8/2/2019 7CLecture 2 Outline

1/2

7CLecture 2 Outline

I. RecapCentral Question:Why was race such an important organizing principle both in British

colonial society and then the early American Republic?

A. Legacies of conquest create asymmetries of power (unequal powerrelationships) that were often strongly correlated with race

B. Importance of religious traditions in reinforcing and eventuallyjustifying notions of racial hierarchy

1) Catholic tradition with Spain and France2) Protestant tradition with Great Britain

C. Tremendous impact of the establishment, expansion of racialized

slavery

1) Creates a lasting association or negative equivalence betweenrace and inferior social status

2) The fact that slavery is inherited by one generation to the next

reinforces this negative feedback loop

II. These attitudes are transferred to the Constitution and institutions ofthe new nation

A. Indians and slaves explicitly excluded from citizenshipB. Women and children given derivative citizenship in which their

political status is determined by the adult males to which they are

attached

C. White, propertied, male, adult become the default criteria for USnational citizenship

D. These criteria are reinforced by the passage of the first NaturalizationAct of 1790

III. Implications of Territorial Expansion

A. Significance of the Northwest Ordinance (1787)1) Creates mechanism for the organization of new territories

outside boundaries of the United States

2) Creates system of rights and government of new territories3) Abolishes slavery in Old Northwest Territories (Ohio,

Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana)

4) Provides for the ordered admission of new states of the Union5) Thus allows the ordered territorial expansion of the United

States into the West and elsewhere

6) Serves as a model of how to organize the Louisiana Purchase(1803)

7) Serves as the template or model for admission of newterritories even outside the continental US (such as Alaska,

Hawaii, Puerto Rico, etc.)

B. The Dark Side of the Northwest Ordinance1) Assumed that Indian land (and by extension, Mexican land)

was there for the takingextends the logic of imperialism

8/2/2019 7CLecture 2 Outline

2/2

2) Provides the logic for displacing native peoples in OldNorthwest Territories (with an indigenous population of at

least 100,000) and the Louisiana Purchase (with an estimated

population of 250,000-300,000 in 1803)

3) Extends the racial and gendered logic of citizenshipestablished by the Constitution and Naturalization Act intothe new territories, thus eventually, into new states of the

Union

4) As the price of ratification in the Continental Congress, whileslavery is effectively banned in the North, it is tacitly accepted

in the South

5) As a result, slavery is largely (but not completely) containedin the North but expands as new states enter the Union in the

South (including Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi,

and Alabama) in the period between 1792 and 1819

III. Implications for US-Mexican RelationsA) Provides the logical basis for the emergence of the notion of

Manifest Destiny

B) Provides the rationale for eventual war with Mexico andannexation of Mexican territory in 1846-48

C) Creates a new racial problem as a new mixed-race populationof Mexicans is added to the United States by the Treaty of

Guadalupe Hidalgo