The American National State and the Early West challenges the widely held myth that the American national state was weak in the early days of the republic. William H. Bergmann reveals how the federal government used its fiscal and military powers and bureaucratic authority to enhance land acquisitions, promote infrastructure development, and facilitate commerce and communication in the early trans-Appalachian West. Energetic federal state-building efforts prior to 1815 grew from national state security interests as Native Americans and British imperial designs threatened to unravel the republic. Through partnerships with white westerners and western state governments, the federal government encouraged commercial growth and emigration, transforming the borderland into a bordered land. Taking a regional approach, this work synthesizes the literatures of social history, political science, and economic history to provide a new narrative of American expansionism.William H. Bergmann is an assistant professor in the department
This article argues that the roots of an American national state were forged in the wars with Native Americans for control of the Ohio Valley between 1775 and 1795. It examines how the new national government's use of its fiscal-military powers shifted and accelerated an economic transformation in the region by encouraging commercial husbandry and merchant-based exchange. An expanded commercial economy, in turn, supported the federally funded military. The result was that local western economies and communities became more tightly bound to an expansionist national government.
This dissertation argues that the federal government played an essential role in the shaping of the western economy. American expansion necessitated not only that land be opened up, but also that the regional economy be reorganized. Specifically, the federal government did so in three ways. First, the military wrested control of the western economy from the tribes of the Northwest Territory through warfare, both during the Indian wars of the 1790s and later during the War of 1812. Second, the federal government sponsored the construction of roads throughout the region. Finally, colonial agencies of the federal government attempted to transform the Native American economy from one focused on fur trading to one centered on sedentary commercial agriculture.
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