The Age of the Borderlands: Indians, Slaves, and the Limits of Manifest Destiny, 1790–1850

David J. Weber Series in the New Borderlands History

by Andrew C. Isenberg

In The Age of the Borderlands, acclaimed historian Andrew C. Isenberg offers a new history of manifest destiny that breaks from triumphalist narratives of US territorial expansion. Isenberg takes readers to the contested borders of Spanish Florida, Missouri, New Mexico, California, Texas, and Minnesota at critical moments in the early to mid-nineteenth century, demonstrating that the architects of American expansion faced significant challenges from the diverse groups of people inhabiting each region. In other words, while the manifest destiny paradigm begins with an assumption of US strength, the government and the agents it dispatched to settle and control the frontier had only a weak presence.

Tracing the interconnected histories of Indians, slaves, antislavery reformers, missionaries, federal agents, and physicians, Isenberg shows that the United States was repeatedly forced to accommodate the presence of other colonial empires and powerful Indigenous societies. Anti-expansionists in the borderlands welcomed the precarity of the government's The land on which they dwelled was a grand laboratory where they could experiment with their alternative visions for American society. Examining the borderlands offers an understanding not just about frontier spaces but about the nature of the early American state— ambitiously expansionist but challenged by its native and imperial competitors.

Genres: History, American History

304 pages, Hardcover

Published April 15, 2025

About the author

Andrew C. Isenberg is the Hall Distinguished Professor of American History at the University of Kansas. He is a specialist in environmental history, Native American history, and the history of the North American West and its borderlands.

Reviews

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Appears to be a bit of a straw man argument, no?

[Ethan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rarely am I immediately convinced by the thesis of a book from its introduction. Yet such was my experience when reading Andrew Isenberg’s The Age of the Borderlands: Indians, Slaves, and the Limits of Manifest Destiny, 1790-1850 (galley received as part of an early review program).

The author began with an 1836 speech in the House of Representatives by former President John Quincy Adams, for the moment successfully arguing against annexation of Texas as part of the United States. By means of this speech the author casts aspersion on our tendency to read the premise of manifest destiny back into our history: we now imagine the United States was fated to fill and maintain all the territory it now possesses from the land of the original colonies to the Pacific Coast. As Adams’ speech well illustrated, during the first seventy-five years of the nation’s history, American authority and presence in its borderlands proved very tendentious, and by no means provided a guarantee of what would eventually take place.

The author spends the majority of the time considering various episodes demonstrating the limited presence of America at its borderlands. We hear of “maroon” settlements in Florida of the Seminole, and how America could not well project its strength into Florida throughout the early nineteenth century. We see the story of traders among the Osage in what was theoretically American territory in the Louisiana Purchase, but with the Osage very much remaining the real authorities in the land. The author chronicles the vaccination program Americans attempted to use in order to gain favor among the Indigenous people in the then peripheral areas of upper Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota/the Dakotas, trying to gain influence at the expense of the British and others. The author spends not a little time on how Texas got populated, and the colonization schemes regarding former slaves which some attempted to establish in Texas or areas further south. His final portrayal involved some “missionaries” who really wanted to get far away from what they saw as debauched American society, learning Dakota and living among them in what is today Minnesota before it became more heavily populated with Europeans.

In all of these narratives one can perceive how the Americans were not the strongest group of people around, and how the Americans had to compete for influence among the Indigenous people as did the British and Spanish. Yes, the French would eventually cede their holdings in America to the United States; yes, the Spanish would take an opportunity to divest themselves of West and East Florida; yes, the Mexicans would overthrow the Spanish, the Texans would revolt, establish their own state, and then join the United States; yes, Polk would get elected and instigate war with Mexico, which was not overwhelmingly popular, and would seize the northern third of Mexico; and yes, eventually the British and the United States would come to terms and formalize the border between the United States and Canada as it is now maintained. But all of that was in process, or yet to be imagined, in most of the period from 1790 to 1850. Yes, it happened the way it happened. But it did not have to. It could have ended up at least somewhat differently. And our perspective on our own history would do well to keep that in mind.

[Brannigan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I learned a lot from this book. I’ve taken college courses and read many books about the American expansion west, but this was by far my favorite. It brings up motivations that are rarely explored in fascinating detail. It’s well researched with engaging writing. I’ll be using it in my classroom.

This review was originally published on NetGalley.com. I was given an ebook freely by NetGalley and the book’s publisher in return for a voluntary and honest review.

[Ryan Fischer]

Isenberg makes an effort to reinvigorate the borderlands concept that was so popular 25 years ago with a varied selection of case studies. Although I was pretty familiar with all of these stories (except for Lundy's Colonization state), I still found a lot of interest. I never really gave up on the borderlands, so I'm also an easy sell.

[Zachary Stevenson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unconvincing.