AMERICAN EXPANSION: 1775, 1790, 1810

Winners and Losers

A glance at a history book, or the above maps tells the tale: America had beaten Britain and proved how expensive distant wars could be. The hypothetical Indian state west of the Alleghenies evaporated in the Revolution. The earlier Seven Years' War losers, the Spanish and French, agreed on Louisiana and Napoleon sold it to Jefferson to pay for his own wars in Europe. The aggressive Americans (Franklin, Jay, and Adams) recognised that Britain (then at war with Napoleon) was in a poor position to argue boundaries and pushed every conceivable land claim to gain as much as possible. Quibbles about America's northern boundary were only of interest to future Canadians and the British gave way on nearly every boundary dispute.

Endnotes

1          See the University of Texas, Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection, at http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/united_states/us_terr_1775.jpg, http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/united_states/us_terr_1790.jpg, and http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/united_states/us_terr_1800.jpg.