How the West Was Won: Westward Expansion

With a government and economic system firmly established, the Natives placed on reservations (or murdered), and cheap land in the Mid-West for sale, the way was prepped for migration to the territories.

The people who would come to settle in the Mid-West were: young New Englanders (from Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island), farmers from New York and Pennsylvania, Southerners of Scotch-Irish descent, various Native peoples (either by force or by choice), and free blacks. The Mid-West was like a salad--each group that settled the land was distinct and had an important role in how the Mid-West was framed. French-Canadian boatmen and trappers, Spanish traders from the Southwest, and Virginia backcountry planters and their droves of slaves mingled with German, Scotch-Irish, and English farmers.

Four main routes led into the territories west of the Appalachians: one route was called the Genesee Route and it went from Albany to Buffalo, NY where travelers could then easily cross over into Ohio and beyond; a second route ran through Pittsburgh, PA and ran into Ohio and beyond; a third route wound its way through the mountains starting at Alexandria, PA and made its way into Kentucky and then into Missouri; and the final route from the East to the West passed through the Cumberland Gap and ran through Kentucky. Settlers heading into the West traveled using covered wagons and teams of horses, which was the easiest method for moving goods and people across an expanse of land at the time. People could choose to sleep in the covered wagons and camp out along the trail, or they could rent a room in one of the numerous inns that dotted the way along whichever route they chose to traverse.

In 1792, Kentucky and Vermont entered the Union and became states. To assert their independence, Kentucky wrote into its state constitution that all free white males could vote regardless of whether or not they owned land. Tennessee would follow along the same steps towards democracy once it was admitted into the Union. Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois soon followed as they also gained statehood.

The entrance of these states would continue to open up the West for settlement, especially by young men who wanted to forge their own lives and destinies.

Slowly over time, the Louisiana Territory would be opened up to settlers and as their populations grew, each territory would be admitted into the Union. From the Louisiana Territory purchased in 1803, 15 new states were created: Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Minnesota, New Mexico, northern Texas, Wyoming, Montana, and Colorado.

Due to the people who came to inhabit the region, the West developed its own personality. One unnamed person from the era of westward expansion described the West as having "A spirit of adventurous enterprise, a willingness to go through hardship to accomplish an object...independence of thought and action." The men of the West were truly free and independent, and it was this attitude which would lead to the Texas Revolution and the annexation of Texas.


In the 1830s, Texas belonged to Mexico, however, Mexico allowed American settlers to buy land, cultivate it, and raise cattle. The Americans had started to bring slaves over to Texas, and the centralist government in Mexico decided to put limits on what the Texans could and could not do...which led to Mexico's leader Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna banned slavery in the Republic of Texas. hostilities erupted in October 1835 and the Texas Revolution was in full swing.

President/General Santa Anna vowed to retake Texas himself, and in mid-February 1836 he led his Army of Operations to San Antonio where his troops would meet with a garrison of Americans at the Battle of the Alamo.

The Battle of the Alamo was a pivotal battle in the Texas Revolution. Several months prior to the February 1836 battle, Texans had driven all Mexican troops out of Mexican Texas. About 100 Texans were garrisoned at the Alamo, and they were met with reinforcements led by Colonel William Travis and James (Jim) Bowie.

On February 23, approximately 1,500 Mexican soldiers, led by General Santa Anna, marched into San Antonio with the goal of retaking Texas. For the next ten days, 185 men at the Alamo defended their garrison from Santa Anna's forces. Through enduring multiple  aid, and more men, bringing the total to 260 men at the Alamo.

On March 6, the Mexican Army advanced on the Alamo. The Texans could no longer hold their garrison and were overtaken. Most accounts list between 182-257 of the 260 men at the Alamo had been killed and 600 Mexicans had been killed or wounded.

Twelve years later, Texas would be annexed to the United States and would become the 28th state.


The west was won by land expansion, and its personality was forged by those who came to inhabit its lands, both by choice and by force. I already briefly wrote about the Cherokee Removal in a previous blog post, but I believe the atrocities it caused warrant mentioning again, and going more in depth with the act of the forced removal itself.

In April 1830, President Andrew Jackson passed the Indian Removal Act. For those who had known President Jackson, this news came to no surprise. In 1814 as a US military colonel he commanded his forces to go to war with the Creek nation; in their defeat, the Creeks lost 22 million acres of land in Georgia and Alabama. In 1818, Jackson's troops invaded Spanish Florida and fought the Seminoles to punish them for harboring fugitive slaves. From 1814 to 1824, Jackson negotiated nine out of eleven treaties with Natives, which created a period of voluntary migration (although many of those Natives did not migrate). However, in 1830, Jackson passed the Indian Removal Act which gave the president power to negotiate removal treaties with Native tribes. Jackson's views of the Natives were paternalistic and patronizing--he saw the Natives as children in need of guidance and believed the removal policy benefitted the Natives.

The Indian Removal Act would lead to the destructive Trail of Tears. The Trail of Tears was a series of forced relocations of Native American nations from the Southern states to reservations in the West. The Native nations who were affected by this were the Cherokee, Muscogee, Seminole, Choctaw, and Chickasaw who were forcefully removed from their ancestral lands to west of the Mississippi River. Over 20,000 Cherokee alone were marched along the Trail of Tears and a quarter of them died before reaching their final destination.


Many people imagine the American West like a spaghetti western movie--cowboys and Indians, shootouts at high noon, and characters like Jesse James and Billy the Kid roamed free, but that wasn't always the case. For many, life was more like "Little House on the Prairie" than "Gunfight at the OK Corral".

Form 1811 to 1840, the Oregon Trail opened up the West to new settlers and Oregon, Washington State, and California would enter the Union shortly after.

The Oregon Trail began as a network of unconnected trails used by Native Americans and fur traders. The Oregon Trail was a route taken by settlers from the East migrating to build a new life in the West. The Oregon Trail was 2,000 miles long, starting in Independence, Missouri and ending in Oregon City, Oregon. The Oregon Trail could be treacherous, as the settlers would have to cross fast-moving rivers, mountain passes in the Colorado Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada Mountains; and drowning, dysentery, and starvation were huge risks during the six-month long journey.


Many people were caught up in the fervor of westward expansion in the 1830s through 1840s, taking the Oregon Trail and its less famous counterpart, the California Trail, but not everyone was prepared for the journey and tragedy struck.

The most famous tragedy regarding settlers moving out West was the Donner party tragedy. On April 16, 1846 nine covered wagons departed Springfield, Illinois for California, a 2,500 mile journey. James Reed, the originator of the group, read about a new trail, the Hastings Trail, which promised a journey 350 to 400 miles shorter than the Oregon Trail...but unbeknownst to Reed the new trail hadn't been tested. Reed soon found others who were interested in a new life in California, including the Donners, Graves, Breens, Murphys, Eddys, McCutcheons, Kesebergs, Wolfingers, and others. The group initially consisted of 32 men, women, and children and would pick up countless others as they made their way across the US.

The group faced dangerous storms and high waters, and lost one of their members due to sickness a month into their journey. At a stop in Fort Laramie, Wyoming James Reed ran into an old friend who told him to get off the Hastings Trail and onto the California Trail, but Reed didn't listen, and brothers Jacob and George Donner, their families, and a sizeable group of pioneers they picked up along the way decided to split from the main party. The Donner party became trapped by snowfall in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in October and soon ran out of supplies. To survive, they ate their pack animals, twigs, bark, and dirt...in December, the group that now numbered 89 pioneers, decided that if one would die the others might live. On Christmas Day 1846, the group ate their first human. As people continued to die, the bodies were dismembered and the meat was labeled so the pioneers didn't eat their family members. After spring broke, the 45 people that remained continued on the trail to California and arrived in 1847. The pass through the Sierra Nevada Mountains was named the Donner Pass, after George Donner who had died.


The West was won through land expansion, forced relocation, voluntary migration, and through the blood, sweat, and tears of those who traveled along the dangerous trails and had to fight for their parcel of land.

As we continue to move throughout American history, we're going to continue to explore the themes of expansion and innovation so we can see how our country has developed over the years.

Reforms from the 1820s through the 1860s

In the early 1800s, the United States was going through a great change and was experiencing a rise in industrialization. This was the Industrial Revolution, which is known for its rise of factories and urbanization, the rise of new inventions meant to improve the lives of others, and the first wave of immigration. However, the Industrialization was also known for an increase in the wealth gap and a rising number of urban poor. It was because of these reasons that groups, both religious and not, began reform movements to help those who were in need.

Economic Reforms

·         Panic of 1837

o   Van Buren comes to office just as economic crisis hits the fan—he has pledged to continue deregulation, but several issues converge:

§  After destruction of the National Bank, currency is destabilized and loses value

§  State banks increase currency supply by printing paper money; they float risky loans and everyone goes into debt

§  British investors got rid of their paper money and demanded hard currency

§  Speculation in stocks and land—markets collapsed and financial ruin was widespread

o   Effects of the Panic

§  343 out of 865 banks in the U.S. close down permanently

§  $100 million lost in NY alone

§  5-year economic depression

§  Damages Van Buren’s reputation 

·         Cultural Impact of Industrialization

o   Lots of poor people, “middling”, fell back into poverty despite their best efforts—creates the conditions where a sustained critique of market capitalism is possible

o   Political independence eroded by economic collapse

The Reform Impulse

·         Voluntary Associations

o   Long important to American civic life

o   Three basis methods:

§  Persuasion

§  Use of power of the government

§  Withdraw from corruption of society and set a good example worth imitating

The Utopian Impulse

·         In the economic upheaval of the Market Revolution, other models of social and political organization appear worth investigating

·         Bucolic, pastoral communal life was seen as an antidote to relentless urban material competition—a spiritual retreat and maybe a safe harbor for people battered by successive Panics

·         The new communities that spring up (Owenites, Shakers, Mormons, Oneida, Transcendentalists, etc.) all challenged the tenants of Christianity, family, and marriage.

Social Activism

·        Social activism began with a strong religious propulsion with emphasis on perfecting human institutions to make a more perfect society. 

·        Benevolent societies (charitable organizations)

·         Education reform

o   Branson Alcott

§  Learning by doing; conversations between equals; learning interactive and creation of critical abilities; deduce values and ethics rather than instill them

o   Elizabeth Peabody

§  Established U.S. kindergarten; led early education movement

o   Horace Mann

§  Public should pay for education with tax dollars; everyone should have access to public classrooms; strict training standards for teacher competency; equal pay for male and female teachers; broad curriculum; schools should be non-sectarian

·         Prison Reform

o   Improved facilities; better security

o   Shift in emphasis to productive labor

o   Separate out the mentally ill, elderly, poor, and developmentally disabled from criminals

o   Create separate asylums for non-criminal social dependents 

Why the Era of Good Feelings Wasn't an Era of Good Feelings

As promised, this post is going to highlight the numerous reasons why the Era of Good Feelings wasn't an era of good feelings. In fact, the name for the era was a name given ironically. There were major changes in the US during this period which did help to strengthen the young country; however, this was an era where everything was being questioned and scrutinized...and for good reason, as you will find out.

A political war was brewing during this period, one that would spill over into a later conflict (let's see if you can guess which one after reading the rest of this post).

As mentioned in a previous post, the northern states and the southern states had many differences, which led them to be at odds with one another. Despite being at odds with one another and despite their differences, their economies were very closely tied together--the North needed Southern cotton and tobacco and the South needed Northern industry to take the raw materials and produce goods for them.

During the Era of Good Feelings, slavery was still very prominent, and so was the issue about what to do with states as they entered the Union. The Northwest Ordinance of 1789 stated that slavery would not exist in the Western territories (what we call the Mid-West today) above the 36*30' line. The Ordinance was very controversial, as many people believed that slavery shouldn't be limited to the South. Many people believed that Congress had no constitutional warrant to abolish slavery in the territories. President Monroe took the issue to his cabinet, many of whom were pro-slavery but also strict constitutionalists, who believed that Congress did have the power to prohibit slavery in the territories.

Despite the Northwest Ordinance, issues still arose.

Missouri Compromise: The Missouri Compromise was an effort by Congress in late 1819 to defuse the sectional and political rivalries caused by Missouri wanting to enter the Union as a slave state, which would produce 10 free states and 11 slave states, causing an imbalance. In 1820, the Missouri Compromise was ratified, allowing Missouri to enter the Union as a slave state and Maine entered the Union as a free state, keeping the balance.

Citation: reocities.com

As you can see from the picture above, the state of Missouri is above the 36*30' line, going against the Northwest Ordinance (which used the Mississippi River as a border).


Governance

North-South tensions weren't all that made the Era of Good Feelings an era of not-so-good feelings. Politics, and the attempted breaking down of political parties, is another example.

In his 1796 farewell address, George Washington urged against political parties, saying they will divide the Union. Monroe, a Republican, sought to merge the Federalist party with his own party, creating a unified party. However, the method Monroe used to do so was that of neglect: they weren't given any political patronage or appointments of any kind. Basically, he used elementary school logic-- "If we ignore them, they'll go away".

In 1817 and 1819, Monroe went on a "Goodwill Tour". This was similar to how Presidents in the present travel across the country and around the world. Through his physical appearance and demeanor, Monroe spread good tidings as he toured Boston, Massachusetts--a Federalist stronghold--and Monroe's visit elicited a huge outpouring of nationalist pride.

In 1820 Monroe was reelected as President in a near-unanimous victory. It seemed as though the process of de-Federalization was complete.

Now, however, Monroe had to worry about intraparty rivalries. Just because you "get rid of" your opposing political party doesn't mean those differences which caused the opposing party to form aren't still there. Monroe had a cabinet comprised of political rivalries, and tensions were high. After "uniting" the political parties, Monroe was deprived of appealing to Republican solidarity to clear the way for his numerous programs in Congress.


Economy

The economy plays a huge role in any era, and the Era of Good Feelings was no exception.

In 1819 the first major peacetime financial crisis to hit the US erupted. The Panic of 1819 caused a general collapse of the US economy which lasted through 1821, and full economic recovery not having been reached until 1824. Prior to the Panic, banks throughout the country failed, and falling prices and an influx of foreign goods impaired agriculture and manufacturing. Widespread unemployment occurred and many people were kicked out of their homes and off of their farms. All regions of the country were effected.

Reactions to the Panic 1819 varied from region to region. People in the North wanted to enact high tariffs to protect them from foreign competitors; people in the South hated the high tariffs and believed freer trade would help revive the economy; people from the West blamed the bankers and land speculators for buying and selling land they couldn't afford.


The Era of Good Feelings was not an era of good feelings for many, but you have to take the bad with the good and times keeps going by.

My next post will lead us to the age of reform--the antebellum era. We'll learn about revivalism and the reforms that came about from it, such as abolitionism, prison reform, education reform, temperance movement, prostitution prohibition, and the early women's suffrage movement. Join me next time here on The Half-Pint Historian!  

Era of Good Feelings

The Era of Good Feelings was a period from 1817 to 1825, when the United States was under the presidency of James Monroe and a one-party political system, the Democratic-Republicans (which got their start from Jeffersonian Republicans). Although this was known as the Era of Good Feelings, there was a lot of tension, especially when it came to slavery.

The War of 1812 ended with the Federalist Party all but destroyed, and a new party, the Democratic-Republicans, was ushered in. By 1816, the Democratic-Republicans controlled 85% of the seats in Congress, and James Monroe was elected president.

The Era of Good Feelings was marked by economic changes, some of which had been backed by James Madison. Some of these changes included: chartering the second Bank of the United States, establishing tariffs to protect American manufacturing, and federally-funded internal improvements.


Chartering the Second Bank of the United States

After the War of 1812, the United States was facing money troubles due to an unregulated currency and a lack of fiscal order. In order to move forward from an agrarian society into one that was more industrial, something had to be done.

The Second Bank of the United States was chartered in 1816 with the same powers and responsibilities as the First Bank (to serve as a repository for federal funds, to be the government's fiscal agent, to help fund military operations). The SBOTUS was a private corporation with public responsibilities, as it handled all fiscal transactions for the US Government, and was accountable to the US Treasury and Congress. Twenty percent of the Bank's capital was owned by the federal government, the Bank's largest stockholder; 4,000 private investors held the other 80% of its capital, with some of those investors being wealthy Americans and many being wealthy Europeans (including wealthy British). The bulk of the stocks that were owned by private investors were held by a few wealthy Americans. The main duties of the SBOTUS was to regulate the public credit issued by private banking institutions through the fiscal duties it performed for the US Treasury, as well as to establish a stable national currency.

The SBOTUS also tried to limit the disbursement of paper currency/bank notes to prevent post-war inflation. By doing so, they instead focused on issuing lines of credit--giving small loans to farmers, small manufacturers, and entrepreneurs which encouraged rapid economic expansion.

However, not everyone was a fan of this Bank; many believed that the Bank was unconstitutional and fought against it, going to the Supreme Court twice. The first SCOTUS case dealing with the SBOTUS was McCulloch v. Maryland (1819). The state of Maryland had tried to impede the operations of the SBOTUS by imposing a tax on all bank notes that were not issued by banks that were chartered in the state of Maryland...at this time, that was the SBOTUS. Despite the law saying it taxed all bank notes not issued by banks chartered in Maryland, this was seen as a direct attack against the SBOTUS. The Supreme Court invoked the Necessary and Proper Clause of the Constitution, which allowed the Federal government to pass laws not expressly provided for in the Constitution's list of express powers as long as those laws are useful in furthering the express powers of Congress under the Constitution. The ruling of the case was that state action may not impede valid constitutional exercises of power by the Federal government.

Later, under the presidency of Andrew Jackson, the SBOTUS would not have its charter renewed, but that's a post for another day.



Establishing Tariffs to Protect American Manufacturing

After the War of 1812 and the Embargo that preceded it, the US economy was stimulated and manufacturing, industry, and trade boomed. A system of tariffs (taxes on imported goods) was necessary to protect the new boom in industry. Southern cotton was being exported around the world, not just around the United States, and it drove the Southern economy to new heights; prosperity was felt around the country. The tariffs, as well as land sales, made the federal government all the money it needed to run properly. However, it wouldn't be all sunshine and daisies for the young country--the economy would soon come to a screeching halt in 1819 and the nation would become economically divided...this will be explained further in another post.



Federally-funded Internal Improvements

The period from post-American Revolution through much of the 19th century was known for the creation of transportation infrastructure such as roads, turnpikes, canals, bridges, harbors, and other improvements.

Two major improvements of this era were in transportation--the invention of the steamboat by Robert Fulton and the construction of the Erie Canal.

The steamboat was invented by Robert Fulton prior to the War of 1812, taking its first voyage from New York City up the Hudson River to Albany in 1807. They steamboat was a lot quicker than other modes of transportation at the time, and would revolutionize the shipping industry. For example, in the South, cotton was often shipped up the Atlantic Coast or up the Mississippi River in order to get to its destinations. The steamboat made transporting goods much quicker.

The Erie Canal was a canal that linked the waters of Lake Erie in Western New York to the Hudson River at the state capital of Albany. Ground was broken in 1817 after about a decade of various proposals for where the canal would be located and how far it would travel, and the canal was finished in 1825. The Erie Canal allowed for more western settlement beyond the Appalachian Mountains and allowed people to offer a cheap and safe way to move their products to market.

For more information about the Erie Canal, you can visit eriecanal.org.


The Era of Good Feelings was marked by numerous changes to the United States, which would propel us well into the 19th century and would have an impact on our country's history.

Next time on the blog I'll be writing about why the Era of Good Feelings was anything but.

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The War of 1812

Hello readers. Now, I know I promised back in February (almost a year, ouch) that because I was no longer student teaching I'd be posting more often because I'd have the time to do so...but life got in the way. I'm working a few jobs, I got married over the summer, I've been recovering from surgery, and I've been teaching so I've been super-busy. However, I hope you forgive me and continue to read as we continue through America's past.


Today's post will be about the War of 1812.


The War of 1812 is the war that inspired Francis Scott Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner" which would become the U.S. National Anthem. It's also the war in which the famous Battle of New Orleans took place ("In 1814 we took a little trip along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip. We took a little bacon and we took a little beans and we caught the bloody British in a town called New Orleans..."). However, despite these facts, the War of 1812 is a little-known war that U.S. curriculum often neglects to mention. The War of 1812 had many complicated causes and an inconclusive outcome, however, the war helped to further establish the credibility of the young nation and helped to solidify its place as a force to be reckoned with...and it would also usher in an Era of Good Feelings.


The 1783 signing of the Treaty of Paris at the conclusion of the American Revolution formalized Britain's recognition of the U.S. as its own entity. Shortly after the American Revolution had ended, the U.S. and Britain resumed trading, but it wasn't without cost.


In 1803, as a continuation of the French Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte, the French emperor, and his army ravished Europe. Slowly, they fought and took over country after country. Britain became involved in the war as well and sought to stop the French in their tracks.


In the early 19th century, the U.S. and other countries had been trading with the French, and in 1807 the British introduced a series of trade restrictions to limit or eliminate neutral trade with France. The U.S. saw this move as illegal under internal law and viewed Britain as violating its right to trade with others. At this time, the British felt threatened by the U.S. due to the American merchant marine doubling its force between 1802 and 1810, making it the largest neutral fleet. Britain was the U.S.'s primary trading partner, receiving 80% of its cotton and 50% of other exports. Britain saw how America was growing and becoming a major force of mercantile and commercial competition. This is seen as one of the causes of the war of 1812.


As Britain's navy grew during the Napoleonic Wars to include over 700 ships, their amount of sailors did not grow along with it. In times of peace the British could very easily fill its ships with volunteers, but at times of war they competed with privateers (sometimes called buccaneers and often known as pirates) and merchant shipping. In times of war to get the numbers of sailors they needed, the British would often turn to impressment, which meant they would kidnap sailors and force them to take part in their navy. Impressment was one of the causes of the War of 1812. The U.S. saw British men and women who emigrated to the U.S. and became naturalized as citizens, but the British did not recognize them as citizens of the U.S., they were still seen as British subjects. It was estimated that there were 11,000 naturalized sailors in the U.S. merchant marine and 9,000 of them were British. The British Royal Navy would intercept U.S. ships and search them for British "deserters", impressing them and forcing them to fight in their navy. Americans were outraged by this and saw the actions the British were taking as an infringement on national sovereignty and denying their right to naturalize foreigners. It's also important to note, however, that the Americans' anger in the impressment of sailors is a bit hypocritical--the U.S. would also impress British sailors to use in their own navy and merchant marine, and considering impressment was seen as common practice by the British, they would only rescue their sailors on a case-by-case basis.


Another important cause of the War of 1812 was American raids on the Natives in the Northwest Territory and parts of Canada to try to take over more land. Much like how the British colonists encroached upon the land in the Ohio River Valley prior to the breakout of the French and Indian War, post-Revolutionary Americans were happy with the outcome of the American Revolution except for the amount of land they received after the war. The British had ceded the Northwest Territory at the signing of the Treaty of Paris to the U.S., both sides ignoring the fact that the land was already inhabited by Natives such as the  Miami, Winnebago, Shawnee, Fox, Sauk, Kickapoo, Delaware and Wyandot. The Natives formed a confederation comprised of many tribes to fight against American expansion into their territory. To do this, the Natives used their own weapons as well as muskets and knives supplied by the British to raid the Americans and would cause small wars along the frontier. The Americans would urge the British to stop supplying their Native allies with weapons in hopes that the small wars along the frontier would end. The Americans would gain a major victory in the wars along the frontier by capturing Canada. Historians debate whether the Americans did this to annex Canada or to just use it as a bargaining chip in hopes the impressment of sailors would come to an end. This action of capturing Canada would also cut off food supplies for the colonies in the British West Indies and would temporarily prevent the British from arming the Natives.



According to History.com, in the fall of 1811, Indiana’s territorial governor William Henry Harrison led U.S. troops to victory in the Battle of Tippecanoe. The defeat convinced many Indians in the Northwest Territory (including the celebrated Shawnee chief Tecumseh) that they needed British support to prevent American settlers from pushing them further out of their lands. Meanwhile, by late 1811 the so-called “War Hawks” in Congress were putting more and more pressure on Madison, and on June 18, 1812, the president signed a declaration of war against Britain. Though Congress ultimately voted for war, both House and Senate were bitterly divided on the issue. Most Western and Southern congressmen supported war, while Federalists (especially New Englanders who relied heavily on trade with Britain) accused war advocates of using the excuse of maritime rights to promote their expansionist agenda.

In order to strike at Great Britain, U.S. forces almost immediately attacked Canada, then a British colony. American officials were overly optimistic about the invasion’s success, especially given how underprepared U.S. troops were at the time. On the other side, they faced a well-managed defense coordinated by Sir Isaac Brock, the British soldier and administrator in charge in Upper Canada (modern Ontario). On August 16, 1812, the United States suffered a humiliating defeat after Brock and Tecumseh’s forces chased those led by Michigan William Hull across the Canadian border, scaring Hull into surrendering Detroit without any shots fired.

 Things looked better for the United States in the West, as Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry’s brilliant success in the Battle of Lake Erie in September 1813 placed the Northwest Territory firmly under American control. Harrison was subsequently able to retake Detroit with a victory in the Battle of Thames (in which Tecumseh was killed). Meanwhile, the U.S. navy had been able to score several victories over the Royal Navy in the early months of the war. With the defeat of Napoleon’s armies in April 1814, however, Britain was able to turn its full attention to the war effort in North America. As large numbers of troops arrived, British forces raided the Chesapeake Bay and moved in on the U.S. capital, capturing Washington, D.C., on August 24, 1814, and burning government buildings including the Capitol and the White House.

On September 13, 1814, Baltimore’s Fort McHenry withstood 25 hours of bombardment by the British Navy. The following morning, the fort’s soldiers hoisted an enormous American flag, a sight that inspired Francis Scott Key to write a poem he titled “The Star-Spangled Banner.” (Set to the tune of an old English drinking song, it would later be adopted as the U.S. national anthem.) British forces subsequently left the Chesapeake Bay and began gathering their efforts for a campaign against New Orleans."

 By that time, peace talks were beginning to take shape in Ghent (modern-day Belgium) and Britain moved toward an armistice (cease-fire) after their failure to assault Baltimore, Maryland. In the negotiations that led up to the singing of the Treaty of Ghent, the United States gave up its demands to end impressment and Britain promised to leave the Canadian borders unchanged and abandoned efforts to create an Indian state in the Northwest.

On December 24, 1814, the Treaty of Ghent was signed, which would later be ratified the following February. Unaware that peace had been concluded, British forces mounted a major attack on New Orleans on January 8, 1815, only to be defeated by future U.S. president Andrew Jackson’s army. News of the battle boosted sagging U.S. morale and left Americans with a sense of victory, despite the fact that the country had achieved none of its pre-war objectives.

The War of 1812 ushered in the Era of Good Feelings, brought the demise of the Federalist Party, boosted national self-confidence, and encouraged American expansionism which would continue on into the 19th century.

The Market Revolution

Hello readers! I'm finished with student teaching and my undergraduate studies as a whole and I'm glad to finally be able to have time to sit and work on this blog. Teaching 9th and 10th graders global studies was definitely an experience I won't forget as I work toward getting done what I need to do to one day have control over my own classroom, but I'm glad to be able to write about American history for a change.

So, we left off with this blog in September having to backtrack a bit, but now we're going to be moving forward again as we pick up in the late 1700s-mid-1800s and discuss the Market Revolution.

The Market Revolution is a term used by historians to show the significance of this period in American history. The Market Revolution was a period of rapid development in manufacturing and improved farming, and these changes were so profound on the country at that time that historians called it a "revolution" because it showed great technological changes and advances.



Agriculture

Some of the changes which transpired during the Market Revolution had to do with farming. The earliest Market Revolution invention in regards to farming was the cotton gin, invented by Eli Whitney in 1793. The cotton gin was a machine that separated the cotton fibers from the cotton seeds, which was significantly more productive that separating the seeds and fibers by hand. The fibers were later processed into clothing or other textiles, and any undamaged seeds could be replanted or used to produce cottonseed oil (used for cooking) or cottonseed meal (used in animal feed and organic fertilizers). The invention of the cotton gin led to an increased need for slaves so more cotton could be produced, led to the rise of plantations and a Southern merchant class, led to a rise in Northern factories (to manufacture the cotton into textiles), and would lead to the rise of the Cotton Kingdom [note: all of these will be discussed in greater detail in another post later on]. There were two other very important inventions which aided in the expansion of agriculture in this era, and those were the mechanical mower-reaper invented by Cyrus McCormick in 1834 and the steel plow invented by John Deere in 1838. The mechanical mower-reaper was a machine that allowed farmers to cut standing grain and sweep it onto a platform where it would then be raked into piles by a man standing to the side of the machine. This allowed for more profitable wheat farming in the West, and even created surpluses that the West would sell to the Northeast. The horse-drawn steel plow replaced the ox-driven wooden plows of the past. The steel plow allowed farmers to till their soil fast and more cheaply, as it didn't need to be repaired/replaced as often as the wooden plows did.



Transportation

There were great changes to transportation during the era of the Market Revolution. Railroads were being constructed and were being used to transport goods across the existing states and territories and would continue to be a major form of transportation right up until the invention of the automobile, but a major innovation to transportation during the Market Revolution era was the steamboat, invented by Robert Fulton in 1807. The steamboat truly revolutionized how products such as cotton and even food could be transported. Instead of putting the goods on ships and sailing down the Atlantic coast, or putting the goods on railroads, the steamboat allowed people to ship their goods by using the Mississippi River and transport them from the East to the West (what we today refer to as the Midwest).

Continuing with the topic of transporting goods via waterways, the Erie Canal located in New York State opened in 1825 and was used to transport goods and people. The Erie Canal was the first of several canals in the North that linked western farmers with eastern manufacturers, allowing the western farmers to have their raw materials produced.


Communication

Communication was starting to take off in various ways around this period as well. For example, newspapers and mail carriers were becoming more widespread, and the instant messaging of the day was invented as well--the telegraph, invented by Samuel F.B. Morse in 1835, as well as Morse Code. In 1858, the first transatlantic cable was laid between the U.S. and Europe, enabling rapid communication between the continents.


These innovations would give rise to a powerful economy and would propel the U.S. to become a wealthy nation. The Market Revolution would also give rise to the Cotton Kingdom and Southern Slavery. This era as a whole would lead to the changing of society and culture in the prebellum era.  

The Louisiana Purchase

It seems I have skipped over some vital information while writing this blog, so I'm going to go back in time a bit and talk about the Louisiana Purchase.

In 1801, Thomas Jefferson was elected as the third president of the United States, after George Washington and John Adams. In 1803, Jefferson acquired land from France shortly after their revolution had ended in what was called the Louisiana Purchase. Jefferson authorized the  Captain Meriwether Lewis and Second Lieutenant William Clark expedition (aka the Lewis and Clark Expedition), which included Lewis and Clark as well as a select group of US Army volunteers who traveled through the newly acquired land from May 1804 to September 1806 to map out and explore the Louisiana Territory, as well as find a practical route across the territory to the Pacific Ocean, and to establish an American presence in the area before other European powers try to lay claim to it. Lewis and Clark were also aided in the expedition by a Shoshone Indian woman Sacagawea and her husband Toussaint Charbonneau. As a result of the Louisiana Purchase, the territory belonging to the US was doubled; and the Louisiana Purchase was the largest territorial gain in US history as the territory stretched from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains (this territory would later be transformed to 15 states).

How did the US pay for the land? Jefferson paid $3 million in gold as a down payment and issued bonds to pay for the remainder to the French. The French, who were ruled by Napoleon Bonaparte at the time, needed the money as quickly as possible in order to finance the planned invasion of England which never took place. Through aiding the French, the US gained an expansive amount of land which would be at the forefront of history for years to come, especially when it came to the expansion of slavery into the western territories (the Trans-Atlantic slave trade had been deemed illegal in 1808 under Jefferson but the domestic slave trade still thrived and would continue to thrive until the presidency of Abraham Lincoln) as well as with the Indian Removal/Trail of Tears.

Slavery in America: Differences Between the North and South

During the drafting of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote the famous words that "all men are created equal" but it was evident that some men were more equal than others at the time the Colonies were trying to unite to form what would become the United States. It is no secret that 13 of the first 16 Presidents owned slaves, and as an agrarian society in the early days, the United States has a long history of slavery, which I will do my best to describe briefly in this blog post.

In previous blog posts, I mentioned that the first Africans came over to what would become the United States as indentured servants. As indentured servants, they would serve for a certain period of time and would then become free, and as a reward for their indenture they would receive land, clothing, tools, and even a musket. However, there was too much work and not enough indentured servants, so the Colonists turned to slavery. First, they tried to enslave the Native peoples, but that proved ineffective, so the Colonists had turned to African slavery. With African slavery, the Colonists who could afford to buy slaves could keep the slaves for life, as there was no limit placed on how long they had to serve before they would be free--because for the African slaves, most of them would never be free.

Many people are taught that slavery only existed in the South, but contrary to this popular belief, slavery was legal in all of the states at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, with the exception of Massachusetts. Did you know that there were almost as many slaves in New York as there was in Georgia? And did you know that New Jersey had nearly as many slaves as Delaware and Tennessee combined?

The North and South were very different, so it only makes sense that slavery in the North versus slavery in the South were very different.


The North

•  Even though some Northern states had more slaves that some Southern states, there were only about 40,000 slaves in the North as opposed to nearly 700,000 in the South at the time of the adoption of the Constitution.
• Most Northern slaves were domestic servants, not the laborers necessary to keep mills going or to cultivate fields like in the South.
• Massachusetts abolished slavery in 1780; Pennsylvania provided for gradual emancipation in 1780; states such as New Hampshire, Connecticut, and New Jersey would each abolish slavery; New York would declare that all children born to slaves after July 4, 1799 would be freed after a period of serving as apprentices, and would do away with slavery completely in 1827. 

The South

• With the introduction of the cotton gin in 1793, more slaves were needed in the South to plant and harvest the cotton, so there was an increase in the numbers of slaves being imported to America, and the domestic slave trade was booming as well as many plantation owners needed more and more slaves.
• Although at the time of the adoption of the Constitution the save population of the South was nearly 700,000, and the Trans-Atlantic slave trade would be abolished in 1807, slavery in the South quickly increased through natural reproduction.

Similarities

Despite the differences listed above, and many others, there were similarities between slavery in the North and the South. For example, neither slaves in the North nor slaves in the South had the right to vote, they were counted as less than a person in the census, slaves were considered as property, and many others. However, there were positive similarities when it came to slavery in the North and South (it's a bit weird to write "positive" and "slavery" in the same sentence, haha), such as the ability to be hired out and work for wages and that the slaves could buy their freedom or the freedom of their family members. This fact will come in useful later on when we get closer to discussing the events that led up to the American Civil War. 


This has been a short post, but we're still moving on throughout history nonetheless.