The Settlers' Empire: Colonialism and State Formation in America's Old Northwest
The 1783 Treaty of Paris, which officially recognized the United States as a sovereign republic, also doubled the territorial girth of the original thirteen colonies. The fledgling nation now stretched from the coast of Maine to the Mississippi River and up to the Great Lakes. With this dramatic expansion, argues author Bethel Saler, the United States simultaneously became a postcolonial republic and gained a domestic empire. The competing demands of governing an empire and a republic inevitably collided in the early American West. The Settlers' Empire traces the first federal endeavor to build states wholesale out of the Northwest Territory, a process that relied on overlapping colonial rule over Euro-American settlers and the multiple Indian nations in the territory. These entwined administrations involved both formal institution building and the articulation of dominant cultural customs that, in turn, served also to establish boundaries of citizenship and racial difference.

In the Northwest Territory, diverse populations of newcomers and Natives struggled over the region's geographical and cultural definition in areas such as religion, marriage, family, gender roles, and economy. The success or failure of state formation in the territory thus ultimately depended on what took place not only in the halls of government but also on the ground and in the everyday lives of the region's Indians, Francophone creoles, Euro- and African Americans, and European immigrants. In this way, The Settlers' Empire speaks to historians of women, gender, and culture, as well as to those interested in the early national state, the early West, settler colonialism, and Native history.

1119557079
The Settlers' Empire: Colonialism and State Formation in America's Old Northwest
The 1783 Treaty of Paris, which officially recognized the United States as a sovereign republic, also doubled the territorial girth of the original thirteen colonies. The fledgling nation now stretched from the coast of Maine to the Mississippi River and up to the Great Lakes. With this dramatic expansion, argues author Bethel Saler, the United States simultaneously became a postcolonial republic and gained a domestic empire. The competing demands of governing an empire and a republic inevitably collided in the early American West. The Settlers' Empire traces the first federal endeavor to build states wholesale out of the Northwest Territory, a process that relied on overlapping colonial rule over Euro-American settlers and the multiple Indian nations in the territory. These entwined administrations involved both formal institution building and the articulation of dominant cultural customs that, in turn, served also to establish boundaries of citizenship and racial difference.

In the Northwest Territory, diverse populations of newcomers and Natives struggled over the region's geographical and cultural definition in areas such as religion, marriage, family, gender roles, and economy. The success or failure of state formation in the territory thus ultimately depended on what took place not only in the halls of government but also on the ground and in the everyday lives of the region's Indians, Francophone creoles, Euro- and African Americans, and European immigrants. In this way, The Settlers' Empire speaks to historians of women, gender, and culture, as well as to those interested in the early national state, the early West, settler colonialism, and Native history.

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The Settlers' Empire: Colonialism and State Formation in America's Old Northwest

The Settlers' Empire: Colonialism and State Formation in America's Old Northwest

by Bethel Saler
The Settlers' Empire: Colonialism and State Formation in America's Old Northwest

The Settlers' Empire: Colonialism and State Formation in America's Old Northwest

by Bethel Saler

Paperback(New Edition)

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Overview

The 1783 Treaty of Paris, which officially recognized the United States as a sovereign republic, also doubled the territorial girth of the original thirteen colonies. The fledgling nation now stretched from the coast of Maine to the Mississippi River and up to the Great Lakes. With this dramatic expansion, argues author Bethel Saler, the United States simultaneously became a postcolonial republic and gained a domestic empire. The competing demands of governing an empire and a republic inevitably collided in the early American West. The Settlers' Empire traces the first federal endeavor to build states wholesale out of the Northwest Territory, a process that relied on overlapping colonial rule over Euro-American settlers and the multiple Indian nations in the territory. These entwined administrations involved both formal institution building and the articulation of dominant cultural customs that, in turn, served also to establish boundaries of citizenship and racial difference.

In the Northwest Territory, diverse populations of newcomers and Natives struggled over the region's geographical and cultural definition in areas such as religion, marriage, family, gender roles, and economy. The success or failure of state formation in the territory thus ultimately depended on what took place not only in the halls of government but also on the ground and in the everyday lives of the region's Indians, Francophone creoles, Euro- and African Americans, and European immigrants. In this way, The Settlers' Empire speaks to historians of women, gender, and culture, as well as to those interested in the early national state, the early West, settler colonialism, and Native history.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780812224610
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc.
Publication date: 07/05/2019
Series: Early American Studies
Edition description: New Edition
Pages: 392
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.88(d)

About the Author

Bethel Saler is Associate Professor of History at Haverford College.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 The National State Faces West 13

2 The First Federal Colonialism in the Lower Northwest 41

3 The Treaty Polity 83

4 Exchanging Economies 121

5 A "Peculiarly Missionary Ground" 168

6 The Cornerstones of Marriage and Family 211

7 State of Imagination 249

Epilogue: The Historical Present 299

Notes 311

Index 363

Acknowledgments 379

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