U.S. expansionism in the 19th c., although characterized by conquest, colonization and a self-serving sense of superiority, it was hardly a sweeping victory. Isenberg argues that to describe it as such is to erase the industry and defensive efforts of numerous native tribes, slave fugitives and freedmen that called the borderlands home.

First is Andrew Jackson's illegal and ineffectual campaign to remove entrenched Seminoles in Spanish Florida. Then in Missouri and Upper Louisiana, the U.S. failed to establish regulated trade with the Osage and other natives, disbanding the system after losing the War of 1812. Even the smallpox vaccination programs - referred to as "permissive acculturation," - was introduced by the Spanish and not an American original. Even then, most groups did not abandon their natural healers. Coahuila y Tejas, or Texas, was not an unpopulated territory; with a complex history that was much longer than slaveholder Stephen Austin or antislavery colonizer Benjamin Lundy perceived. Finally, missionaries in Minnesota were flabbergasted when their blindly idealistic faith would not penetrate the fierce Dakota.

As you can see, Isenberg provides a much sharper look at the supposed early "success" of 19th c. America; and rightfully so. However I couldn't give it a higher rating because Isenberg is rather long-winded. Their method of fixating on the misconceptions of one particular white individual and applying that to a vastly broader context doesn't always work. Each chapter is not necessarily in a chronological order, so that you don't see a progression of "manifest destiny" but rather separate, fixed moments in time. You're never sure where the narrative is going until the conclusionary paragraph. However, it is history you rarely learn about!

Thank you University of North Carolina Press for the ARC! Instagram rating: 3.5/5

I will admit, I did choose this book out of personal interest as this fits within and is often part of historical conversations in the topics that I study, either directly or adjacently. Borderlands history is a continually developing field of study, but is becoming an increasing part of the conversation in American history, the American Frontier more specifically, and Native American history, as these communities were often existing in these regions and taking part in cultural, political, and economic exchange.

The author’s main argument revolves around the misconception of Manifest Destiny as the universally accepted ideology within the United States for expansion into the border regions. In fact, The United States did not have a complete consensus on their method of expansion, as shown in the number of “experiments” and challenges faced by the American presence in those regions. By utilizing the perspective of Indigenous people, Free Blacks, missionaries, and reformers/abolitionists across the borderlands, the author shows the extent of US weakness and tenuous authority in the many border regions it encountered.

The book is extensively and thoroughly researched and puts itself thoroughly in the conversation of the outstanding arguments and big names in historical scholarship of the American West. I would highly recommend this book for a college history course of early American history or of the American West. (I had a class specifically taught on the American West and while reading this I thought how great this book would have been as supplementary reading; there were many stories and anecdotes that I hadn’t known about- which is of course the fun part of reading history scholarship!)

This book helps clear up the myth about Manifest Destiny being this unstoppable force sweeping across the United States. Flawed and often stopped by Native American resistance, change was not a given.

The Age of the Borderlands: Indians, Slaves, and the Limits of Manifest Destiny, 1790–1850, by Andrew Isenberg offers a new way of thinking about American westward expansion. This perceptive book will shift the writing on our early nation and relations with Indigenous peoples who wielded immense power in the borderlands beyond US borders and territories claimed by other colonial powers. "Manifest Destiny" was a slogan created relatively late in the expansionist history of the US, and as this book makes clear, it was never a widely held notion nor a given. I especially found the early history of Florida to be especially revealing, in terms of Native Americans who fled there for multiple reasons, and the numbers of enslaved Africans who escaped into the Spanish territory - which of course was much closer to the Deep South slaveholding states. Fascinating and recommended!