6 The New Nation For its size however the United States was still quite small in population In 1790 it had about 3 9 million people This number included about 700,000 slaves more than 94 percent of whom lived in the South By 1810 the population had nearly doubled to about 7 2 million Yet even then in relation to America’s 1 7 million square miles 4 4 million square kilometers the population was considered small by other countries In contrast for example with only about 90,000 square miles 233,098 square kilometers of land Great Britain had about 12 million people France with little more than 200,000 square miles 517,997 square kilometers of land had more than 29 million people The United States was an overwhelmingly rural nation Most Americans lived on farms During the period from 1789 to 1809 only two cities Philadelphia and New York City had populations of more than 25,000 people The Economy Since most Americans lived on farms throughout the country agriculture was the main economic activity Tobacco Words to Know export EK-sport To send goods out of the country or a good that is sent out import IM-port To bring goods into the country or a good that is brought in interchangeable parts in-tur-CHAYNJ-uh-buhl PARTS An invention of Eli Whitney’s that made mass production possible Tobacco was a profitable crop for planters in colonial Virginia wheat rice cotton and indigo which Americans used for dying cloth were the main cash crops Fishing and shipping were also important activities particularly in the Northeast Overseas trade especially with Britain France and their colonies in Canada and the West Indies was vital to the new nation Since America produced few manufactured goods in the late 1700s it had to import or buy from other countries nearly all such items Metal products of all kinds fine clothing furniture glass tea and other beverages were some of the imports that arrived regularly by ship from Europe Americans also worked to export or sell to other countries the farm goods and fish that they did not consume themselves as well as surplus raw materials like forest products Imports to America however far exceeded exports
The New Nation 7 Inventions that Changed America The United States remained an agricultural nation for many decades after 1789 Yet as early as the 1790s inventors were at work on machines that would profoundly change the American economy Cotton was an important crop It was grown in the South for manufacturing into cloth but its production was limited Of the many varieties of cotton upland cotton was the most popular cotton grown in the South Widely grown throughout the region workers had the slow difficult task of separating the valuable cotton fiber from the worthless seeds One worker laboring all day could scarcely produce one pound of fiber Then in 1793 Massachusetts-born Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin This simple machine quickly and efficiently removed the cotton seeds from the fiber The first gin enabled a worker who was usually a slave to produce 50 times more fiber than before Later versions did even better As a result cotton cultivation and production increased enormously In 1790 before the invention of the cotton gin workers produced some 3,000 bales of cotton per year Each individual bale weighed about 500 pounds 227 kilograms In 1810 after the introduction of the cotton gin workers produced nearly 250,000 bales Cotton became America’s most successful export A sad consequence of this success was that cotton cultivation made slavery vastly more profitable and the demand for slaves to work on cotton plantations grew A few years after inventing the cotton gin Whitney made another valuable contribution In 1798 working on a contract from the U S government to supply rifles he devised a method for manufacturing them using interchangeable parts This invention enabled the rifles to be produced in huge numbers much more quickly than when they were assembled one by one Once adapted to other manufacturing processes the concept of interchangeable parts made possible the mass industrial production we know today A third invention that eventually transformed America was the steamboat Shipping goods by water was cheaper than by land but cargo barges could not easily be dragged upstream The steamboat solved that problem In the late 1780s Connecticut-born John Fitch got the idea of powering a boat with the recently invented steam engine Others developed Fitch’s idea Then in 1807 Pennsylvania-born Robert Fulton built the Clermont a 150-foot-long boat powered by a steam-driven paddlewheel The Clermont sailed the Hudson River from New York City to Albany and back at five miles an hour The steamboat made water travel and shipping much easier and more commercial
8 The New Nation The Problems Ahead In 1789 the United States was a new and weak country It had declared its independence from Great Britain in 1776 and the American Revolution fought to win that independence had ended six years later in 1783 The new country faced many difficulties Could the states cooperate with one another or would they fight one another and destroy the Union What was the proper balance between the powers of the states and those of the national or federal government Could the economy of the new nation provide prosperity for farmers merchants and manufacturers Would the nation be able to pay the debts it had incurred during the years of the Revolution and afterward Relations with other nations were equally difficult Could the United States win the respect of the other countries of the world especially Great Britain its powerful former enemy Could it remain on good terms with France and Spain who were its allies during the Revolution Or would these countries try to carve up the new United States for themselves These problems were especially troublesome because for most of the years between 1789 and 1815 Britain and France who were then the two most powerful countries in the world were at war with each other During the 1780s the United States were governed by a weak central The infantry officer’s primary weapon was the espontoon a spear that he would also use as a signaling device government established under a document called the Articles of Confederation The new nation was not coping well with many of its problems so political leaders arranged for a convention to meet in Philadelphia during the summer of 1787 to discuss how to improve the government
The New Nation 9 Howard Chandler Christy’s painting Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States depicts George Washington watching the North Carolina Delegate sign the Constitution Delegates to the Philadelphia convention wrote a new document called the Constitution which provided for an entirely new and stronger central government for the United States The U S Constitution was ratified or approved by the required nine states in 1788 and took effect early in 1789 just a few weeks before George Washington began his term as the first president of the United States President Washington and later Presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson carried the heavy responsibilities of leading the new nation as it struggled to survive grow and prosper Words to Know Articles of Confederation AR-ti-kuhls uhv kuhn fed-er-AY-shun The document that set forth the basic rules and powers of the U S government from 1781 to 1789
