ASH 3002y Class Notes
March 29, 1999

Jefferson and the Fateful Turn West

Brief presentations:

• leftover census queries
• field trip assignments

Project #3 assignment posted:

Expansion:

• Madison's claim in Federalist X: "Extend the sphere, and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests…"
• Growing population (as per our discussion of the census)

Atlantic orientation in 1790s:

• Original 13 states -- about 300,000 sq miles of settled territory/ 800,000 to Mississippi
• But most of 4,000,000 in 1790 within 20 miles of Atlantic or tributary
• Links were primarily by sea -- no original 13 without access to Atlantic (NH tight);--could sail from Portland Maine to Savannah Georgia
• A slab [parallelogram] facing the Atlantic and pointed to Europe -- and Caribbean

Louisiana:

• US interested in securing access to mouth of Missisippi
• Offer to buy New Orleans -- Robert Livingston (KC 1774) -- deaf/couldn't speak French; James Monroe sent to help with negotiations
• Napoleon/Talleyrand -- Offer to sell Louisiana
  • 800,000 sq miles west of Mississippi /south of Missouri
  • 200,000 population including Indians, Spanish and French
• 1803 -- Jefferson makes the Louisiana Purchase
  • authorizes exploration in search of water route to pacific -- Meriwther Lewis/William Clark 1804-1806:
    • The Lewis & Clark Expedition as Viewed from Jefferson's Monticello
    • Lewis and Clark Journals

Westward expansion and its consequences:

• made settlement of the West the principal project of the republic for the next century /  Turned the faces of Americans around, from looking out across the Atlantic to looking westward across the rest of America.
  • Jefferson's triumph -- Distrustful of Europe, crowded cities, maritime commerce/navies
• The west offered Americans a century-long receding frontier -- unsettled land for the asking/grabbing (See  Frederick Jackson Turner -- "The Significance of the Frontier in American History")

Westward Expansion, Native Americans, and "Indian Removal":

• Indian Removal: A Timeline
• Andrew Jackson on Indian Removal in his second annual message to Congress (December 6, 1830), and on A Permanent Habitation for the American Indians in his seventh annual message to Congress (December 7, 1835).
• The Removal Act of 1830
• "The Cherokee Memorials" (Norton Anthology, pages 996-1005)
• Statements by James Monroe and Edward Everett on United States Indian Policy
• Cherokee Nation v. The State of Georgia, 1831 (This is a concise edited version. For full texts of the various legal materials, see Cherokee Nation v. The State of Georgia, 1831.)
• Worcester v. The State of Georgia, 1832. (Again, this is a concise edited version. For full texts of the various legal materials, see Worcester v. The State of Georgia, 1832.)