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chapter 6
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chapter 6 ordering lands and peoples scientific and imperial contexts of the late eighteenth century What kindled the distinctive sense of geographic destiny among the European Americans in the former British mainland colonies? Why did they, more than others, feel such a strong attachment to an immense metageographical abstraction and think of themselves as the rightful occupants of their entire continent, as the true Americans? Returning to the debate over Bu√onian formulations and placing the most cogent contribution from the United States—Thomas Je√erson’s Notes on the State of Virginia (1785)—in a transnational, comparative context helps to explain how these mainlanders, unlike other European colonists, mentally appropriated as their rightful domain the lands they settled and, beyond these areas, the continent they imagined. Britons living in other parts of the world recognized emerging continental taxonomies. Yet geographical compartments alone did not make a people. Neither Britons in India nor those in the West Indies came to see themselves collectively as the true Indians or West Indians to the same extent that British mainlanders saw themselves as the true Americans. And British colonists in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia emerged as the most British of all colonists, even as their compatriots to the south embraced their American identity. North American Spaniards, likewise, recognized emerging continental taxonomies while still di√ering from Britain’s revolutionary mainlanders. To a greater degree, Spanish Americans recognized the limitations of their North American presence, and acknowledged and accepted, sometimes grudgingly, the existence of multiple Americans. Among European Americans, then, those in the rebellious thirteen British colonies and the subsequent United States most emphatically merged their metageographical and political identity to create a vision of the future.∞ Their past experiences and their interpretation of them facilitated this appropriation of the continent. Their understanding of their history allowed Ordering Lands and Peoples ( 231 them to see their future as America, and the social and economic context in which they lived provided rich soil for this intellectual construct. science and geopolitics in the revolutionary era In January 1786, the U.S. minister to France, Thomas Je√erson, made plans to secure a stu√ed elk to give to his new acquaintance, George Louis Leclerc, Comte de Bu√on. ‘‘Perhaps your situation may enable you to aid me in this,’’ Je√erson wrote to Archibald Stuart, his friend in Virginia. If convenient, he thought Stuart might send the horns, skeleton, and skin, the belly stu√ed and sewn so that ‘‘it would present the form of the animal.’’ In 1785, Je√erson had published his only book, Notes on the State of Virginia , which disputed Bu√on’s arguments. Parts of a dead elk would further support Je√erson’s contention that species did not degenerate in North America. In pursuing his longstanding argument with Bu√on, Je√erson demonstrated that the relationship between science and imperial politics remained as important as ever. It is telling that Je√erson sandwiched scientific pursuits , including that of an elk, into a schedule filled with matters that a√ected the fate of the nation. He wrote Notes on the State of Virginia while governor of Virginia, a state struggling to muster soldiers while British troops marched within its bounds. He sought his elk while serving as the U.S. minister to France, a time when much of his other correspondence dealt with his fledgling nation’s domestic tumult and precarious position in the international arena. Je√erson made time for science because he and others in the founding generation viewed the scientific, military, and political defense of the United States as part and parcel of the same battle. Je√erson’s letter to Stuart captured this outlook in microcosm. In it, Je√erson shifted seamlessly between elk stu≈ng to musings about geopolitics . Disturbing news from home made Je√erson fret about whether the United States would attain its continental potential. Kentuckians seemed to be on the verge of splitting from Virginia and the national confederacy, and Spain claimed sole right to the navigation of the Mississippi. He believed the United States must retain both Kentucky and free passage on the Mississippi . Indeed, the ‘‘confederacy must be viewed as the nest from which all America, North and South is to be peopled.’’≤ The elk and the geopolitical vision: scientific observations had political implications. As a principal source of natural history information, even seemingly innocuous travel literature had become valuable currency in the struggle to discern and de...