Transcript Cortes & Montezuma, 1519

Chapter 8
The New Nation
MAP 8.1 The Ratification of the
Constitution, 1787–90 The distribution
of the vote for the ratification of the
Constitution demonstrated its wide
support in sections of the country linked
to the commercial economy, and its
disapproval in more remote and
backcountry sections. (Note that Maine
remained a part of Massachusetts until
admitted as a separate state in 1820.)
MAP 8.2 Spread of Settlement: The
Backcountry Expands 1770–90 From
1770 to 1790, American settlement
moved across the Appalachians for the
first time. The Ohio Valley became the
focus of bitter warfare between Indians
and settlers.
MAP 8.3 Spanish Claims to American Territory, 1783–95 Before 1795, the Spanish
claimed the American territory of the Old Southwest and barred Americans from access to the
port of New Orleans, effectively closing the Mississippi River. This dispute was settled by
Pinckney’s Treaty in 1795.
MAP 8.4 The Election of 1800 In the presidential election of 1800, Democratic Republican
victories in New York and the divided vote in Pennsylvania threw the election to Jefferson.
The combination of the South and these crucial Middle States would keep the Democratic
Republicans in control of the federal government for the next generation.
FIGURE 8.1 Postwar Inflation, 1777–80: The Depreciation of Continental Currency The
flood of Continental currency issued by Congress, and the shortage of goods resulting from
the British blockade, combined to create the worst inflation Americans have ever
experienced. Things of no value were said to be “not worth a Continental.”
SOURCE:John McCusker,“How Much Is That in Real Money?” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society , N.S.102 (1992):297 –359.
FIGURE 8.2 The Trade Deficit with Great Britain The American trade deficit with Great
Britain rose dramatically with the conclusion of the Revolution.
SOURCE:Historical Statistics of the United States (Washington,DC: Government Printing Office,1976),1176.
A mocking pamphlet of 1787 pictured Daniel Shays and Job Shattuck, two leaders of Shays’
Rebellion. The artist gives them uniforms, a flag, and artillery, but the rebels were actually an
unorganized group of farmers armed only with clubs and simple muskets. When the rebellion
was crushed, Shattuck was wounded and jailed, and Shays, along with many others, left
Massachusetts. He fled to a remote region of Vermont and then settled in New York.
SOURCE:National Portrait Gallery,Smithsonian Institution/Art Resource,NY.
George Washington presides
over a session of the
Constitutional Convention
meeting in Philadelphia’s
State House (now known as
Independence Hall) in an
engraving of 1799.
SOURCE:Free Library of Philadelphia.
A cartoon published in July 1788, when New York became the eleventh state to ratify the
Constitution. After initially voting to reject, North Carolina soon reconsidered, but radical and
still reluctant Rhode Island did not join the Union until 1790. SOURCE:Collection of The New York Historical Society.
Two coins from the first decade of the federal republic illustrate political controversies of the
period. The Washington cent was proposed by Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton in
1792, in the hope of enhancing popular respect for the new government by having the
president’s bust impressed on coins in the manner of European kings. But after long debate,
Congress defeated the plan, the opponents claiming it smacked of monarchy. The Liberty
coin, issued by the Mint of the United States in 1795, when under the authority of Secretary
of State Thomas Jefferson, features Liberty wearing a liberty cap and bearing a marked
resemblance to the French Revolutionary icon Marianne.
SOURCE:Smithsonian Institution,NNC,Douglas Mudd.
Alexander Hamilton (ca.
1804) by John Trumbull.
Although Hamilton’s fiscal
program was controversial, it
restored the financial health
of the United States.
SOURCE:The New York Historical Society.
Little Turtle, a war chief of the
Miami tribe of the Ohio valley,
led a large pan-Indian army to
victory over the Americans in
1790 and 1791. After his forces
were defeated at the Battle of
Fallen Timbers in 1794, he
became a friend of the United
States. This lithograph is a copy
of an oil portrait, which no
longer survives, by the artist
Gilbert Stuart.
SOURCE:Indiana Historical Society Library.
In this 1794 painting, President George Washington reviews some 13,000 troops at Fort
Cumberland on the Potomac before dispatching them to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion.
Washington’s mobilization of federal military power dramatically demonstrated the federal
commitment to the preservation of the Union and the protection of the western boundary.
SOURCE:Francis Kemmelmeyer,General George Washington Reviewing the Western Army at Fort Cumberland the 18th of October 1794, after 1794.Oil on paper backed with linen.Dimensions:18-1/8 x 23-1/8.Courtesy of
Winterthur Museum.
In this contemporary cartoon, Congressional Pugilists, Congress Hall in Philadelphia,
February 15, 1798, Roger Griswold, a Connecticut Federalist, uses his cane to attack
Matthew Lyon, a Vermont Democratic Republican, who retaliates with fire tongs. During the
first years of the American republic, there was little understanding of the concept of a “loyal
opposition,” and disagreement with the policy of the Federalist administration
was misconstrued as disloyalty. SOURCE:Collection of The New York Historical Society.
The presidential election of 1800 was the first to feature campaign advertising. “T. Jefferson,
President of the United States of America; John Adams—no more,” reads the streamer on
this election banner, illustrated with an American eagle and a portrait of Jefferson. This was
mild rhetoric in a campaign characterized by wild charges. The Republicans labeled Adams a
warmonger and a monarchist, while the Federalists denounced Jefferson as an atheist,
Jacobin, and sexual libertine. SOURCE:The Granger Collection.
In this self-portrait, American artist
Charles Willson Peale dramatically
lifts the curtain on his Philadelphia
Museum. Peale’s three sons—whom
he named after the artists Raphael,
Rembrandt, and Titian—and two of
his nieces—Anna and Sarah—also
became noted painters, constituting
something of a first family of
American art in the early years of
the new republic.
SOURCE:Charles Willson Peale,The Artist in His Museum,1822.Oil on
canvas,Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts,Philadelphia.Gift of
Mrs.Sarah Harrison.(The Joseph Harrison Jr.Collection.)
In this 1792 cartoon from the Lady’s Magazine,
the allegorical figure of “Columbia” receives a
petition for the “Rights of Woman.” In the
aftermath of the Revolution, Americans debated
the issue of an expanded role for women in the
new republic. Many Federalists condemned
“women of masculine minds,” but there was
general agreement among both conservatives
and Democrats that the time had come for better
education for American women.
SOURCE:The Library Company of Philadelphia.
Judith Sargent Murray, a portrait
by John Singleton Copley,
completed in 1771, perhaps on
the occasion of her twenty-first
birthday. Born into an elite
merchant family in Gloucester,
Massachusetts, she became a
wife and mother but also a poet,
essayist, playwright, novelist, and
historian. In 1779 she published
an essay on the equality of the
sexes that distinguished her as
the first avowed feminist in
American history.