The Early Republic, 1789-1815

• Theme: The years from 1789 to 1815 were critical in the history of the United States. The federal government had to prove that the Constitution would work, and that republicanism was capable of existing over a large area.

• Political Developments in the early Republic

• The early stages of the Market Revolution• Society and culture in the early Republic

America in 1800

Republican Political Ideology• Idea of Republican government was a radical concept• People needed to be virtuous and willingly place good of

society above self-interest of individuals• expression of frustration among lower ranks of society became

common• workers, farmers, servants, and freed slaves hoped that the

Revolution would remove not reinforce the elite’s traditional political and social advantages

• weakening of deference—equality• participation in state government and military• difficult to justify denying other white men voting rights and

representation so property qualifications for voting were lowered

• Jefferson v. Hamilton

• http://www.monticello.org/index.html

Market Revolution• In 1800 only 10 percent of the population lived

west of the Appalachians– By 1860 more than half lived west

• Banks and corporations– 29 banks in 1800, 250 by 1816– Turnpike and bridge corporations– Between 1801 and 1817, states chartered 1,800

corporations– Manufacturing increased after 1806

• Most in households and shops

• Export trade increased with the European War of 1793– Domestic exports doubled from 20 to 50 million– 90 percent on American shipping

American Export Trade, 1790–1815

Society in the early Republic

• Men often worked for each other, borrowed oxen and plows, and swapped surpluses of one kind of food for another

• Women traded herbs, butter, eggs, vegetables, seedlings, baby chicks, goose feathers, and cloth

• Cooperative undertakings such as house and barn raisings

• Men in charge of the household

• http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award99/icuhtml/fawhome.html

Women in the early Republic• Women confined to domestic sphere

• Could not vote or preach or hold office

• Divorces extremely difficult to obtain and could not legally own personal property

• New opportunities for women during the war but legal status did not improve much

• farm labor was the responsibility of men only

• Deep prejudice against women working in the fields

The Domestic Economy• Household responsibilities were the woman’s domain• Women made and stored butter and cheese, and they

planted potatoes, turnips, cabbages, squashes, beans, and other vegetables that could be stored.

• Household manufacture persisted as workers with raw materials and paid them for finished shoes, furniture, cloth, brooms and other handmade goods– One-third of households were engaged in weaving,

furniture making, and other household industry

– Fathers had the bank accounts

– Relatively poorer and large households

– work was performed by dependent women and children

Triangular Trade across the Atlantic

African-Americans and Slavery

Runaway Slaves and Free Blacks

Paradox of Slavery• Revolutionary leaders confronted the issue of slavery and considered

abolishing it• Principles of liberty and equality had clear implications for enslaved blacks• Black soldiers were present at most major battles, and most were on

Loyalist side– British promised to free slaves and indentured servants

• Slaves who served in the cause for independence won their freedom and in some cases land bounties

• Many slaves escaped to Canada and the British colonies in the Caribbean– Thomas Jeremiah, a free black in Charleston, was hanged and burned– 10,000 slaves freed by masters in VA during 1780s– In 1861, half of all blacks in MD were free

• Many slaves ran away from upper South during Revolutionary era– often migrated North and into free black neighborhoods there– many free blacks used the egalitarian rhetoric to speak out against evils

of slavery– 55,000 slaves fled to freedom during the Revolution

• http://www.vcdh.virginia.edu/gos/• http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/sthtml/sthome.html• http://www.ibiblio.org/laslave/

Slave Auction

Slavery and Violence

Bounty on Indian Scalps in KY

Native Americans in the early Republic

US-Indian Relations

• US-Indian Relations– Dispossession and Smallpox

• Developing an Indian Policy– War Department and Henry Knox

• Regulating an Indian and a land policy– Indian Trade and Intercourse Act of 1790– Northwest Ordinance of 1787

• http://americanart.si.edu/collections/exhibits/catlin/index.html

Northwest Land Ordinance of 1787

Louisiana Purchase

Indians Confront Expansion• Indian resistance

• US declares war

• Accommodating and Resisting Change

• Shawnee Indians leaders began a religious and political movement– Tenskwatawa– Prophetstown on the Tippecanoe River in IN– Tecumseh Led a pan-Indian movement

Indian Resistance 1790-1816

Tenskwatawa (Shawnee Prophet)

Tecumseh and the Pan-Indian Movement

Spread of Settlement:1800–1820