The Early Imperial Republic: From the American Revolution to the U.S.–Mexican War

Published by University of Pennsylvania Press 2023

The Early Imperial Republic

From the American Revolution to the U.S.–Mexican War

Edited by: Michael A. Blaakman , Emily Conroy-Krutz and Noelani Arista

In the series Early American Studies

https://doi.org/10.9783/9780812297751

Overview
Contents

About this book

In its first seven decades, the United States transformed from a fledgling seaboard confederation into an imperial juggernaut with aspirations to rule a continent and beyond. The essays in this volume use the lens of empire to bring Atlantic, global, and Native American perspectives on the early republic into focus within a single frame.

Created in a world of empires, the United States was to be something new: an expansive republic proclaiming commitments to liberty and equality but eager to extend its territory and influence. Yet from the beginning, Native powers, free and enslaved Black people, and foreign subjects perceived, interacted with, and resisted the young republic as if it was merely another empire under the sun. Such perspectives have driven scholars to reevaluate the early United States, as the parameters of early American history have expanded in Atlantic, continental, and global directions. If the nation’s acquisition of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippine Islands in 1898 traditionally marked its turn toward imperialism, new scholarship suggests the United States was an empire from the moment of its creation.

The essays gathered in The Early Imperial Republic move beyond the question of whether the new republic was an empire, investigating instead where, how, and why it was one. They use the category of empire to situate the early United States in the global context its contemporaries understood, drawing important connections between territorial conquests on the continent and American incursions around the globe. They reveal an early U.S. empire with many different faces, from merchants who sought to profit from the republic’s imperial expansion to Native Americans who opposed or leveraged it, from free Black colonizationists and globe-trotting missionaries to illegal slave traders and anti-imperial social reformers. In tracing these stories, the volume’s contributors bring the study of early U.S. imperialism down to earth, encouraging us to see the exertion of U.S. power on the ground as a process that both drew upon the example of its imperial predecessors and was forced to grapple with their legacies. Taken together, they argue that American empire was never confined to one era but is instead a thread throughout U.S. history.

Contributors:Brooke Bauer, Michael A. Blaakman, Eric Burin, Emily Conroy-Krutz, Kathleen DuVal, Susan Gaunt Stearns, Nicholas Guyatt, Amy S. Greenberg, M. Scott Heerman, Robert Lee, Julia Lewandoski, Margot Minardi, Ousmane Power-Greene, Nakia D. Parker, Tom Smith

Author / Editor information

Blaakman Michael A. :

Michael A. Blaakman is Assistant Professor and David L. Rike University Preceptor in the Department of History at Princeton University.

Michael A. Blaakman is Assistant Professor and David L. Rike University Preceptor in the Department of History at Princeton University.

Emily Conroy-Krutz is Associate Professor in the Department of History at Michigan State University.

Noelani Arista is Associate Professor in History and Classical Studies and Director of the Indigenous Studies Program at McGill University.

Reviews

The Early Imperial Republic offers thought-provoking interpretations and insights on the issue of empire, a topic currently commanding great interest among U.S. historians. A timely volume that will attract a substantial readership.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Introduction Michael A. Blaakman and Emily Conroy-Krutz Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I. Empires, Nations, and States
Chapter 1. The Indian Boundary Line and the Imperialization of U.S.–Indian Affairs Robert Lee Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	27
Chapter 2. The Sutler’s Empire: Frontier Merchants and Imperial Authority, 1790–1811 Susan Gaunt Stearns Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	45
Chapter 3. How Native Nations Survived the Imperial Republic Kathleen Duval Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	63
Chapter 4. Catawba Women and Imperial Land Encroachment Brooke Bauer Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	83
Chapter 5. An Empire of Indian Titles: Private Land Claims in Early American Louisiana, 1803–40 Julia Lewandoski Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	100
Chapter 6. “A Slave State in Embryo”: Indian Territory, Native Sovereignty, and the Expansion of Slavery’s Empire Nakia D. Parker Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	118
Part II. Continent and Globe
Chapter 7. American Protestant Missionaries, Native Hawaiian Authority, and Religious Freedom in Hawai‘i, ca. 1827–50 Tom Smith Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	139
Chapter 8. “The Colony Must Be Broken Up”: The Liberian Settler “Rebellion” of 1823–24 Eric Burin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	158
Chapter 9. Freedom in Chains: U.S. Empire and the Illegal Slave Trade M. Scott Heerman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	179
Chapter 10. An Empire of Illusions: Paul Cuffe, Martin Delany, and African American Benevolent Empire Building in Africa Ousmane K. Power-Greene Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	202
Part III. The Ideologies of Empire
Chapter 11. Imperialism and the American Imagination Nicholas Guyatt Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	227
Chapter 12. Pax Americana? The Imperial Ambivalence of American Peace Reformers Margot Minardi Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	248
Chapter 13. Mercenary Ambivalence: Military Violence in Antebellum America’s Wars of Empire Amy S. Greenberg Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	265
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	279
List of Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	333
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	337
Editors’ Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	341

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Pages
- Main content: 352
Illustrations
- Other: 7 b/w illustrations
Keywords: Empire; Native American history; Indigenous history; early America; treaty; imperialism; settler colonialism; slavery; foreign relations; empire of liberty; 1898; eighteenth nineteenth century; geography; Louisiana; Havana; Hawai'i; Liberia; westward expansion; liberal imperialism; missionaries; Slave Trade Act

eBook

Published: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 9780812297751