Immigration and the Middle Ground

Hello, I'm Dr Steven Rockwell,

professor of political science at ST Joseph's College in New York.

In this course, I'll be talking about population movement in the Early Republic.

We will examine how push and pull factors

shaped immigration to and migration within North America,

and we'll look at how demographic changes.

As a result of these moves shape the migrants society and the environment.

I will explain how and why migration and immigration

to and within North America caused competition and conflict.

Over time.

A common focuses on the Old Northwest, which is the Ohio River Valley,

and the region around the Great Lakes,

including what is now Ohio, Illinois and Indiana,

along with western New York and western Pennsylvania,

western Virginia and Kentucky.

In this region and elsewhere,

American Indian groups repeatedly evaluated and

adjusted their alliances with the Europeans

with other Indian groups

and with the United States

seeking to maintain control of land and resources

and as part of that seeking to contain,

exclude or manage migration of Europeans and,

eventually US citizens to the region.

As increasing numbers of migrants moved around the North America

cultures and arrangements

that had developed during the colonial period continued to evolve,

fuelling political, social, ethnic and economic tensions,

including developments and differences in regional attitudes towards slavery.

People don't migrate without a good reason.

Many Europeans came to North America for a variety of push and pull reasons.

They were pushed out by wars, by economic problems at home,

by religious persecution and by political oppression.

And they were pulled to North America by

what was thought to be economic opportunity,

sometimes by social ties,

as folks from their homelands had already made the journey

and by the prospects of more religious freedom.

The same is going to be true.

Within North America,

people get pushed out of some areas and pulled towards other areas,

often for economic, political, social or religious reasons.

But population movement in North America is not only

about moving from the East to the West,

this is often a misconception.

People easily see migration moving westward in these years,

but often overlook what's happening in the West.

If you look at a map and note the Ohio River and the Mississippi River,

this will get a lot easier

because, as the English for the most part

moved to and settled

in the eastern part of North America. What would become the original 13 colonies?

There is other settlement going on, too.

The French, in particular,

are moving through Canada down through the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River,

especially to areas in what is now Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.

And the Spanish are exerting influence in Florida,

along the Gulf of Mexico and up the Mississippi,

especially west of the Mississippi,

and particularly influencing the early development of New Orleans.

And so the region will focus a lot on what was called by the Americans.

The old Northwest or Ohio, Indiana and so on

is not seeing just movement West,

but it's also seeing pressure

from the West.

It becomes what historian Richard White famously called the middle ground

in a book he called the Middle Ground.

Recognising this area as a middle ground makes understanding,

population movement

and other events

much more clear.

So you have French travelling deeper into

North America following exploration paths into Canada,

through the Great Lakes and down the Mississippi River Valley.

You have an East Coast

seeing lots of immigrants from England, especially,

but you also have Germans moving to central Pennsylvania,

opening farms and building new communities

and you have Scots Irish coming from Scotland through Northern Ireland,

moving too many areas west of the Germans,

moving past the Germans out towards

the Allegheny Mountains in western Pennsylvania

and into the Old Southwest.

In all of these places, of course, Native Americans were already living

either in stable farming and fishing communities or as communities

that routinely moved around the predictable set of locations.

As the seasons and the weather changed

and these Native American communities were connected,

they communicated with each other, intermarried carried on trade.

The English,

French and others would be interacting with societies

that were already very much in action.

These interactions sparked conflicts

but also provided social and economic opportunities,

and native populations were sometimes very much on the move to

European immigration to the East Coast.

Years earlier had pushed many Eastern Indians westward

through war, disease

and conflicts between native and immigrant communities

in particular,

members of the Iroquois Confederacy felt these pressures

and in turn pressured folks to the West.

French efforts in the West

eventually pressed native Americans from that direction,

pressuring outgoing queen groups in the

middle ground who were increasingly squeezed

by the French and Western Indians like the Sioux on one side

and the Iraq Oy English and Scots Irish on the other side.

Which is why the Ohio Valley and areas around the Great Lakes are middle ground,

not just the Western frontier

and the longtime inhabitants of that middle ground, especially Native Americans,

adjusted and adapted to the pressures from both sides.

So how many people are we talking about? In some ways, a lot.

Native populations are located in exactly those areas

most desirable to Europeans areas amid fertile farmland

near rivers and lakes stocked with fish and

near transportation routes across rivers and mountains.

In other ways, the population numbers look very small.

By 17 75 there are about 2.5 million people inhabiting the colonies.

About half a million were black,

but think about that 2.5 million.

That's less than the population today of Puerto Rico.

The largest city in the nation in 17 75 was Philadelphia at about 34,000 people.

That's 10,000 people less than a capacity

crowd at Philadelphia's Citizens Bank Park today

or picture a big time college football game, maybe at University of Michigan

with the stadium. About 100,000 people picture that stadium one third full.

That's 34,000 people. The population of the biggest city in the colonies

population increased rapidly, though by the 17 eighties

the original colonies have about four million people, with about 700,000 blacks,

90% of whom are enslaved.

The Germans, settling primarily in Pennsylvania, numbered about 150,000.

The Scots Irish again,

Scott's moving through Ireland coming to North America numbered about 175,000.

They moved to western Pennsylvania,

finding much of the best land in Pennsylvania already taken up by the Germans

as they banged up against the Allegheny Mountains.

The Scots Irish settlers moved south to western Maryland to Virginia,

Shenandoah Valley and to western parts of the Carolinas.

By 1800

when the U. S population was up to about five million,

the native population in the entire lower 48 states

totaled about 600,000, according to anthropologist Russell Thornton.

Other sources put that native population at between 1.5 and 1.8 million.

Overall, it's a young population,

the average age in the 13 colonies by 17 75 was about 16 years old,

with an average lifespan of about 38 years,

and it's a diverse population outside New England.

Only about half of the population was English.

Close to 20% were from Africa, mostly enslaved Africans.

And of the 56 people who signed the Declaration of Independence in 17 76 18 of those,

56 were not English.

Back to the main dynamics,

the Iroquois Confederacy and England are pushing from the East Coast.

The French Sioux and other Indians are pushing from the West,

and Algonquin bands like the Ojibwa, Potawatomi,

Shawnee and the Second Fox are pressured in the middle ground.

That pressure and conflict comes especially over land and hunting grounds,

but also in relationships to trade

and social relationships,

creating constant adjustment and adaptation.

This pressure

and the diversity

equals complexity.

This is not simply whites and Indians.

If you think about it. Scots, Irish, Germans, English, French.

These are people with different backgrounds,

different languages and different interests.

White often oversimplifies as if race always tied everyone together.

It did sometimes, especially once there's a conflict.

But at most other times whites were divided and fragmented by language, interest,

culture and location.

Certainly, French and English folks had different goals and interests,

and Germans, Scots, Irish and so on just made it more complicated.

The same is true in the Native American side.

The Native American population is characterised by villages

of 50 to 250 people with different associations,

different families, different histories and different interests.

It is a diverse

and decentralised population,

much more than it is a population defined by Indian

as some kind of racial category again until conflict,

at which time people sometimes tend to fall into categories of white and Indian.

More readily,

the region and its adaptations and adjustments are not so much

whites vs Indians as a diverse set of neighbourhoods associations,

family and friend ties and localised interests.