One for the Geography is Destiny Folks

At one point or another, we’ve all probably had a conversation or discussion about the whole nature versus nurture debate. I know folks go hard on the nature side and say we are who we are, and I know folks who really think nurture and especially your parents makes all the difference. Are we fated to become the people we are either way? Do nature or nurture remove our own choices from the equation? Personally, I have big questions about this whole thing because in relative comparison to my siblings and lots of my peers at school, I have turned out to be… Different, in several ways. So does that mean it’s nature? Was I “built this way” or something? On the other hand, I was lucky to have a diverse friends group in elementary through high school. So was it just the different peer group I had and the friends I made along the way?

I poked around at Psychology Today to see what they had to say, and of course they point out that “genetics” and “environment” are better words, despite their total lack of alliteration and rhyme. Boring. And of course they point out that there’s zero way to separate the two as an influence. So maybe it’s random genetic inheritance PLUS all the friends we met along the way. I like to think I made choices to become the person I am today, and I choose to contribute to the environment my daughter grows up in intentionally and aware of how it may impact her, genetics or not.

So let’s talk about the “inevitability” of the US Civil War then, shall we? As ever, the bad analogy is… a bad analogy, but there are some pretty clear parallels.

When English colonists began flip flopping between dependence on and violent, deadly shoving out of the war of Native Americans in the early 17th century, the latitude and climate differences along the Atlantic Coast produced different economic systems and ways of life. Over time, it became possible to generalize those economic systems and ways of life into three regions: the New England or Northeastern colonies, the Southern colonies, and the aptly titled “Middle” colonies. Landscape and climate offered varying opportunities, even if there were broad similarities on the kinds of people who moved to the colonies. It takes a certain kind of person in a certain situation or with a certain temperament to chance a long, horrible voyage to leave England or Europe and move to the colonies.

The New England or Northeastern colonies were not made for large scale export agriculture. Instead, trees got chopped, fish harvested, ships built, and a trade reliant culture grew up to make up for the crappy farming. The Southern colonies, on the other side, sat in a region of subtropical, humid climate that encourage the large scale planting of cash crops like tobacco. This was hard work in a very non-English climate with massive fields. While planters were able to get large land claims thanks to stuff like the Virginia headright system, which gave an amount of land based on the number of people who were dragged over, er, provided transportation, labor was an issue. A system of indentured servitude was attempted, but as in Spanish America even further to the south, these planters looked to Africa as a source of permanent, slave labor, which cost far less than any other form of labor long term. As you might expect, the Middle colonies were a blend - a slightly milder climate still made large scale agriculture possible, but the focus was more on food and staple crops than cash crops. Whether it was individual choices or the kinds of extensive farming requiring less labor, enslaved Africans were not as widespread in the Middle colonies. The Quakers, well known for all the oatmeal branding, were one of the first, firmest anti-slavery groups in the colonies, and they dominated the Middle colony of Pennsylvania’s population and politics.

So does this mean that geography led to the Civil War? Was it fated?

As a historian, no. A series of choices based on profit and greed got us there. The signs start early - while most people are taught that the “Great Compromise” during the Constitutional Convention was a battle between “small states” and “large states,” the slave states also had a vested interest in the inclusion of a Senate based on equal representation for each state. Aside from Virginia, none of the southern states had the population to dominate the House of Representatives, because of slavery. Not a lot of folks are going to immigrate to a place where a few wealthy men control the government and economy and have an unassailable, preexisting advantage. The Three-Fifths Compromise counted enslaved Africans toward taxation and representation, and if either the Senate or the Three-Fifths Compromise hadn’t been included, southern states were ready to bail on the US and either go it alone or appeal to a European state and try to join someone else’s empire. As we all know, when you appease people with those kinds of demands, they never come back and ask to change the deal later.

But of course the southern states did. Maine wanted to break away from Massachusetts to become its own state - the South demands Missouri be admitted. The very, very mild “Tariff of Abominations” leads to threats (John Calhoun). Secession comes up again during the debate over the Compromise of 1850 and the admission of California (John Calhoun again). This prompts Daniel Webster to say the following on the Senate floor:

Where is the flag of the republic to remain? Webster calls out the creation of a confederacy eleven years before it actually happened, in case you’re on side “it was fate” or whatever. (If you don’t know how spectacularly stupid being a confederacy is, well, wait for next week?)

So, as one of my college profs used to say, is geography destiny? It feels like a very convenient excuse. I mean, if geography is destiny, than how do you explain Phoenix? I think it’s a lot harder to navigate genetics vs environment, personally. The climate of the south may have made plantation agriculture possible, and it may have made the New England colonies focus their economy elsewhere, but all along the way there were choices and opportunities and a society that chose to justify their greed and wealth by promoting racist ideologies. Once you’ve done that, frankly, you know you’re in the wrong.

Obviously, there’s more to say on slave society down the road, but for now, here’s a base starting point for what’s going to become the United States. I’m going to skip ahead to the Articles of Confederation next week, but there’s plenty to backfill down the road — settler interactions with the indigenous people of North America, the French and Indian War, and the American Revolution which surely deserves multiple newsletters. I just enjoy mocking the Articles a lot, so it’s ready to go already.