3.12 Movement in the Early Republic

LEARNING OBJECTIVE 1: Explain how and why migration and immigration to and within North America caused competition and conflict over time.

LEARNING OBJECTIVE 2: Explain the continuities and changes in regional attitudes about slavery as it expanded from 1754 to 1800.

INTRODUCTION

• Founding of republic increased movement of people (mainly westward)

  • Uncertanties of rebellion and war had ended

    - Peace and removal of British control—→

    - Re-ordering of government and life

  • Hostile forces remained on boards of new nation

    - Brtish north and west, Spanish south and west

    - Both threatened young country’s existence

    - Within borders were Natives (resented expansion of European settlement on their lands)

MIGRATION AND SETTLEMENT

• Westward movement faced a range of forces (both friendly and hostile)

  • Movement was recognized and accepted from the very beginning of the nation

    • Northwest Ordinance (under the AOC)

      - provided mechanism for migration and settlement.

      - planned for the sale of government land

      - orderly adoption of western territory into new states

      - public education

      - outlawed slavery in this territory

  • Government forseen migration, but couldn’t stop disputes and conflicts that developed

AMERICAN INDIANS

• Natives found themselves losing conflicts with settlers—→

  • Native increasingly living on reservations or being forced to migrate

LAWS

• Indian intercourse acts was one of the 1st laws passed by new nation

  • Act placed federal gov in control of all legal actions with Natives

    - only federal gov (not states) could purchase native land and regulate trade over their lands

    - laws were largely ignored by traders and settler migrating westward

RESISTENCE

• Gov usually supported settlers when disputes w Natives turned violent (despite settlers ignoring laws to maintain peace)

  • In northwest territory, confederation of Shawnee and other American Indians sucessfully defeated gov troops—→

    - larger gov force defeated confederation at Battle of Fallen Timbers

  • American Indian position was further weakened as British (who supported natives) closed trading forts following American revolution.

WEST OF THE MISSISSIPI

• Migration was a survivable option for many tribes

  • Natives faced overwhelming force, foreign disease, destruction of their hunting grounds (deprived food and trade).

    • Some remained where their ancestors had settled

      - unwilling to leave their traditional lands despite being surrounded by hostile settlers

    • Others migrated

      - Iroquois stayed on reservations or moved north

      - Shawnee and Cherokees moved acorss the mississipi river

    • Journeys were dangerious as tribes resisted theres incursions into their tradional land

THE SOUTHERN FRONTIER

• Further south, the Spanish were concerned with stopping settlers from US—→

  • Allowed Natives more freedom

    

POPULATION CHANGE

• Population increased for several reasons

  • Europeans continued to immigrate to the US

    - came in small numbers (flow depended on reaction to political or economic upheavels in Europe)

  • Enslaved africans continued to be imported

    - slaveowners recognized that trade would go on til 1808

  • Largest population gain was natural

    - births exceeded deaths (plentiful food supply and desire for children who could help on farms)

• The westward movement was aided by scouts and early settlers

  • Blazed trails through the wilderness for others to follow

    - Daniel Boone led the way across the Appalachian Mountain and establish early white settlement in northwest

SLAVERY

• People began to openly oppose slavery by late 18th century

  • Many were quakers, mennonites, and other people of Christian faith

    - some were influenced by enlightenment ideals (liberty and equality)

    - saw no place for slavery in democratic republic

    - many people disliked slavery (hoped it would fade away like in Europe and Latin America)

    - believed increasing immigration would provide low-cost labor to replace enslaved labor.

COTTON

• Slavery grew rather than declined

  • Eli Whitney invented cotton gin

    - device for separating cotton fiber from seeds

    - heightened efficiency of cultivating cotton (growing cotton became immensely profitable)—→

    - higher demand for slaves

  • Mechanization of textile industry also increased value of cotton

    - British were first to mechanize (passed laws against taking knowledge of factories outside the country)

    - Samuel slater memorized British factory design and built his own factory in US—→ more efficient textile industry in US

  • Combination of cotton gin and development of textile industry made cotton cloth less expensive and more plentiful

    - cotton became potent global industry

CONFLICT OVER EXPANSION OF SLAVERY

• US plantation owners were eager to increase cotton production with slave labor

  • Looked westward for more land

    - Quickly settled in Alabama and Mississippi (good climate and geography for growing cotton)

    - Their desire for lands west and north would soon face resistance (northerns opposed slavery/wanted to settle in these lands themselves w/o competition from enslaved workers)—→

    - regional conflict over slavery arose

THE MOVEMENTS OF ENSLAVED AFRICANS

• Some enslaved people were able to escape bondage

  • Found liberty by reaching free states in the north

    - constitutuion included the clause that required states to return fugitives to their owners

    - some went to Canada, Florida, or lands controlled by Natives

  • Most enslaved people moved because of their owners’ search for greater profit

    - Chesapeake planters had more slaves than they wanted

  • Decline in uncertian tobacco markets, natural growing slave population, and expanded importation—→ increase of slaves

    - Efforts to train enslaved people in skilled trades or lease them as servants did not meet financial desires

    - Moving enslaved people from fields to towns added to risk of people escaping to freedom in the north

• Growing demand for workers in cotton fields provided Chesapeake planters with new opportunity

  • They could sell their slaves to cotton planters in newly settled lands (Alabama and Mississippi)

    - interregional slave trade became very large (500,000-1 mil slaves were transported before the civil war)

    - trade often broke families apart (many slaves never saw their parents, children, or other relatives again)