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John Gaddis @ Middlebury College

Order the importance to the American state the following:

• the extension of American control over the territories that were the subject of the Northwest Ordinance of July 13, 1787, An Ordinance for the government of the Territory of the United States northwest of the River Ohio, adopted by the First Congress, August 7th, 1789. The states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin are the admistrative divisions of the Old Northwest.


• the extension of American control over the territories that were the subject of the Southwest Ordinance, Territory of United States south of the River Ohio, adopted by the First Congress, May 26th, 1790. The state of Tennesee is the admistrative division of the Old Southwest.


• the extension of American control over the territories that were the subject claims by the Virginia Colony, and later the State of Virginia, south of the River Ohio. The state of Kentucky is the admistrative division of western Virginia.


• the extension of American control over territories ceded by Spain in the Treaty of Madrid in 1795. The states of Alabama and Mississippi are the admistrative division of the Treaty of Madrid claim.


• the extension of American control over the territory of Louisiana, ceded by France in 1803. The states of Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Missouri, Kansas, eastern Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, western Minnisota, South and North Dakota, eastern Wyoming, eastern Montana are the admistrative division of the Lousiana claim.


• ...


• repeat until your watch reads 1912 (Arizona and New Mexico)

Label that set "Wars with Indians", and if necessary, annotate the threats the Indian Nations posed to the self-determination of the United States at any point between 1787 and 1912.

Now compare with this set:

• the extinction of Mexican claims over the territories ceded by at the conclusion of the Mexican War in 1848, establishing the Rio Grande as the boundary of Mexico and ceding New Mexico and Alta California. The states of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Nevada, western Colorado and California are the admistrative divisions of the Mexican cession.


• the extinction of Spanish claims over the territories ceded in the Treaty of Paris of 1898, consisting of the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico, and the independence from Spain and neutrality of Cuba.

If you answered that the acquisition of the Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico arising out of the war 1898 war with Spain was the first in the ordered list of notable territorial acquisitions by the United States in the 19th century, followed by the strip of land between the Rio Brazos and the Rio Grande in 1847/8, and the territories north of the Gila river (pop. 5,000 non-Indians), and sleepy California (pop. 5,000 non-Indians), and last and least worthy of note the middle Mississippi and east to the Alleghenies croplands and woodlands, then the following should read comfortably:

... the principal method by which the United States became a continental hegemon during the 19th century was by preempting perceived dangers along an expanding frontier. The Spanish, the Mexicans, and the native Americans can tell you more about that.

It is amazing that an academic can frame the expansion of American state power in the 19th century as preempting perceived dangers, whether or not, a century later Washington is held by a regime that messages that its military adventures abroad are preempting perceived dangers. More amazing is that an academic could order the benefits of a century of aggression so that the most substantial, the fruit of massacre, death march, and mass execution, the ethnic clensing of the eastern United States, not to mention over half of the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, where over half of its population resides and material wealth originates and renews from -- are an after-thought. After a nice little war with a European power and the second conquest of Mexico, which between them generated only a few thousand deaths among the American military, and were conducted safely "away".

It is as if a white man taught that cotton raised itself. Not just any white man, but the Robert A. Lovett Professor of History and Political Science at Yale University. Via Escheton.

There are other problems with John Gaddis' Grant Lecture at Middlebury College. He neatly erases intelligence services in Moscow, Paris, Berlin, Beijing, Dehli, and Islamabad that held incorrect views on the Bush-Blair WMD pretext, and resurects John Quincy Adams to put an "I agree with _____" balloon coming out of his mouth so that “the United States goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.” Being recycled is an occupational hazard of the dead.

Vermont has a problem with Abenakis, so John Gaddis was well received at Middlebury College.

Posted by EBW at May 22, 2005 03:14 AM | TrackBack