“As the Wolf from the Dog”; American Overseas Exploration and the Compartmentalization of Humankind: 1838-1859.

Examples used are the Charles Wilkes’ US Exploring Expedition 1838-43, and Elisha Kent Kane’s search for Franklin in 1859.

p. 23-4: It will be seen in the following pages that along with their charts, navigational instruments, specimen bottles, and general supplies, Americans carried their cultural and ideological baggage with them on every voyage undertaken during this period. The observations of American explorers in this period were colored by the values and ideologies of religion, manifest destiny, Anglo-Saxonism, and nationalism. They were citizens of a nation built upon the subjugation and dislocation of Native Americans and the enslavement of Africans, a people riding roughshod on a rapacious Turnerian thrust westward, straining to gratify some unsatiated Anglo inner urge.

p. 42: By the summer of 1837, most of the appointed scientists had gathered in Philadelphia in order to collect books, materials, and hardware for the impending voyage, making frequent use of the libraries and facilities of the Academy of Natural Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.