucho. The Brazilian majority lived there never revolted or anything. Then came vulcanization and the automobiles and the rubber trees suddenly became gold mines. Tens of housands of Brazilians flocked to the area, including paramilitary veterans from failed regional uprisings, and settled there. Then Bolivian authorities decided to enforce customs tariffs and the rubber tappers decided they did not want to their new homes to be in Bolivia. Just like the Texians, they declared independence (three times!) and begged to be incorporated to the bigger neighbor (they did not want to pay customs tariffs in Brazil, after all). Like the USA, Brazil had to pay a serious amount money for the acquired territory. It should be noted that Bolivia's agreed payout was roughly 2/3 of Mexicos, and they ceded MUCH less land with far fewer natural resources.

Despite the similarities, there was no national, patriotic or cultural narrative to the invasion of Bolivia and to the war: the rubber tappers and traders didn't really pretend to care about expanding Brazilian glory and territory. They were initially led by a Spaniard and the troubles only started when Bolivian authorities decided to raise taxes. There was absolutely no religious narrative to the conflict: both countries involved were Catholic. It was not Protestants x Catholics ruled by anticlerical freemasons like in North America. There was never any justification about Brazil's inherent right to expand its territory or to rule all the continent. Annexating Bolivia was never considered.

The following pictures show what the borders of the Portuguese colony were supposed to be according to the Treaty of Tordesillas — and how they end up after the Portuguese fully disregarded the treaty and eventually convinced the Spanish to accept its encroachment in 1750 through Treaty of Madrid. Then, a GIF showing how minor were the subsequent territorial changes.

Since I'm new to the project and didn't refurbishing the entire article, I included the Conquest of Patagonia, which was VERY similar to the American expansion: big, very ideologically charged and over territory unclaimed by modern states. It also made Argentina very rich (it's now probably the only formerly western rich country in the World. Kudos.

Gsrc (talk) 04:28, 29 April 2020 (UTC)