Author: Robert Huitrado

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In Slavery’s Capitalism, the editors, Sven Beckert and Seth Rockman investigated the economic development of America during the 19^th century by tying the “expansive and brutal system of human bondage” (book cover) to the rise of the Industrial Revolution, not only in America, but also in England. “cotton made by enslaved African Americans not only accounted for the majority of U.S. exports, but also helped to generate a transformation unprecedented in human history.” (pg. 12) The Industrial Revolution is majorly credited to the city of Manchester, where England’s cotton textile industry was centered, although the textile center in Lowell, Massachusetts also experienced increased production in cloth. By 1825 American planters dominated the world market in cotton, by growing and exporting this new tangible “gold.” Cloth, by way of cotton, became more available and fashionable.

How did all of this happen? The invention of the cotton gin in 1793 helped pull the seeds from cotton faster than hand labor could do it, but to cash in on this improvement, more fields needed to be cleared to grow more cotton. That required more slaves and slave owners. The “system of labor extraction” (pg. 33) was a new growing and labor- intensive method used by plantations in which a fast worker picked at top speed and set the pace for the rest of the workers in a cotton row. Stragglers or slow workers were whipped, or sometimes killed. “Enslaved migrants in new cotton fields quickly discovered that they had to adapt to what pushing men [slave owners] demanded, or face ruthless violence.” (Pg. 34) As the picking quotas for the slaves rose, so did the amount of cotton picked, which raised the amount of cotton exported to the textile mills of England.

As Indian land(s) and territories were taken, over one million black slaves were forced into these new Southern territories. This “labor extraction” system, soon “produced 80 percent of the cotton sold in Britain, the world’s central market.” (pg. 35) This system also made slave owners in the South very wealthy, and very powerful. From approximately 1800 to 1860, due to the labor extraction system, the amount of cotton produced in the United States increased from 20 million pounds to over two billion pounds, and the number of slaves in the United States increased from 50,000 to two million. (pg. 40) These increases matched the increased productivity in the spinning and weaving mills in Manchester, which experienced an approximate 400 percent increase and a 600 increase respectively from 1819 to 1860. (pg. 42) Once the Civil War was over, however, the system of labor extraction ended, and the cotton picking in the South declined and never fully recovered. (pg. 43)

The economic growth of America during this period resulted from the increase of slavery, the exorbitant amount of cotton picked on the plantations in the South, and the technological advancements made in the textile and weaving mills in England. However, the increased flow of material to England also resulted in many agricultural changes in America. The invention of the cotton gin started the escalation. New cotton seeds were introduced which increased the yield of cotton, and the labor extraction method assured increased goals in cotton picking. All of these changes brought new innovations in finance, plantation management and husbandry, accounting, and mechanical technology, bringing the Industrial Revolution to America.

As dshanebeck stated, after the War of 1812, the United States found itself in a position to be “recognized as an equal nation on the world stage.” Yet, as Gould stated last week, it was not until President James Monroe, the 5^th President, that European acceptance officially began. As last week’s discussion also covered, Andrew Jackson’s excursion into Florida marked the beginning of the United States’ “official” expansion into newly acquired territories. It was these inroads and Jackson’s treatment of British agents caught on American lands that officially forced the European nations to see that the United States was not to be trifled with, and that we could protect and expand, despite foreign interference. As more land was settled and farmed in the Southwest, and the demand for cotton rose, American legitimately began to rise also, especially in the eyes of our former mother nation, England. Cotton rose to be America’s number one export by the 1820s, most of the two billion pounds moving to English textile mills, and the resulting cloth all over Europe. America found its means of legitimacy; unfortunately, it came at a high price – that of two million enslaved Africans.

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Eliga H. Gould’s book, Among the Powers of the Earth, covers a multitude of topics regarding the “wider struggle to found” (pg. 2) the United States of America: how the law of nations affected the wording of our Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and other legal documents; the situation of white and black slavery and how this was legally and/or illegally handled in Europe, Africa and the Americas; the events leading up to our war of independence; the problems facing the new nation after independence was won; and finally, how the United States gained maritime trading rights and developed commercially and industrially after 1783. As such, the new nation itself faced two difficult issues: “One involved the Union’s quest to be accepted as a free and independent nation in Europe; the other, the right of its citizens to pacify and control what, from a European standpoint, was still a colonial periphery.” (pg, 2) One step to becoming accepted as a free and independent nation in the eyes of Europe, and a member of the European circle, was to win its revolution against its sovereign nation, England; be granted “nation status” by the nations of Europe and excepted as one; be granted the customary privileges of war, and allowed trading concessions by the European nations.

Initially the colonists in America were regarded as rebels by Britain and thus were not accorded the customary privileges of war for their prisoners. Such disregard for customary practices of prisoners can be seen in the words of Benjamin Franklin when speaking to England’s emissary to the French court, Paul Wentworth in 1778, as he lectured Wentworth on the “Barbarities inflicted on his Country.…the burning of Towns, the neglect or ill-treatment of Prisoners… [and the] system of devastation and Cruelty.” (pg, 79) In addition, British officers saw Continental soldiers and those who supported independence “as lawless combatants, who were neither bound nor protected by the customs of European nations.” (pg, 115) Although considered a “little paltry colonel of militia at the head of a banditti [of] rebels,” according to Ambrose Serle, General Howe’s private secretary, General George Washington strongly threatened General Gage of the British Army, that “British officers [and soldiers] in American custody… would [also] be [treated as] “felons,” [housed] in “common gaol[s],” and “the sick and wounded [would be denied]  medical attention,” unless Continental soldiers were granted the privileges of war. (pg. 115-116) General Howe, General Gage’s replacement, mindful of Washington’s threat, “eventually instructed his forces to treat Continental officers as ordinary prisoners of war.” (pg, 116) However, and in spite of General Howes instructions, Continental prisoners still endured substantial mistreatment at the hands of the British, with many of them dying from malnutrition and lack of medical attention aboard derelict prison ships.

Prisoner mistreatment was only one of many problems facing the colonies as they fought for independence. Among the Powers of the Earth brilliantly covers every aspect of this process and America’s post-war status as a fledgling republic. The European nations may have acknowledged the United States as a nation, but that did not mean it was allowed to properly become one. “neither Britain nor Europe’s other powers accepted them [United States] as treaty-worthy equals.” (pg, 119) At every turn, the nations of Europe blocked or hampered the new republic’s position. Even the war-allies, France and Spain, saw the United States as a nobody and only used the war to take revenge against a common enemy…England. Trading with Europe and the West Indies was denied because the British refused to give the “security” that it extended to “the navigation of others.” (pg. 119) This meant that American foreign trade was at the discretion of the British Crown, even though Americans were no longer British subjects. All of these affronts were considered “a direct assault on the Republic’s sovereignty.” (pg, 121) These travesties and insults to the sovereignty of the United States would come to a head during the Napoleonic Wars when American ships would be stopped, boarded, and its crews forced into service on British vessels, in total defiance of the rules of maritime trade and treaties signed between England and the United States.

Similar to Taylor Dipoto and 20perez16’s posts, the Native American element was relatively absent from Gould’s book. They were mentioned when discussing the Seven Year’s War/French and Indian War, post-Revolutionary War, raiding and taking captives, and situations when the United States found British agents supplying the natives with arms and ammunition to attack American settlers, as in Florida and Canada. Outside of these circumstances, the Native American voice is absent especially when it came to politics and treaties. This is surprising considering Native Americans were a mainstay of the region since the earliest surviving British settlement at Jamestown in 1607. Again as Taylor said, those who opposed Andrew Jackson’s methods when it came to Native Americans, i.e., the Cherokee Trail of Tears, were also the first ones to say that the land gained from their removal was prime and would benefit the greater American Republic.

Any misgivings I may have of how this book treated the Native Americans, Gould made up for it in his highly detailed and researched finished product. Every chapter is jammed packed with information and examples of the tenuous relationship, the early American Republic had with the older, established Imperial nations of Europe. We are taught in school that once we became independent, everything was relatively peaceful between us and Europe, minus continual hostilities with England and the Native Americans. Apparently, that was not the case!

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This was a very interesting article/book; I never knew there was so much history on the Comanche tribe. I for one never really knew much about them prior to reading this book. Growing up in the Los Angeles County school system, Native American history was limited, and limited to sporadic Indian-American events in time. These moments included Pocahontas and her tribe, the Iroquois and Huron during the French and Indian Wars, President Jackson and the Cherokee Trail of Tears, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse at the Little Big Horn, Geronimo and his guerrilla fighters against the US cavalry, and finally Wounded Knee. This totally sums up my pre-college native American exposure, minus what I learned from movies, documentaries, TV shows and books. With that said, I found this book to be extremely informative and illuminating considering my Southwest knowledge, pre-college, consisted of: the story of the Alamo, some knowledge on Mexican/Spanish settlements in the region, Pueblo Indians, Tombstone, the Mexican-American War, and Geronimo. So, yes, my Southwest history was also lacking for sure.

Despite my above lack of knowledge on the Comanche and the Southwest, I was amazed that such a prominent and politically powerful native tribe could have such an effect on the surrounding Anglo settlements and Indian societies. As was said on pages 3-4, “the Comanche empire was not a rigid structure held together by a single central authority, nor was it an entity that could be displayed on a map as a solid block with clear-cut borders.” As such, the Euro-American empires/republics claimed vast expanses of land, with much of it north of Mexico City, and east of Louisiana, already claimed and populated by native tribes. As an example, if we look at a map of New Spain from the 1600-1800s, Spain claims all of the Southwest, including parts of Nevada, California, Utah, and Colorado depending on the map, yet there was no Spanish citizenry in a majority of these vast regions. In addition, I gathered from Hamalainen’s book that when the Comanche’s first met the Euro-Americans, nothing but bad blood resulted from it. On page 2, he mentioned that the Comanche’s, “manipulated and exploited the colonial outposts in New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, and northern Mexico…extracted resources and labor from their Euro-American and Indian neighbors through thievery and tribute. [and that] the Comanche empire was powered by violence…” These acts were not taken kindly by their neighbors; as such, violence continued into the late 1800s.

Similar to what Diana and David wrote, I struggled to find proof and evidence to Hamalainen’s claims that the Comanche’s were a legitimate threat to Euro-American advances and settlement in the Southwest. He gives an example on page 2, that, “Without fully recognizing it, the Spaniards, French, Mexicans, and Anglo-Americans were all restrained and overshadowed in the continent’s center by an indigenous empire.” In addition, he claims, the Comanche were able “to reduce Euro-American colonial regimes to building blocks of their own dominant position.” (pg, 3) On one hand, he does does give evidence that the local natives and encroaching Euro-Americans were too busy building their own outpost/settlements and fighting each other to mount a cohesive resistance against their invasion of the Southwest. (pg, 19) Yet it must be understood that the Euro-Americans and local Indians had their own agendas, and fighting a new native enemy was probably not one of them. Spain, France and England were always jostling for land, resources, positon, and had little time for some insignificant native tribe on the far flung frontier; they had world economics at their forefront. The Americans had to deal with economic downturns, fighting England twice, expanding into Louisiana, and fighting a civil war. So, looking at the evidence the author pieced together, I understand his reasoning and point, but the region the Comanches invaded was militarily weak and undermanned, Euro-American wise. The settlements in New Mexico especially experienced the ferocity of their attacks. It was not until the Americans in the mid-to-late 1800s made a cohesive effort to annex the Southwest did the Comanche’s go against a powerful military force.

Comanche Empire was a well-written book, especially the three chapters we were to read. Hamalainen painstakingly pieced together the history of one of the Southwest’s most militarily, financially, and economically powerful Indian tribes. The chapters Conquest and New Order were split into Comanche history and Euro-American history, which gave us a deep insight into the Comanche tribe saga. Pekka Hamalainen refers to the Comanche’s as an “Empire,” yet, his later descriptions make them look and sound like a Confederacy like the Iroquois, because the “empire” was made up of individual bands of Comanche’s. So, in essence, Comancheria should be referred to as The Comancheria Confederacy, not the Comanche Empire. Despite this title issue, Comanche Empire, meticulously covers and recounts the vast trade networks the Comanche established. As seen on page 72, the Comanches, “built an exceptionally comprehensive import structure… they received manufactured goods … from five colonial markets…from British Canada, Illinois (Spanish Upper Louisiana,) Spanish Lower Louisiana, British West Florida, and Spanish New Mexico.” The Comanche trade network was based on their extensive horse husbandry and buffalo hide trade with these other areas. This book was a strong testament to the strength of the Comanche tribe, not only militarily, but also economically.  They were a power house of a people who have been overlooked in the history of the American Southwest, and should be recognized and given the respect they deserve.