The Internet, in an ideal world for those who can gain access, will permeate our entire existence, efficiency, practicality and flexibility have all become mantras for those who believe that the internet used in conjunction with many aspects of our lives and work will achieve and produce supposedly a much more utilitarian existence. What does this mean for Historians and their Trade?

            Much of the debate that historians are conducting in relation to the Internet as a medium to perform history, is related to how history can be represented on the net and the possibilities that the medium can achieve in relation to the author, the reader and the practice of history, and transmission of information between the three. The most obvious aspect of the internet and the one that the supporters of history on the net espouse the most, is the sheer volume of information available and the ability for search engines and hypertexts to gain access quickly information in a global context. Be they in Archives Digital libraries, Exhibits, Gateways or Journal sites, or any of the other information holding mediums available on the net it is the relationship between subjects on the net enabling historians to create a multilayered version of history that is so appealing. This democratization of information will enable the historian to develop more complex historical forms, allowing for the integration of not only text, but all forms of visual and audio media, and even virtual mediums in a nonlinear environment. Carl Smith the curator of the The Great Chicago Fire site illustrates this idea in his paper Can You Do Serious History on the Web , of illustrating the purpose of the site he states that "the pages had to be clear and consistent, … without restricting the usual nonlinear freedom of the web, and had to be intuitively navigable in a way that did not disrupt the intellectual coherence of the site." (1).

             For the detractors of the net as a legitimate source, it is this sheer volume of information and access to it that poses the greatest problems. Michael O’Malley and Roy Rosenzweig in their paper Brave New World or Blind Alley illustrate the problems of information by citing Gertrude Himmelfarb’s reservations of the net "the internet does not distinguish between the true and the false, the important and the trivial, the enduring and the ephemeral…every source appearing on the screen has the same weight and credibility as every other; no authority is privileged over any other" (2). For the practice of all forms of history it is fact that is the basis of the discipline, the fact that the internet does not distinguish between the tenets Himmelfarb is talking about does make history on the net as a legitimate pursuit very difficult. Coupled with the fact that the commercialization of the net is removing the ability for access to sources like JSTOR , The Journal of American History  and many other journal sites, and increasingly many sites without subscription makes using the net as a source problematic. Sponsorship for sites and search engines on the net causes other problems of access due to the influence of their commercial mentors. The crux of the argument against the net as a tool for history is that no matter how good the median is for developing the historical record without legitimacy how can research on the net be taken seriously.
 

              The benefits of the Web as an Historical tool offer distinct advantages in method of practicing History, a multilayered, nonlinear environment of course will lead to a much more complex interpretation of the record. Unfortunately the very non linearity of the Net enables much of the legitimate source material to be lost within the large amount of superfluous interpretations of the record. Coupled with the inability for historians and lay people to access many of the legitimate source and databases due to the commercialization of the web practicing legitimate History on the Web and in hypertext is becoming increasingly more difficult. That stated, purely as a research tool for primary source material in many of the legitimate archival sites the Web provides fast and accurate access to information that otherwise would not be available. Taking both sides of the debate into account it is up to the individual to decide whether the net could and is a profitable and practical medium for the study of history.

(1) Carl Smith Can You Do Serious History on the Web American Historical Association, Perspectives Online, February 1998, 3
(2) Michael O’Malley and Roy Rosenzweig Brave New World or Blind Alley: American History and the World Wide Web Journal of American History, June 1997, 4
 
 

     One of the major influences on the American psyche and the identity of the American people both socially and politically, is the concept of Manifest, the belief in America as being, as John Winthrop in 1630 stated, the ‘Citty Upon the Hill’  a new land in which to build heaven on earth, the new Canaan. Initially based upon the puritan ideal of religious freedom and a land where they could worship God without persecution the concept evolved, and became the basis for American political and social ideology.  In 1776 with theDeclaration of Independence coupled with the Bill of Rights, and the echoes of Lockian ideals on the Rights of Man, the philosophy became truly established and became the basis for the American mission, with influences that are echoed even today. Throughout George Bush’s "Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People" insert link after September 11th, the President, constantly refers to America's role in defending freedom and justice, which is the modern manifestation of "Manifest Destiny", the last three paragraphs of his speech illustrate that far from being an outdated concept "Manifest Destiny" or at least its hybrid as modern construct is firmly established in the America psychology.
 

     However, the interpretation of Manifest Destiny as the defender of freedom and justice has not always undertaken such a noble cause as its current manifestation. From the Presidency of John Adams 1797-1801, to Martin Van Buren 1837-1841, the concept of Manifest Destiny was to provide the basis for one of the most contentious issues, apart from slavery, in America History, that of Indian Removal and Westward Expansion. The policies of Westward expansion and Indian Removal were begun indirectly by Thomas Jefferson and the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, they were to reach their climax under Andrew Jackson’s policies, in his speech The Case for Removal1830, and his Removal Act of 1830. After Jackson, the case for ‘legitimate’ removal of the Indians for the good of progress and civilization was not argued by the government or her people, coupled with the annexation of Texas in 1845, and the great migrations ("Oregon Fever" 1842-43, the Mormon migration to Utah 1847, and California 1849 with the discovery of gold) the western dividing line between whites and Indians of the Mississippi could only move in one direction, into the Pacific the solution being President Arthur’s Dawes Act of 1887.
 

    Initially the policies reflected the non-expantionist ethos of Americas leaders, prior to Thomas Jefferson the policies of the American government was to contain the boundaries of the Union in the West and of the Indian lands, as theTreaties of 1785 and 1791 with the Cherokee, and 1791 with the Creeks reflect. Manifest Destiny as a concept only was evident in the idea that it was the duty of the Americans to bring civilization and christianity to the Indians if they wanted it. This ethos changed in 1803 with America’s first excursion into expansion, the effect of the Louisiana Purchase was that it  "removed the last doubts about western expansion and made it virtually certain that America would double in size again in the next few decades" . Although a response to removing European influence in the Americas it proved that American democracy and her ideals could triumph through diplomacy, and if the method was effective for the European powers why could it not work for the Indians, Jefferson pursued this course with vigour. Jefferson believed that America and the Indians could live in peaceful harmony, he realized that whites eventually would have to encroach upon Indian lands his solution was his Indian policy. Assimilation was to be achieved by coercing the Indians into selling their lands, and their rehabilitation was to be in the "civilized" ways of the white man according to Jefferson's Agrarian Ideal, which basically incorporated all of the tenets of Manifest Destiny. Jefferson’s initially noble use of Manifest Destiny however was not to last, beginning with James Monroe the policies of Indian Removal and the concept of Manifest Destiny were to mutate into a much more aggressive doctrine, culminating in Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal policies and the Cherokee Trail of Tears Andrew Jackson unlike Thomas Jefferson did not see the Indian as the noble savage, but as a savage, and therefore denied them the equal rights that Jefferson had espoused. Held within the doctrine of Manifest Destiny is the belief that America should liberate all savages and those who want to follow the American ideal from their condition, and enlighten them to the American democratic and religious ideal, to civilize them. This concept was used to justify slavery, and was used by Jackson and his predecessors to justify the removal of Indians from their land, thus aiding the western expansion of White America and her goals as a nation, yet keeping within their moral belief in Manifest Destiny.
 

    Although brief this text and its accompanying documents provide an outline of the major topics and personalities involved in Indian Removal, and how the Philosophy of Manifest Destiny influenced Indian Removal, with the goal of providing a context for the Review of the Internet as a historical tool. This narrative also provides an illustration of how the internet and hypertext can change the dynamic of a historical document, providing opportunities to illustrate a topic that previously weren't available to the historian prior to the arrival of the internet.
 
 

    The purpose of the two preceding paragraphs is to provide the context for the Review first the Internet and the Historian illustrate briefly the debate amongst historians as to the legitimacy of the Internet as an historical tool and to provide some basic points as to how the reviewer should be analyzing the Internet's structure and architecture and whether it currently fulfills the promise that its advocates so greatly champion, or whether it manifests itself as the view of its less enthusiastic detractors. Paragraph two entitled Manifest Destiny and Indian Removal a narrative provides a brief narrative of the historical basis for review, providing historical ideologies and facts that should be looked for.  As a hyper textual text it also provides links to major historical archives and some of the fundamental documentary evidence  that should be found in the sites within the review. The review itself encompasses the top fifty sites in-depth and the following fifty randomly according to my brief analysis of Manifest Destiny and Indian removal for web searches performed on Google, Yahoo and Lycos, under the Keyword search of Manifest Destiny and Indian Removal.
 
 

    During my analysis of the web as a tool for understanding a historical topic and doing history a major fact became glaringly obvious, that being that the internet far from being the visionary medium in which historians can perform complex multilayered histories has infact become the embodiment of what its critics foresaw, a indiscriminate dumping ground of information with no discernment between the validity of the source or of author, and minimal interrelation between topics and subject to create a more complex history. Having entered the term into each of the search engines the results returned were in the thousands, Google  3100, Yahoo 2340 and Lycos presenting 5,404 hits, the choice of the top hundred (fifty in depth and fifty according to the review) is not because of any suggestions of how to review the Internet, but more due to the fact that if the sources and material could not be found within these boundaries, it would possibly be more efficient for the historian to go to a library and use traditional methods of research that are infinitly more specific than what can be found on the Web, and do have the benefit of validity.
 

    The first problem posed was that the Google search and the Yahoo search provided exactly the same results, reducing the cross section effectively to two hundred sites instead of three, this was not to cause too many problems as the searches in Google and in lycos had few duplicat titles, this is not to say that many of the sites turned up did not end up at the same archives, exhibitions or source references. The second problem is that within the two hundred sites reviewed there were very few that actually attempted to create any form of legitimate multilayered historical discourse. Many of the sites reviewed were teaching guides  providing teachers and students with guidelines to the narrative, using hypertexts to link to singular archives and sites that the authors saw as pertinent to the topic, and course outlines to American history course at schools and Universities, these two components were by far the most prolific of the sample. Other sites that dominant were online papers, many of which had no authorial recognition or historical license apart from addressing the topic, and study guides that provided (some for a cost) essays on the topic, that could not be reviewed because, as with the journals that presented themselves,  I was not going to subscribe to review them. Other sites available were essays done by students and Professors (there were two) that had found their way onto the net with little or no hypertextuality, presenting nothing more than the narrative construct of the question at hand and links only to literary sources and internet source related to the particular points they were trying to illustrate, none in the top 100 used visual or audio media to enhance their topic. Capitalism was alive and well with several excerpts from books that presented themselves as essays before trying to sell you their product, only two texts presented themselves in their entirety Black Elk Speaks: the life story of a Holy Man of the Ogalala Sioux, a narrative, and Noam Chomsky's Dettering Democracy. The archival material presented is of a tradtional form with no multdimensional thought placed in their construction  and providing reiteration's of their much larger cousins without the volumous number of documents presented at archives such as The Avolon Project and the Yale school or the Library of Congress, which would possibly have made this review more pleasurable if they had have been listed as potential sites in the research. The web sites that  were presented had similar problems of no multilinial dimensionality, little hypertextuality, and solely related to their singular topic most of which presented a glorified summary of  the topic of Indian removal and Manifest Destiny, or in the case of Fort Scott a of Fort Scott and its involvement in the American Frontier mythology.
 

    Given that these were all sites that I thought were the best of what the Internet presented under the search topic of Manifest Destiny and Indian Removal, the hope of using the internet as a legitimate tool for the understanding of History was depressingly negative. What all the sites represent is exactly what is being achieved in the current environment of the Internet, and that none of the sites, at least none of the sites in this review, are attempting to produce anthing but that of traditional constructs like Archives, Bibliographies, Libraries or Narrative histories. Definantly none of the sites pertaining to this topic are even attempting to incorporate the many and varied hyperspatial benefits that the Web can provide, or to do anything that can't already be done via traditional mediums and the only advantage it provides currently is the speed and availability of access to sources, as long as you have a context and a brief knowledge of what you are looking for. The possibilities are endless but until guidelines for legitimate material are established, and the majority of historians writing on the web recognize the potential of the internet as a tool for establishing complex multilayered historical contexts and theories and the internet is going to be nothing more that a glorified research tool for primary research in online archives, exhibitions and museums.