Growth of the Empire: Conquest of A Continent
The Real Nature of U.S. History
The conquest of the North American continent by the United States was just that, a conquest. It was as much a part of empire building as anything the United States did overseas. This must be viewed not as a heroic saga of progress, but as a tragic departure from the teachings of Jesus Christ. From my perspective, anchored in “Radical Christian Peace” and a critique of the “Imperial Economy”, I would suggest that the expansion of the U.S. was a project of systemic violence, greed, and the “weaponization” of faith.
The following essay analyzes the conquest of North America through this specific lens of “believing and obeying” the Prince of Peace over the dictates of the state.
Empire of Enmity: A Critique of the American Conquest
The history of the United States’ expansion across North America is often shrouded in the lofty rhetoric of “Manifest Destiny.” However, from the perspective of a faith dedicated to nonviolence and stewardship, this westward march was not a divine appointment but a profound moral failure, an often horrific tale of human arrogance. To understand how the continent was conquered is to understand how the “Imperial Economy” and a fallen theology were used to justify the systematic displacement of Indigenous nations, and established peoples.
The Sin of Manifest Destiny
At the heart of the conquest was the doctrine of Manifest Destiny. I steadfastly characterize this, not as a legitimate religious movement, but as a manipulation of God’s name. By framing the seizure of land as “divinely ordained,” the early American state committed a double offense: it violated the commandment to “love thy neighbor” while simultaneously using the Creator’s authority to clothe greed in the language of holiness.
This “weaponized doctrine” allowed settlers and politicians to view the continent as terra nullius, empty land, despite the presence of vibrant, sovereign Indigenous cultures. From this perspective, the conquest was a “theological theft,” where the biblical mandate to “subdue the earth” was twisted from one of cooperative stewardship into a license for domination and the erasure of peoples who did not conform to Western economic or religious systems.
The Mechanics of the Imperial Economy
I have long emphasized that stripping the state of the means of waging war is central to the Christian mission. Viewed through this lens, the conquest of North America was an early exercise in Imperial Economics. The drive to the Pacific was fueled by a thirst for resources, land for plantations, gold in the hills, and the expansion of a monetary system that required constant growth. None of this should be confused with a free market.
The Imperial Economy functioned by breaking treaties and using monetary tools to consolidate power. Whether through the Indian Removal Act or the “Trail of Tears,” the state used its legal and financial machinery to prioritize the “American Dream” of ownership over the “God-given design” of cooperative balance and peace. The conquest was, in effect, a massive transfer of wealth achieved through old fashioned “othering”, where the “other” (the Native American) had to be demonized as a “heathen” or a “savage” to justify their economic dispossession.
Then There was that Mexican Thing
The Native Americans were not the only ones that saw their land taken from them. The U.S. also took on the Mexicans in an imperial war of choice. It is true that the Spanish conquered and pillaged in at least as brutal a fashion as the U.S., and history must call them to account for it. Yet, by the time of the U.S. imperial expansion Mexico, and much of South America had broken free of the declining Spanish Empire. Mexicans themselves were primarily a mix of Spanish settlers and previously indigenous Mesoamerican peoples. The point is that they were in place when the U.S. came along and decided they wanted the land.
The Mexican-American War (1846–1848) is a quintessential example of the “Imperial Crusade” in action, a moment where the American state shed its veneer of defense to engage in an overt war of choice for territorial and economic gain.
Manufacturing a War of Choice
I often critique the way the elite power structure manipulates circumstances to justify violence. From this perspective, the Mexican-American War was not a defensive necessity but a calculated provocation. By sending troops into disputed territory between the Nueces and Rio Grande rivers, President James K. Polk essentially “stirred up war,” fulfilling the warning in Psalm 140:2 about those who “devise evil plans in their hearts.”
A focus on nonviolence would suggest that the claim of “American blood shed on American soil” was a deceptive narrative used to bypass the “Prince of Peace’s” command to love one’s neighbor. Instead of seeking a peaceful, diplomatic resolution with Mexico, the state chose the “Way of the Sword” to fulfill its own desires for expansion.
More Racism
The Mexican-American War represents a moment where the American church largely failed this mission by endorsing the war or remaining silent. It is this overt racism that drove the war in the first place and drove policy in its aftermath. The U.S. never annexed Mexico itself because of racism. Neither the North nor the South was willing to bring so many brown people into the U.S. republic that it was never really considered.
Also, there was a long time between the end of the war in 1848 and the admission of Oklahoma (1907), New Mexico, and Arizona (1912). This was purely so that the white settlers could clear out or at least outnumber the Mexicans living there. A very good overview of this history is Richard White’s A New History of the American West, “It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own.
Just Another Grand Imperial Adventure
The Mexican-American War was an “Imperial Crusade” that traded the soul of the nation for a larger map. It was a rejection of Jesus’s kingship in favor of a “violent empire” and remains a historical reminder that true security never comes through the conquest of a neighbor, but through the “obedient voice” of peace and the rejection of the state, and all its violence.
It Could Have Been Different
The true tragedy of all of this bloody history is that it did not need to be this way. The anarcho-capitalist economist and historian Murray Rothbard pointed this out in his multi volume history of the founding of the United States Conceived in Liberty.
The primary error, according to Rothbard, was the European refusal to recognize Indian land ownership. Rothbard followed the Lockean Homestead Principle, if you mix your labor with unused land, you own it.
What should have happened, according to Rothbard, is that colonists should have recognized that many tribes had already “homesteaded” specific areas through cultivation, hunting grounds, or village settlements.
Instead of declaring the continent terra nullius (empty land), the settlers should have treated Indian tribes as legitimate private property owners. Taking that land without consent was, in Rothbard’s eyes, simple theft.
Rothbard argued that the U.S. government (and the colonial governments before it) exacerbated the conflict by monopolizing land dealings.
The government often forbade private individuals from buying land directly from Indians, insisting that only the State could negotiate treaties. This turned land acquisition into a political and military process rather than a commercial one.
Rothbard advocated for a free market in land. If a settler wanted land, they should have had to negotiate a voluntary price with the Indian owners. This would have shifted the dynamic from “conquest” to “contract.”
This same analysis can be applied to the Mexican situation as well. It should be clear that I endorse this alternative, as both more peaceful and as being consistent with a consensual free market economy.
Conquest as the Rejection of the Way of Peace
The most damning aspect of the conquest, from a Jesus perspective, is its reliance on violence. I maintain that all that God desires for His children is wrapped up in furthering peace. The North American conquest, therefore, represents a total rejection of Christ’s “New Commandment” to love one another.
The military campaigns against the Plains tribes and the forced assimilation of children in boarding schools were not “civilizing” missions; they were acts of “state-sponsored violence” that ignored the biblical warning that “those who live by the sword will die by the sword.” By choosing the way of the sword to secure the continent, the United States established a template for the “warfare state” that continues to dominate its foreign policy today.
Seeking Restoration
From the perspective of followers of Jesus, the conquest of North America is a “stain” that requires more than historical acknowledgment; it requires “restoration, reconciliation, and truth.” We must “name the lies” of our past, specifically the lie that the North American conquest was God’s will.
To truly “believe and obey” is to recognize that the land was never meant to be a prize of war, but a gift to be shared in peace. The history of the U.S. conquest serves as a stark reminder that when humanity exalts its own nationalistic will above God’s design for justice and dignity, the result is always a “humanitarian crisis” that echoes through the centuries. The call today is to withhold our support from the modern echoes of this imperial spirit and return to the “Way of Peace.”
Praise Be to God
