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HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA



Steps to independence: AD 1775-1776

Events during 1775 should leave the British government in no doubt as to the strength of the resentment felt by their American colonists. The engagements at Lexington and Bunker Hill provide a powerful display of military confidence, while the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia demonstrates a strong political resolve. So there are hopes in some quarters that parliament in Britain might now adopt a more conciliatory tone. But any such prospect is dashed by the British declaration, in August 1775, that the American colonies are in a state of rebellion. This is followed in November by a Prohibitory Act instituting a naval blockade of the American coastline.

Meanwhile the congress in Philadelphia is still in session. It is carrying out the practical activities associated with government - organizing public finances, issuing money, running a postal service, placing orders for munitions, even commissioning the first colonial navy.

Increasingly, during these months, colonists are coming to the view that a complete break from Britain may be the only way forward. In May 1776 the revolutionary convention of Virginia votes for independence and instructs the Virginia delegation to present this motion to the Continental Congress. Early in June, in Philadelphia, a small committee is set up to draft a declaration of independence. Its five members include Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. The task of composing the document is left to Jefferson. It is passed on June 12 as the Virginia Declaration of Rights.

This powerful move towards independence comes to a head in early July. In the month between July 2 and August 2 the final break is proposed, proclaimed and eventually signed as the Declaration of Independence.

Declaration of Independence: AD 1776

The real date of American independence from Britain is 2 July 1776 - the day on which Virginia's resolution is put to the congress of thirteen colonies and is passed 'unanimously' (though New York in fact abstains). The resolution states uncompromisingly: 'That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be totally dissolved.'

Jefferson's document is already to hand, expressing this stark political fact in more philosophical terms. It is presented to the congress two days later.

In his Declaration of Independence Jefferson affirms political theories which have been current since Locke argued (in support of the Revolution of 1688) that the legitimacy of government is based on the consent of the governed. In Jefferson's resounding words: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness' and that 'to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed'.

Congress accepts this document on July 4. Its inspirational quality rightly makes that the date of America's Independence Day.

On July 9 the text of the Declaration of Independence is declaimed in public before George Washington's army, now defending New York. Taking this as the necessary act of public proclamation, the congress orders on July 19 that an appropriate document shall now be prepared. The text begins to be written on a large piece of parchment.

By August 2 it is ready to be signed. The signing is fairly haphazard. Those who happen to be at the congress on that day sign it, though several of them were not present when it was voted through on July 4. Signatures of absent delegates continue to be added into 1777.

The first to sign the Declaration is John Hancock (causing his name later to become a slang term for a signature). While the delegates sign, Benjamin Franklin makes a famous observation - as alarmingly true as it is witty. He points out that they are putting their names to a document which, if they lose the war, will be deemed highly seditious. 'We must indeed all hang together,' says Franklin. 'Or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately'.

Within a few months of Franklin's remark the prospects look very bleak indeed. George Washington loses New York to the British and retreats towards Philadelphia with a severely depleted army.

New York, Philadelphia and Saratoga: AD 1776-1777

George Washington's defence of New York in 1776 and subsequently of Philadelphia in 1777 do not rank among his successes. In a series of engagements between August and November 1776 he is driven first from Long Island and then from Manhattan Island with heavy losses of men (mainly captured rather than killed).

On his retreat southwards in midwinter, with an army of only about 6000, he achieves two psychologically important victories by surprise attacks on isolated sections of the British army at Trenton and then at Princeton. These successes raise the colonial morale, and help Washington to recruit more forces. But they are followed by a further disaster in 1777.

Philadelphia, as the first city of America and the seat of the Continental Congress, has great symbolic importance. Intent on capturing it, Howe brings his army down from New York by sea in the summer of 1777, landing them at the head of Chesapeake Bay. Washington attempts to block their progress to Philadelphia but is severely defeated in a battle at Brandywine (in which the 20-year-old Lafayette fights bravely and is wounded, marking the first appearance of the hero of two revolutions). The congress delegates make a hurried escape from Philadelphia, which the British enter in triumph in September.

Yet the triumph proves hollow. In the same month another British army, under John Burgoyne, is in trouble north of Albany.

Burgoyne has made a difficult march south from Quebec as part of a strategy to join up with Howe, moving north from New York. The plan is to isolate the New England colonies. But Howe has instead gone south to Philadelphia. Burgoyne is unsupported, short of food and ammunition. After defeat in two battles near Saratoga, in September and October 1777, he surrenders to a larger American force under Horatio Gates.

Less than 6000 men are involved, but the propaganda benefit to the colonial cause is incalculable. Indeed Saratoga can be seen as the turning point in the war. The surrender of an entire British army to rebellious colonists attracts the serious attention of a nation with no love for Britain. France begins to negotiate an American alliance.

The international phase: AD 1778-1781

A French treaty with the colonists is agreed in February 1778 and two months later a large French fleet sails for America. In the following year, in the established tradition of Bourbon family compacts, France persuades a reluctant Spain to join the fray (as the major colonial power in America, Spain is understandably wary of taking up arms on behalf of rebels).

These developments transform the war between Britain and the colonists. Up to this point the British have been able to ship troops and supplies across the Atlantic with no obstacle other than the elements. Now there are hostile French and Spanish fleets to contend with.

There is even the unexpected affront of warships from the infant American navy sailing from French ports to carry out raids on the coastal regions of Britain. The first American naval hero, John Paul Jones, makes successful sorties in the spring of 1778 and the autumn of 1779, seizing British vessels and launching sudden raids inland. The second voyage ends with the dramatic encounter between the Bonhomme Richard and the Serapis off Flamborough Head.

But the new French alliance has its greatest effect on military strategy in America. The main strategic aim of both sides, from 1778 to the end of the war, is to ensure that armies are well placed to receive naval support.

The first dramatic example of this is the sudden British departure from Philadelphia in 1778. Advance news of the expected arrival of the French fleet in the Chesapeake is enough to terrify the British, facing the possible prospect of being cut off in hostile territory without any source of supplies. They leave the city and march northeast to greater safety in New York.

This setback, combined with stalemate in the northern colonies, prompts a new British strategy - that of moving troops south by sea to attack the weaker southern colonies. But, after some striking initial successes, this is the campaign which eventually loses the war for Britain.

In December 1778 a British expeditionary force of 3500 men from New York lands in Georgia and captures Savannah. During 1779 the British win control of the whole of Georgia. In 1780, after shipping more troops to the region, they move into South Carolina. Charleston is taken in May 1780, and some 5000 American troops are captured in the city, after a siege of more than a month by both land and sea.

From this point the British, under the command now of Charles Cornwallis, face increasingly strong opposition as they press on into North Carolina. There are numerous bitterly fought skirmishes, often in the nature of civil war, because the Loyalists in this region are very active in support of the British.

Yorktown: AD 1781

The final result of the campaigns of 1780 and 1781 is that Cornwallis presses too far north, deep into Virginia, and finds himself isolated. He moves his army to Yorktown, at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, and sets about fortifying this position as one where he can survive until relieved by a fleet from New York.

Meanwhile George Washington has been waiting to mount a joint operation with the French navy. Seeing his chance in the plight of Cornwallis, he arranges a rendezvous in the Chesapeake with the admiral commanding a French fleet in the West Indies. He then marches an army south through New Jersey and embarks them on ships in Delaware Bay for transport to Williamsburg, a few miles west of Yorktown.

By the end of September 1781 Washington is besieging Yorktown with an army of about 14,000 men (including 5000 French troops) and the French fleet is completing the blockade by sea. With no practical hope of any relief from New York, Cornwallis surrenders on October 19.

This effectively brings to an end the war of the American Revolution. The European nations continue to scrap at sea (Spain takes Minorca back from the British in 1782), but Yorktown is the last engagement of the war in America. The British drag their heels in evacuating their two prizes of the campaign - they remain in Charleston until November 1782 and in New York until October 1783. By then a peace treaty has been signed in Paris.

Independence achieved: AD 1783

The treaty signed in Paris on 3 September 1783 brings the American Revolution to its successful conclusion. The American commissioners in the negotiations (Benjamin Franklin and John Adams among their number) win extremely good terms for the new nation. Its independence is acknowledged without reservation, and its agreed frontiers are unexpectedly generous.

To the coastal strip of the thirteen colonies is now added the entire region west as far as the Mississippi and north to the Great Lakes. This was the area bitterly fought over between Britain and France in 1754-60. It now falls to the colonists as an immensely rich area available for westward expansion.

United States of America: AD 1783-1789

The peace treaty of 1783 establishes the thirteen united colonies as a joint entity whose independence is internationally recognized. The colonies have in recent years more often described themselves as states. The United States of America is therefore formally in existence. But how united is it to be? And in what form?

These crucial questions dominate the 1780s. A first attempt to answer them is ratified by the thirteen states in March 1781 under the title Articles of Confederation. The articles treat each colony as virtually a sovereign state, making the task of congress - which plays the role of the federal government - almost impossible. It has no real power to demand either troops or funds from individual states.

These problems are exacerbated during the 1780s by economic crisis (in a widespread postwar depression), by inflation resulting from the liberal issue of paper money, and by a mood of unrest and anarchy expressed in extreme form in an uprising of farmers, led by Daniel Shays in 1786 against the state government of Massachusetts (eventually requiring 4000 militiamen to suppress it).

In this atmosphere the success of the revolution seems in danger of being jeopardized. Reluctant though many of the states are to accept any restraint on their powers, it is eventually agreed that there shall be a convention in Philadelphia in May 1787 to consider improvements to the constitution.

When the delegates arrive (from twelve states only, because Rhode Island stays away), George Washington is chosen to preside over the assembly. It is quickly decided that a new constitution is required, rather than a modified version of the Articles of Confederation, but debate soon throws up the first stumbling block. Should the voting power in the proposed two legislative assemblies be equal for each state or vary according to population?

The solution, known as the Great Compromise, is suggested by the Connecticut delegation. They propose that in the lower chamber (the House of Representatives) voting strength will vary. In the upper one (the Senate) each state will have the same representation.

The mood of compromise in this decision, which has held good ever since, is shown in many other areas during four months of deliberation. Much of the dispute is commercially based, in matters of interstate trade. As in any such negotiation, settlements are made.

One topic is both commercial and moral - the question of slavery. Slaves are an important part of the southern economy but are relatively few in the northern states. On the most controversial issue, the Atlantic slave trade, a temporary compromise is reached; it is agreed that it shall not be the subject of any federal law for the next twenty years.

When the text of the proposed constitution is finally agreed and signed, on 17 September 1787, the delegates share a farewell dinner at the City Tavern in Philadelphia before returning to present the text to the conventions of their own states. It has been agreed that ratification by nine states (two thirds of the total) will be enough to bring the constitution into effect. By the end of July 1788 eleven states have voted in favour (North Carolina and Rhode Island withhold their approval until the federal government is in existence). The constitution has passed formally into law when it is ratified by the ninth state (New Hampshire) on June 21.

The electors from every state choose George Washington as the first president. He is inaugurated in New York, on Wall Street, on 30 April 1789.

Bill of Rights: AD 1791

With the passing of the constitution into law, in 1788, the United States becomes the first nation ever to write, from the start, its own system of law and government. By the same token it is a natural step to alter the model if desirable improvements become evident.

When the state conventions debate the proposed constitution, in 1788, it is argued by many that it does not provide sufficient safeguard for the rights of the individual. In view of this criticism the inaugural congress invites James Madison to draft suitable amendments. He provides twelve, of which ten are adopted.

These first ten amendments to the constitution, ratified in December 1791, become known collectively as the Bill of Rights. The prevailing theme is the protection of the individual against oppressive authority.

Thus the first amendment guarantees freedom of religion and of speech. Others protect citizens from state intrusion on their private property, or specify their rights in a court of law (as, in the fifth amendment, not to have to give evidence against oneself). The second amendment, controversial in the 20th century, guarantees the right to carry arms but backs this up with a specifically 18th-century argument - that the state needs the services of a militia.

Amendments have been added from time to time ever since. Some of them draw the line conclusively between one period of history and another, as in the thirteenth amendment outlawing slavery after the American Civil War. Some (such as the twenty-first amendment on the question of alcohol) even countermand earlier ones.

In the world's first written constitution, with its system of amendments, the founding fathers of the American state provide an admirably flexible manner in which a nation can adjust to the times while retaining a bedrock of shared and known values.

The Northwest Territory: AD 1787-1795

The area south of the Great Lakes, scene of much of the action in the French and Indian War, is the first trouble spot to demand the attention of the newly independent United States. Under the terms of the treaty of Paris, in 1783, Britain has to surrender all the forts in the region. But the British drag their feet in departing from strategic sites such as Detroit.

By doing so, they remain in close contact with the Indian tribes of the Ohio region. The British encourage Indian resistance to American encroachment, hoping to create a buffer zone to the south of British North America, or Canada. But British encouragement of the Indians is misleading. It is not transformed into practical assistance.

Before independence four colonies (Virginia, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts) have claims under their original charters to parts of the Ohio region. During the 1780s they cede these claims to the federal government. In 1787 Congress defines the region as the Northwest Territory. All land within it is to be sold in lots, either to individuals or companies.

It is expected that as many as five states will eventually emerge from this area. Meanwhile separate parts of it are to be administered as territories. Once a territory has a population of 60,000 free inhabitants, it will have the right to draw up a state constitution and to enter the union on equal terms with the original thirteen states.

These careful proposals pay scant attention to the interests of the Indians. They rely on disputed treaties, virtually imposed on the tribes by American delegates in 1784-5 and rapidly repudiated by the Indians themselves. In 1789 the government builds Fort Washington (the kernel of the future Cincinnati) on the north bank of the Ohio river. Meanwhile violent Kentucky frontiersmen have been creating mayhem in raids on Indian villages.

The result is equally violent reprisals, led by the chiefs of the Miami and Shawnee tribes who are determined to keep the American intruders south of the Ohio river.

Two expeditions sent by George Washington against the tribes are complete disasters. The second, in 1791, is led by a personal friend of Washington, Arthur St Clair. His 1400 men are surprised by the Indians at dawn in their camp beside the Maumee river. Three hours later more than 600 are dead and nearly 300 seriously wounded. Indian casualties are 21 killed and 40 wounded. It is one of the worst days in US military history.

The Americans have their revenge in 1794, once again in the region of the Maumee, when an army commanded by Anthony Wayne defeats a force of Shawnees and other tribes at a woodland location which becomes known as Fallen Timbers.

In the aftermath of Fallen Timbers, representatives of the defeated tribes assemble for peace talks in Fort Greenville in 1795. Their leaders accept a treaty which cedes to the United States much of present-day Ohio.

This concession, giving the green light to a surge of new land speculation and settlement, is only the first of many in the region. Eventually the Northwest Territory yields five states, joining the union between 1803 and 1848 (Ohio 1803, Indiana 1816, Illinois 1818, Michigan 1837, Wisconsin 1848). In the early years, until 1813, Indian resistance to this encroachment is gallantly continued by Tecumseh. But the beginning of the National Road in 1811 is a powerful sign of American determination to open up the region.

A new capital city: AD 1790-1800

In the early years of the nation the congress is a peripatetic body, meeting in as many as eight different cities of which Philadelphia, Baltimore and New York are merely the best known. But it is already recognised that a fixed seat of government is a necessity, and that a federal authority legislating for all the thirteen states should not be resident in any one of them.

The most appropriate site would be on a navigable waterway, roughly in the middle of the nation's long Atlantic seaboard. By 1790 the Potomac has been agreed upon. In 1791 George Washington selects an area of the specified size (ten miles square) straddling the river. The United States settles down to the task of creating the world's first custom-built capital city.

Washington employs a French architect, Pierre Charles L'Enfant, to choose locations for the main public buildings and to suggest an overall layout for the city. It is L'Enfant who selects what becomes known as Capitol Hill for the site of congress, and a south-facing ridge as the place where the 'presidential palace' will be built.

Competitions are launched to select designs for the two buildings. William Thornton is the winner for the Capitol (of which Washington lays the cornerstone in 1793) and a plan by James Hoban is chosen for the presidential residence.

Both buildings are sufficiently far advanced by 1800 for the seat of government to move in that year from Philadelphia (where congress has led a stable existence since 1790) to the city which has already been named Washington. Only one administrative block is ready, in the form of a red-brick building to house the treasury. The contrast between this and the nearby presidential residence, built in a light-grey limestone, prompts the first informal use of the term White House.

Later the president's dwelling lives more precisely up to its name, when it is rebuilt (to the original design) and is painted white after being severely damaged in the war of 1812.

The emergence of parties: AD 1789-1800

The unanimous election of George Washington in 1789, receiving the vote of every single state elector, is repeated when he stands in 1792 for a second term. But this is the last occasion when there is any such consensus, and in 1796 he resists all pressure to stand for a third term. Instead, on September 19 of that year, he delivers an influential Farewell Address in which he outlines his vision for the nation's future.

Party strife begins to emerge during Washington's first term, and it has its roots within his own small cabinet - in a severe difference of opinion between the secretary of the treasury, Alexander Hamilton, and the secretary of state, Thomas Jefferson. The issue between them is disagreement over the amount of power which should be wielded by the federal government. Controversy centres in particular on the Bank of the United States, created by Hamilton in 1791.

Hamilton's bank, modelled on the Bank of England, has the power to issue notes and government bonds and thus to manage the national debt. Indeed Hamilton is immediately able to revitalize the economy by redeeming at full value the outstanding bonds of the heavily indebted individual states.

This strengthening of the federal government's power offends the libertarian principles of Jefferson, who is committed to protecting the rights of the separate states of the union. The clash between the two men, which becomes intense from 1791, is reflected also in their views on foreign policy. Hamilton is pro-British, Jefferson is excited by the ideals of republican France.

The parties which form around the two men acquire appropriate names. The term for Hamilton's faction exists already. He and two colleagues have written a series of eighty-five newspaper essays in 1787-8, during the debate on the constitution, under the title The Federalist. These have argued for a strong central government. Hamilton's followers become the Federalists.

Jefferson's supporters (among whom James Madison is prominent) are by 1792 calling themselves Republicans. This not only reflects their French leaning (which their opponents emphasize by calling them Democratic-Republicans, a name which has stuck). It also consciously implies that President Washington, who likes to wear court dress and to ride in a coach and six, is behaving in too monarchical a fashion.

In the election of 1796, when party organization is in its infancy, the electoral system still has all the candidates running for the post of president and vice-president alike, with the offices going to the first and second in the race. (The 12th amendment to the constitution, in 1804, introduces separate presidential and vice-presidential contests.) The result in 1796 is that a Federalist, John Adams, and a Republican, Thomas Jefferson, become respectively president and vice-president.

Subsequently both offices always go to the same party, and from 1800 it is the Republicans who prevail. Jefferson is president for two terms (1801-9), followed by Madison for two (1809-17) and Monroe for two (1817-25).


The easy transfer of presidential power between the political parties on Jefferson's election proves conclusively that the American republic has pioneered a successful working democracy, very different from the violent upheavals of French politics or the corruption of the unreformed British model.

This democracy is still based on a restricted franchise, and the leading politicians are all from a small leisured and landed class (the most distinguished among them, Washington and Jefferson, being southern slave owners). But more than anywhere else in the world at this time, the new American system points the way towards a fully democratic future.

Freedom of the seas: AD 1793-1812

The first international crisis to confront the young republic derives from the even newer republic on the other side of the Atlantic. In 1793 France, after executing Louis XVI, is at war with several European powers including Britain. Warfare between the French and the British will continue almost without interruption for the next twenty years.

As close neighbours of the United States in their West Indian colonies, and as the two main Atlantic powers of the period, France and Britain inevitably damage neutral America in their struggle. Each warring nation tries to stifle any traffic entering the other's harbours, to the detriment of America's maritime trade.

When it becomes evident that complete neutrality will be hard to maintain, differences of opinion emerge as to which side America should favour. The more conservative leaders, including Alexander Hamilton and George Washington himself, assume that the link with Britain remains strong - in spite of the recent war of independence and Britain's vindictive exclusion of America, since 1783, from the markets of other British colonies.

Others, among them Thomas Jefferson, incline strongly to France, seeing the republic as the beacon of a new Europe liberated from the rule of reactionary monarchs.

In the early years of the war Washington's view prevails. His envoy to London in 1794, John Jay, agrees a treaty which restores the semblance of friendship between America and Britain. In retaliation the French begin to sink merchant ships flying the American flag.

An effort to improve relations with France - made by Washington's successor as president, John Adams, in 1797 - ends disastrously. Adams sends ministers to negotiate a treaty to protect US shipping. On arrival in Paris they are approached by three agents who ask for a bribe of $250,000 dollars for Talleyrand, and a loan of $10 million to France, as a suitable sweetener before discussions begin. The envoys immediately set sail for home.

News of these French proceedings causes outrage in America when made public in 1798 (the incident becomes known as the XYZ Affair, because the report replaces the name of the French agents with those letters). The resulting measures include controversial Alien and Sedition Acts, and the recall of Washington from retirement to command a rapidly enlarged army. These steps put the nation almost on a war footing against France. But over the coming years it is the relationship with Britain which fragments.

British control of the seas is steadily tightened in the fight against Napoleon, with no consideration shown to neutral vessels. American shipping in the Atlantic is increasingly harried by the British navy.

Great offence is caused by British insistence on the right to waylay and search any American vessel on suspicion of British deserters being among the crew. An encounter in 1807 between two frigates, the British Leopard and the American Chesapeake, provokes particular outrage. The Chesapeake fires only one shot before surrendering, but suffers twenty-one casualties from a British cannonade.

On this occasion four alleged British deserters are taken off the Chesapeake. But identities are often hard to establish. Frequently American citizens are press-ganged in this way into the British navy (as many as 3800 during these years, it is calculated).

American trade is at the same time damaged by Britain's orders in council, which impose crippling restrictions on goods carried by neutral shipping (in response to Napoleon's similar continental system). Thomas Jefferson, president from 1801 to 1809, tries unsuccessfully to use economic pressure on Britain to force a change of policy.

His successor as president, James Madison, goes further. In a mood of exasperation, in 1811, he urges congress to prepare for war unless Britain finally revokes the orders in council.

War of 1812

The second of the two wars between Britain and America serves little purpose and reveals, in both its beginning and its end, the hazard of conflicts in an age of slow communication. The American declaration of war, travelling east in June 1812, crosses in the Atlantic with the news, coming west, that Britain has made the concession required for peace. And the most costly battle of the entire conflict, fought near New Orleans in January 1815, takes place two weeks after peace has been agreed in Ghent.

The main issue between the contestants is the damage inflicted on American trade by the British orders in council (it is these which are lifted by the British government in June 1812). But there is also a subsidiary reason for war.

The region south of the Great Lakes has long been a flash point for trouble, between the interests of the indigenous Indian tribes and rival European colonists. Warfare here has in the past involved Indians, British colonists and French colonists. Now the participants are Indians, the United States and British America (or Canada).

The mounting tension between the United States and Britain in the Atlantic coincides with the last great uprising of Indian tribes in the Ohio valley, led by the inspirational figure of Tecumseh. His struggle against the encroachment of American settlers becomes, from 1812, a part of the wider war - which includes naval conflict in several regions.

In the Atlantic, American ships acquit themselves well against British adversaries. This period is the heyday of the US frigate Constitution, affectionately known as 'Old Ironsides', whose heroic reputation derives from successes during 1812.

There is warfare too on the Great Lakes, a particularly sensitive area since the Americans are known to have designs on Canada. In an early encounter, in 1812, the British capture Detroit. Subsequently there are American naval victories on Lake Erie (1813) and Lake Champlain (1814).

In 1813 American forces press far enough north to reach Toronto, established as recently as 1793 to form the capital of the new province of Upper Canada. They burn the parliament buildings and the archives, providing the pretext for a very precise act of retaliation in the following year.

In 1814 a British force lands in Chesapeake Bay and enters the new American capital city of Washington, where construction also began in that same year of 1793. The British in their turn burn the Capitol and the president's house. By this time the superior power of the British navy has imposed a complete blockade on all American ports. An unnecessary war has reached the point of a necessary peace.

Negotiations begin in Ghent in August 1814 and are completed just before Christmas. The agreement makes no change in any existing border or previous treaty. The war has been in a very real sense for nothing, though the result leaves the United States with a renewed sense of confidence.

That confidence is reinforced by the most tragically pointless of battles. On 8 January 1815, two weeks after the agreement at Ghent, an army of 7000 British regulars attacks the same number of American volunteers under Andrew Jackson at New Orleans. The casualties, in a half-hour engagement, are 2000 British and just 71 Americans - a second patriotic victory in two years to boost Andrew Jackson's reputation.

Doubling the American nation: AD 1803-1819

During the Napoleonic wars, and as an indirect result of them, the territory of the United States is doubled. The immediate reason is Napoleon's half-hearted efforts to re-establish a French empire in the west, remembering the heady times half a century earlier when France laid claim to the entire vast region either side of the Mississippi.

The land to the east of the great river has been lost to Britain (and therefore subsequently to the United States) in the treaty of Paris in 1763. At the same time the unexplored and seemingly less valuable territory to the west of the river has been ceded by France to Spain. Though only half of the original French territory, it retains the name Louisiana.

In 1800 Napoleon forces an abject Spain to return Louisiana to France. In 1801 he takes a similarly resolute stance against the rebellion of Toussaint L'Ouverture in Haiti, sending out an army to restore order in this valuable French suguar-exporting colony. But by 1803 circumstances have diminished his appetite for western adventures.

In two years yellow fever reduces the French army in Haiti from 25,000 to 3000 men. At the same time the fragile peace of Amiens looks like breaking down. Needing money for a renewal of war against Britain, and fearing perhaps that the British might seize Lousiana for their own empire, Napoleon sells the entire region in 1803 to Thomas Jefferson's envoys in Paris.

The Louisiana Purchase has often and rightly been described as the greatest bargain in American history. The price for 828,000 square miles, more than doubling the previous size of the United States, is $15 million dollars. With interest, until the final settlement, the sum paid amounts in all to $27,267,622 - or thirty-three dollars a square mile.

Coincidentally preparations have recently been made in Washington for an expedition which will reveal, with a degree of scientific accuracy, just what is being purchased for the nation. Early in 1803 President Jefferson commissions Lewis and Clark to undertake their famous exploration, from the Mississippi to the Pacific and back.

The purchase of Louisiana has the added advantage of securing the port of New Orleans for the trading activities of the American settlers who are now beginning to flourish east of the Mississippi. If the mouth of the river were in hostile hands, these infant territories could easily be throttled.

For the same reason it is greatly in the US interest to win the coastline east from New Orleans. This is achieved in two stages. In 1813 the area known as West Florida is seized (to become the coastal region of Alabama), on the somewhat dubious grounds that it was in fact part of the Louisiana Purchase.


The Florida peninsula itself undoubtedly belongs to Spain, but American acquisition is simplified by the fact that Spain, during the War of 1812, is an ally of Britain in the European conflict against Napoleon. Andrew Jackson marches into Florida in 1812 but on this occasion has to withdraw. In 1818 he finds a reason to return (in pursuit of Indian parties raiding into Alabama). This time he seems set to stay.

The result is the Transcontinental Treaty of 1819, by which Spain sells Florida to the USA for $5 million and the waiving of any American claim to Texas. This agreement completes the establishment of new transcontinental borders for the American nation.

Transcontinental borders: AD 1818-1819

The Louisiana Purchase, and the rich opportunities suggested by the findings of the Lewis and Clark expedition, focus American minds on the west - with the Pacific now the boundary of the nation's ambitions. In this new context continuing struggles against the British in Canada or the Spanish in Mexico can only be a distraction. In both directions demarcation lines are agreed before 1820.

In 1817, just three years after the last hostilities between British and Americans on the Canadian border, the Rush-Bagot agreement establishes very low levels of naval armament as the maximum for either nation on any of the Great Lakes.

This first precautionary peace-keeping measure is followed a year later, in 1818, by the agreement which has held good ever since - that the frontier between the two nations will run west from Lake of the Woods along the 49th parallel.

At this stage the border is drawn only as far as the Rockies. The region west of the continental divide (as yet virtually unsettled at this latitude by Europeans) is regarded for the moment as shared territory between the two nations. In 1846 it is ceded to the USA by Britain, recognizing as a fait accompli the human reality of the Oregon Trail. Since then the frontier has continued along the 49th parallel all the way to the Pacific coast.

Meanwhile the Transcontinental Treaty of 1819 has established an extensive southern frontier for the USA It looks less logical than the straight line of the 49th parallel in the north, and it will later be subject to considerable adjustment, but for the moment it is a great benefit that it can at least be drawn on a map.

The new border runs from the Gulf of Mexico up the Sabine river, then goes west along the Red river, north up the 100th meridian, west along the Arkansas river, north up the Rockies and west along the 42nd parallel to the Pacific. With the territory north of this line acknowledged as theirs, Americans get down to the absorbing process of opening up the west. And they now have the confidence to put down an international marker.

The Monroe doctrine: AD 1823

During the early 1820s European intrusion on the American continent, or the threat of it, raises diplomatic hackles in the USA. In 1821 the Russian tsar issues a decree forbidding foreign vessels from approaching within 100 miles of his colony in Alaska. Two years later it seems very possible that Europe's Holy Alliance, an association of reactionary monarchies, will intervene to suppress the independence movements in Latin America.

In response to these circumstances James Monroe, in his message to congress in December 1823, expounds a firm principle of American foreign policy. It has been expressed by other presidents before him, but this is seen as the classic statement of what becomes known as the Monroe doctrine.

The Monroe doctrine is essentially an American communiqu» to Europe about non-intervention. It affirms that the United States has no intention of intervening in any European wars, but correspondingly warns the European powers against meddling in America.

Specifically Monroe states that the American continent is no longer to be considered a region in which European nations can establish new colonies; and that the use of force to keep existing colonies in subjection will be taken as 'the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition towards the United States'.

To some extent, at this early stage in the development of the continent's potential, there is an element of huffing and puffing about all this. It is some decades before the Monroe doctrine acquires its almost sacred character as a central plank of American foreign policy. And, like any such broad principle, its application is subtly modified with the passage of time.

Nevertheless it is a ringing and valid announcement that the United States is now the dominant power in the region. With this established, the Americans devote their energies to increasing their advantage. They do so by bringing under control the vast empty spaces to the west - empty, that is, except for the Indians who at every stage seem to frustrate the ambitions of white settlers.

The Cherokees and acculturation: AD 1796-1828

From the early days of the American nation it is government policy that the Indian tribes should be subjected to a process of 'civilization'. This description, implying improvement, is a highly subjective term for a process more accurately described by the clumsy but neutral word 'acculturation' - meaning the adoption by one group of the customs of another.

In 1796 George Washington selects the Cherokee Indians, living in the western regions of North Carolina and Georgia, for a pilot scheme in integration. He informs their leaders that government policy in relation to other tribes will depend on the success of this experiment.

Funds are provided for Cherokee education. The people of the tribe are shown how to build log cabins. The procedures of western agriculture are demonstrated. Missionaries arrive to explain the mysteries of Christianity.

During the three decades after the introduction of Washington's scheme, the Cherokee people rise magnificently to the challenge. Plantations are established on the southern model. Tribal leaders live on them in elegant two-storied houses. They ride around in carriages. They own slaves. In all this they seem to suggest that they too can be southern gentlemen. From 1819 they have a capital city of their own at New Echota, in northwest Georgia.

1828 is the year in which the Cherokee nation (the Indians' own preferred word for a tribe or people) seems most fully to transform itself into a nation in the western sense. A political constitution is adopted by the tribe. Based on the example of the American republic, it provides for an elected principal chief, a council consisting of two chambers, and a system of courts of law.

In the same year the Cherokees publish the first American Indian newspaper. Using a newly invented alphabet (attributed to Sequoyah), the Cherokee Phoenix is printed weekly in New Echota with adjacent columns in English and Cherokee.

Yet 1828 is the last good year for the Cherokees. Andrew Jackson, beginning his first term in the White House in 1829, is the first president to come from west of the Appalachians. He knows at first hand the aggressive land hunger of the frontier settlers, who view Indian lands to the immediate west as a present obstacle and future prize. He has little sympathy for the protective paternalism of his aristocratic predecessors in the office of president.

To make matters worse for the Cherokees, gold is discovered on their lands in 1829. Swarms of lawless prospectors arrive in their midst.

These events give added impetus to attempts, already initiated by the state government of Georgia, to annexe territory assigned by federal treaty to the Cherokees. State laws are passed in 1829 making it illegal for Cherokees to mine gold, to testify against a white man and to hold political assemblies (except for the single purpose of ceding land).

It is the ultimate misfortune for the Cherokees, and for other tribes in their position, that the mood of Georgia is now reflected in the White House.

The Indian Removal Act: AD 1830-1839

In 1830 congress passes President Jackson's Indian Removal Act. It provides for treaties to be made with the Indian tribes if they can be persuaded to exchange their land west of the Appalachians for territory beyond the Mississippi.

Persuasian soons blends into coercion, even though the Cherokees - the most developed of the tribes - take their case with considerable success to the Supreme Court in Washington. The chief justice, John Marshall, rules that the Indian tribes are a federal responsiblity, meaning that any appropriation of Cherokee land by the state of Georgia is illegal. But President Jackson takes no steps to impose this interpretation of the law upon Georgia.

During the 1830s the situation worsens. In 1833 the state of Georgia raises funds by holding a lottery of seized Cherokee property, including even the government buildings of New Echota. Eventually one faction of the Cherokee leadership signs a treaty selling the Cherokee lands to Georgia and agreeing to move west by 1838. The Cherokee council unanimously rejects the treaty, but the senate in Washington ratifies it.

By 1838 the Cherokees have not moved. In that year federal troops are sent to Georgia to enforce the removal of the Indians. The Cherokees are rounded up into camps and are then despatched under guard on a long march to the west.

Of 18,000 Cherokees displaced from their traditional lands in this way, it is calculated that as many as 4000 fail to survive what becomes known as the Trail of Tears to the area now designated as Indian Territory.

Neighbours of the Cherokee are moved at the same time. The chief victims are four other southeastern tribes (Chickasaw, Choctaw, Seminole and Creek) who have also adopted many of the white man's customs. They are described by American settlers, together with the Cherokee, as the Five Civilized Tribes. Their enforced migration in the late 1830s becomes known as the Great Removal. It is calculated that about 100,000 are driven from their land, and that more than 20,000 die on the journey west.

The broad plains of the new Indian Territory are promised to the tribes as their own land 'as long as the grass grows and the rivers run'. But within a few decades the pressure of white settlement sends this agreement the way of earlier treaties. As it turns out, the grass grows and the rivers run only until 1907. By that time so many homesteads have encroached on the Indian Territory that the region is admitted to the union as Oklahoma, the 46th state.

In the slave trade and the Great Removal, the story of America contains two of the three main instances of large ethnic groups being forcibly resettled thousands of miles from home. (Stalin, in the USSR in the 1930s, provides the third.)

Jacksonian democracy: AD 1829-1837

The eight years of Andrew Jackson's presidency are a turning point in American political history, introducing what is often described as Jacksonian democracy. They also introduce a new kind of president.

In democratic terms the difference is a new electorate. From the start of the republic, the terms of the franchise have been left to each state. Most states, in the early years, have stringent property qualifications. A few even combine these with religious restrictions. But gradually the original states begin to reduce the level of property required of an elector. Meanwhile most of the new states entering the union do so with what passes at the time for universal suffrage.

The result is that by 1828, the year in which Jackson is elected, adult white males have the vote in almost every state without consideration of property. A new kind of American is voting, and the new voters recognize in Jackson a new kind of presidential candidate.

The six presidents up to this point have all come from the small political world of the founding fathers of the republic, even indeed from the two most historic colonies. Virginia is the home state of Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe, while Adams father and son come from Massachusetts. Such men spend their careers in state and federal politics. They seem born to govern.

By contrast Andrew Jackson is a self-made lawyer and entrepreneur. Born in the western region of North Carolina, he moves further west as a young man to the frontier settlement of Nashville where he makes his name as an attorney. In 1796 he is one of the group drafting a constitution for the new state of Tennessee.

Jackson remains a prominent figure in Tennessee, but only intermittently in a political role. He first makes a wider name for himself as a major general in the Tennessee militia, defeating the Creek Indians at Horseshoe Bend in 1814. Less than a year later he far surpasses this achievement with his victory over the British near New Orleans.

Jackson's aggressive role in the 1819 acquisition of Florida adds to his stature as a national hero. Yet at the same time his origins make him seem a man of the people, an average American. His success is of a kind with which voters can identify. Although he has only a tenuous connection with politics, he begins to be seen as a presidential candidate.

Jackson nearly wins in 1824 and does so in 1828, after a national campaign of unprecedented vigour and unscrupulous trading of insults and slander between the candidates. With a new style of president, a new kind of politics has emerged in pursuit of the popular vote. It is one requiring well-oiled political machines.

The re-emergence of parties: AD 1828-1854

The dominance of three successive Republican presidents over twenty-four years (Jefferson, Madison and Monroe, 1801-25) means that party spirit subsides and the Federalists wither away. But the election of 1824 brings bitter factionalism within the Republican party (also known, to avoid subsequent confusion, as the Jeffersonian Republicans).

The party splits. One half, the National Republicans, supports John Quincy Adams, who wins the 1824 presidential election in spite of coming second both in the popular vote and the electoral college (deals made in the House of Representatives bring him the victory). The other half, led by the bitterly resentful loser Andrew Jackson, becomes implacably opposed as the Democratic-Republican party.

Winning in 1828, at his second attempt, Jackson sets about shaping his Democratic-Republican party into an effective campaigning organization. Its first national convention, held in 1832, adopts him as the party's candidate for a second presidential term with Martin Van Buren as his running mate for vice-president.

A national convention of this kind during each presidential campaign becomes a central feature of American political life. In their convention of 1840 the Democratic Republicans simplify their name, calling themselves now the Democratic party. Thus the Democrats emerge from the original Republican party, and survive to this day as the older partner in America's two-party system.

The very first national conventions, also held for the 1832 election, slightly predate the Democratic-Republican gathering. Two groups of Jackson's opponents choose their presidential candidates by this method during 1831. Members of the Antimasonic party convene in September in Baltimore. They are followed in the same city in December by the National Republican party.

Neither of these new parties survives for long. But the opponents of Andrew Jackson combine more effectively from 1834 as a newly created Whig party.

Jackson's strong presidential rule has caused him to become mockingly known as King Andrew, and the name Whig suggests in English history the humbling of monarchy. In this the American Whigs have a certain degree of success (they win the presidential elections of 1840 and 1848), but they splinter on the great issue of slavery.

In 1854 many Whigs become founder members of a new group which revives the term Republican as a party name. The anti-slavery ticket makes the new party immediately successful in the north, and its reputation is consolidated during the presidency of Abraham Lincoln. America acquires the second of its two modern parties.

Into the Midwest: AD 1803-1848

The steady expansion of American territory to the west can be seen, like squares being occupied in a board game, in the granting of statehood to new regions during the first half of the 19th century.

The first state admitted to the union in the new century is Ohio, in 1803. That leaves the western boundary of the United States as a jagged but continuous line from the southwest tip of Lake Erie to the southwest tip of Georgia, almost on the Gulf of Mexico. But settler families are now constantly bumping along the rough trails in their Conestoga wagons towards a further frontier, seeking somewhere to till the land, to establish recognized new territories, and eventually to prosper to the point where their community can apply for statehood.

During the half-century from 1803 states are admitted to the union in this sequence: Louisiana 1812, Indiana 1816, Mississippi 1817, Illinois 1818, Alabama 1819, Missouri 1821, Arkansas 1836, Michigan 1837, Texas 1845, Iowa 1846, Wisconsin 1848. By now this process of expansion is dignified by a slogan. It is America's 'manifest destiny'.

The frontier of 1848 stretches south, again in a straggly line, from Lake Superior to the Rio Grande and the Gulf of Mexico. Adjacent territories will continue to be claimed as states (Minnesota 1858, Kansas 1861). But this year of 1848 also brings a much more sudden and dramatic increase in US territory. The reason is the Mexican War, a conflict with its origins in Texas.

Texas: AD 1821-1836

From the 16th century Texas, though much neglected, has been a northern region of Spanish Mexico, or New Spain. It is formally recognized as such in the border agreement of 1819, when any US claims to the territory are relinquished. Just two years later Mexico wins independence from Spain.

Later in 1821 a 27-year-old American, Stephen Austin, arrives in Texas with 300 families to establish a settlement. They are the first of many. By the early 1830s there are some 30,000 Americans in Texas and only about 7000 Mexicans. Friction would be inevitable in these circumstances, but it is aggravated by the issue of slavery.

The Americans, from the southern states, bring slaves to work the cotton plantations which they establish. The republican government of Mexico, outlawing slavery, places garrisons in Texas in an attempt to discipline the unruly colonists.

In 1835 the colonists rise in rebellion and capture San Antonio. The town is recovered in March 1836 by the Mexican commander, Santa Anna, apart from one building - the Alamo, an old Franciscan chapel in a walled complex, which is held by fewer than 200 Texans (among them Davy Crockett). In the most famous event of early Texan history, the defenders hold out for twelve days and account for 1000 or more Mexicans before themselves being overwhelmed and killed.

The fall of the Alamo is followed by a massacre at Goliad where 300 Texan soldiers, surrendering after a battle, are killed in cold blood on the orders of Santa Anna. The settlers have recently declared their independence, as the republic of Texas. It is a claim soon sealed by a convincing victory.

In April 1836 Sam Houston surprises Santa Anna's army taking a siesta near the San Jacinto river. In a brief skirmish his men kill 600 and capture another 200, including Santa Anna. With this event the tide turns. Mexico makes no further effort to suppress the Texan rebellion, while nevertheless denying the independence of the self-proclaimed republic - of which Houston is elected president.

In the United States, on the other hand, the new republic is immediately recognized. There is also a widespread feeling that Texas should be included in the union, as the colonists themselves wish. In the 1844 presidential campaign the Democratic candidate, James Polk, is elected on a platform supporting the annexation of Texas. In 1845 congress admits the Texan republic (by now home to 140,000 Americans) as the 28th state of the union, regardless of Mexico's undeniable claim to the region.

This in itself would be sufficient pretext for war. Another likely cause, unadmitted, is President Polk's yearning for yet more of Mexico - rich California. And there is also an unresolved dispute over the boundary of Texas.

American and Mexican War: AD 1846-1848

The Americans in Texas claim that the southern boundary of their province is the Rio Grande. The Mexicans maintain that it is the Nueces river, more than 100 miles to the north. War breaks out in 1846 when President Polk sends an American army under Zachary Taylor into the disputed region, prompting the Mexicans to take the same step in retaliation.

Taylor makes little progress into northern Mexico beyond the city of Monterrey, which he captures in September 1846. During that winter Polk tries another tactic. He sends an American army under Winfield Scott by sea to the Gulf of Mexico.

In March 1847 Scott takes the port of Veracruz after a three-week siege. He then marches inland and defeats Santa Anna (once again serving as Mexico's president) at Cerro Gordo. Though strongly opposed in the mountainous terrain, he reaches Mexico City. He enters the capital in September.

The resulting treaty, signed in Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, gives Polk all that he has hoped for. In return for a payment of $15 million, Mexico cedes to the USA the territory now forming the states of New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and California. With suitable forethought, during the course of the war, US forces have already occupied the only developed parts of this vast region, New Mexico and California.

The trail to Oregon, California and Utah: AD 1841-1850

The term Great Migration has been applied to two separate movements of people during the 1840s. One is the stream of immigrants drawn across the Atlantic to the land of liberty, headed by the Irish from 1845. The other is the move westwards by American pioneer families to settle the regions bordering the Pacific. This begins a little earlier. The Great Migration of 1843 establishes the fame of the Oregon Trail.

In the 1840s the most westerly region which can be considered a settled part of the United States is Missouri. It is here, in the aptly-named town of Independence, that brave and optimistic families assemble to prepare for the dangerous journey west.

In the early years Oregon is the destination. American missionaries, working there among the Indians from 1834, send home word of the region's rich potential. The first small group of families attempts the trail in 1841. Thirty-two people complete the journey safely, increasing Oregon's American population by 20%. They join missionaries and trappers who together number only about 150.

The Great Migration of 1843 is more ambitious. As many as 1000 people set off west guided by a Presbyterian missionary, Marcus Whitman. Their wagon wheels begin to mark out the route across the plains which becomes known as the Oregon Trail.

The Conestoga wagons on the open plains provide a romantic image, as the prairie schooners much loved by film directors in the 20th century. Soon there are a great many of them. The trail is about 2000 miles long and in places as much as ten miles wide, with the wagon drivers spreading out to avoid the dust and to find grazing for their horses, mules and cattle. In one summer, that of 1850, as many as 50,000 people make the journey, which lasts from four to six months.

The route goes northwest through the prairie to the Platte river. The wagons then follow the Northern Platte tributary (past Fort Laramie) before making their way to the Sweetwater river. Moving up this towards its source brings them to the South Pass through the Rockies.

Beyond the South Pass there are several alternative routes, but from 1847 only a minority of the wagons coming through the pass are headed for Oregon.

An increasing number of travellers are now Mormons, on their way to a safe haven near the Great Salt Lake in Utah. And from 1849 the trail is used by an unprecedented horde of wagons, moving now in feverish haste. Gold has been found in California. The new immigrants are the famous forty-niners. Of the 50,000 who swarm through the South Pass during 1850, as many as 40,000 are prospectors desperate to find their fortune.

The Mormons and Salt Lake City: AD 1846-1896

The Mormons' great trek to the west could hardly have started in worse circumstances. In February 1846 the first groups begin to cross the Mississippi, which is about a mile wide at Nauvoo. The river is freezing but not yet frozen. Several craft capsize, drowning their passengers. A few days later the river is covered in ice and wagons and animals can be driven across.

At last the entire expedition is over the river (they are travelling heavy with all their possessions, including 30,000 head of cattle) but progress is slow through marshy regions even after snow and torrential rain have given way to summer heat. It becomes evident to their leader, Brigham Young, that they must sit out the next winter beside the Missouri.

The place which they call Winter Quarters, on the west bank of the Missouri, becomes an established staging post. Here Mormon parties in later years prepare for the last stretch of the journey. After this first winter, of 1846-7, Brigham Young sets off again. His pioneers join the Oregon Trail at the Platte river, but they keep to the north bank - safely separate from the other 'gentile' immigrants moving along south of the stream.

By July 1847 the vanguard is through the South Pass andand into Salt Lake valley. Within a few months the rest of the group follow safely, some 1600 people. By 1869, when the railway arrives, about 80,000 have made the arduous journey in wagons or on foot from Winter Quarters.

Brigham Young selects the site for Salt Lake City before returning to Winter Quarters to bring out another group of Mormons in 1848. Meanwhile the ground is being marked out according to a plan for the city of Zion drawn up by Joseph Smith. The Temple is to be built at the centre of a rectangular grid of main streets forming large square lots, each of ten acres.

Founded as a religious community, the new Salt Lake City makes no distinction between church and state (in this respect even going beyond Calvin's Geneva). Districts are administered by leaders who are both bishop and magistrate. The highest executive body is the Council of the Twelve Apostles, of which Brigham Young is senior member for thirty years.

These circumstances give the Mormons of Salt Lake valley a strength unique among settlers. Those who arrive here combine the toughness of pioneers with the discipline and obedience of monks and nuns.

Under the strong leadership of Brigham Young small groups of families are sent into neighbouring regions to establish outposts of the Mormon community (similar to the settling of colonies in the early Roman republic). In these places, extending north into modern Idaho, ambitious programmes of irrigation are carried out. Riches are conjured from the desert. Non-Mormon pioneers, moving on further west, trade with the Saints for fresh produce on their journey.

As early as 1849 Brigham Young applies for his community to be admitted to the union as the state of Deseret (a word from the Book of Mormon meaning 'honeybee', to signify industry). Congress instead grants the status of a territory, under the name Utah.

During the next forty years there are frequent attempts to achieve statehood, but they founder on one issue - polygamy. It becomes public knowledge in 1852 that Joseph Smith had many wives and that the Mormons have made a religious principle of this practice. Brigham Young is said at first to have been averse to the idea of polygamy, but he overcomes his scruples quite convincingly. He becomes husband to seventy women and is survived by forty-seven children.

Such information is not well-received in the rest of the United States. Polygamy joins slavery as one of the great moral crusades of the time. Congress passes a succession of polygamy laws from 1862. Prosecutions, leading to fines and gaol sentences, are brought against selected polygamous families in Utah. Meanwhile the Mormon leadership conducts a lengthy legal campaign, arguing that these laws conflict with the religious liberty guaranteed by the Constitution.

Eventually a judgement by the US supreme court in 1890, reinforcing the p