Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

Expansion/westward migration had been expected by American leaders but they did not envision the chaotic way it was happening with land ordinances and titles being ignored.

Both the Northwest and Southwest territories were Jeffersonian Republican in their politics but they differed in very important ways and those differences were largely the result of slavery.

In the Northwest settlers largely ignored the claims of absentee landlords and successfully established their homes and farms but in the Southwest large planters quickly overwhelmed the original settlers and came with their slaves.

Cotton had become an important crop by the nineteenth century and in the Southwest cotton meant slavery whereas in areas of the Southwest or the Northwest where cotton wasn’t easily grown slavery was not necessary.

The big slaveholding planters in the Southwest were able to use their influence to dominate politically and economically whereas most of the largest landowners in the Northwest were speculators who often had to sell their land quickly and weren’t able to dominate the way their counterparts in the Southwest were able to.

With most of the capital in the Southwest being tied to slaves and the primary agricultural focus being on cotton, a nonperishable crop that thus didn’t require the infrastructure to store and transport it the way perishable goods do, plantations were the center of much of the Southwest commercial life whereas in the Northwest cities sprang up with more diversified commercial activities.

With most of the settlers in the Northwest being small farmers the politics of this region were much more democratic however landholding could still be very oligarchic with 23% of the land in Ohio being owned by 1% of the population as an example.

While slavery was the main difference maker between the Northwest and Southwest it wasn’t always clear that slavery wouldn’t be present in the Northwest.

While the Northwest Ordinance declared that slavery would not be allowed many of the original settlers came from the Upper South and sought to establish slavery in the region.

They were initially successful with William Henry Harrison becoming governor of the Northwest Territory who favored slavery and eventually the Northwest Territory’s legislature approved slavery but eventually anti-slavery forces were able to take political control and outlaw the institution.

While the Southwest was much different than the Northwest it was far from stable and the population in this area was constantly pushing south towards Spanish New Orleans.

Treaty of San Lorenzo in 1795 granted Americans the right to deposit goods at the Spanish port with Spain’s aim being to prevent America from taking control of its American possessions.

Many Americans, like Jefferson, believed that given Spain was so weak all America had to do was wait but England and France were different.

War nearly broke out between England and Spain over an incident in Nootka Sound of the coast of Vancouver Island in 1790 and Americans worried about England potentially taking control of Spanish possessions in North America which would threaten America’s independence and security.

In 1800 Spain secretly ceded Louisiana to France in the Treaty of San Ildefonso with Napoleon envisioning the territory as being useful to supply its most useful colonies in the Carribean.

So great was the fear of French control of New Orleans that Thomas Jefferson stated there was a need for a treaty with Britain and even if this was not a serious proposal it is telling given Jefferson’s opinion of the British.

With fears of French control of New Orleans present Jefferson sent Madison to France to assist American minister to France Robert R. Livingston in securing the purchase of just New Orleans and the Floridas (which Jefferson wasn’t aware Spain still owned) for $6mm.

Having lost Saint-Domingue Napoleon didn’t feel a need to maintain control of Louisiana and ended up agreeing to sell the whole Louisiana Territory for $15mm.

Debate over the purchase started immediately with Federalists viewing it as a way for the South to increase its power and influence and many, Jefferson included, skeptical about the constitutionality of it.

Ironically, Republicans used Hamilton’s tactic of referring to the “necessary and proper” clause of the Constitution to justify its constitutionality.

The Louisiana Territory was very different from the rest of America, it had a large population of free blacks do to the Spanish practice of slavery which made it easier for slaves to purchase their freedom, was largely Catholic, interracial marriages were more prevalent, and Americans moving into the territory had to adopt to European civil law already existing in the territory.

Boundaries of the newly acquired Louisiana Territory were unclear and so Jefferson believed the western boundary went all the way to the Rio Grande and that West Florida was included in the purchase.

Since France had considered the eastern border of the Louisiana Territory to be the Perdido River that is what the U.S. argued was the border of their newly acquired territory as well and offered to purchase both East and West Florida from Spain with the threat of military invasion if that could not be e accomplished.

Jefferson did not act on these threats preferring to wait for Spain’s weakness to lead to them relinquishing control of the Floridas however the Madison administration acted decisively in 1810 to annex parts of West Florida following an uprising of American settlers in 1810. All of West Florida was annexed by 1813 with the use of military forces.

Jefferson had long been fascinated in the West and was widely read in the subject (though he had incredibly wrong ideas about, among other things related to the West, the fact that Mammoths roamed along the upper Missouri River). His interest led to the Lewis and Clark’s expedition in 1804.

As a result of the Lewis and Clark expedition Americans sought ways to capitalize on the expedition with the most prominent being John Jacob Astor who established a fur trading company and the eventual first American settlement in the Oregon Country, Astoria, in 1811.

The most infamous person tied to the American West at this time was Aaron Burr.

Having never been fully trusted by Jefferson as his vice president Burr actually lost re-election to the office in 1804, kand killing Hamilton in a duel in 1804 which led to a warrant for his arrest Burr headed West.

Burr’s intentions in the West are still not clearly known because he told different things to different people but he was eventually tried for treason having been accused of conspiring to create a new country out of America’s western territory.

Though he was found not guilty he was disgraced and fled the country.

Jefferson especially, and many of his generation, were fascinated by the American Indian with many hoping for their improvement which is ironic given their generation was the one who destroyed the culture and society of Indians who lived east of the Mississippi.

This fascination largely came about as a result of nervousness over America’s climate with many European intellectuals stating that the humidity, temperature swings, large amounts of rainfall, etc would retard civilization in the New World.

If this were true, and the American Indian was in an earlier stage of civilization because of it then Americans were doomed and so many leading figures of the day set out to “civilize” the Indians to prove it was not the case.

Another aspect of the American climate were the epidemics of yellow fever which many, including Jefferson, concluded was due to something unique to America’s climate.

This impacted how Americans designed their cities; American cities could not, like their European counterparts in different climates, have people living in such close quarters.

One of the most significant works at this time which was a catalyst for the debate over American climate was written by French scientist George Louis Leclerc, comte de Buffon who took the view that America’s climate was responsible for retarding civilizational advancement.

This led to many American intellectuals becoming interested in scientific inquiry; many American intellectuals began studying American creatures, soil, and climate, recording weather data, and the best known scientific discovers of the day was Charles Willson Peale’s exhumation of mammoth bones in 1801.