The Central Stream

BRIAN BALOGH: If you’re just joining us, this is BackStory. And we’re talking today about the Mississippi River in American history. I’m Brian Balogh, 20th century guy.

ED AYERS: I’m Ed Ayers, 19th century guy.

PETER ONUF: And I’m Peter Onuf, 18th century guy.

ED AYERS: You know, guys, I try not to be parochial or kind of cocky about the importance of the 19th century and everything in American history. But I’m afraid the Mississippi River kind of inclines me in that direction. The rise of the steamboat trade on the Mississippi strikes me as such a pivotal event. Even its decline strikes me as equally pivotal. In other words, guys, we had both the beginning and the end of the importance of the Mississippi River along with Huck and Jim right in the middle of it all.

PETER ONUF: Ed, Ed, Ed, Ed– cut it out. Listen, why were the steamboats there in the first place? It’s because the Mississippi was so important before the steamboat. It was the key to the continent.

And this is the center of enormous controversy. Enter imperial struggle for control of the continent. We think of the Mississippi as being central to the United States. Well, it was a contested ground between the French empire, between the British empire, the United States, and its imperial ambitions.

And why is it so important? Think about it for a minute. All of the continent drains through the Mississippi River system– the Missouri, the Ohio, the whole heartland. And all of those bulky things produced by farmers and planters up the river can come down by this natural highway. It provides its own locomotion. And those things go out to the Caribbean, to the Atlantic.

And Napoleon has designs on the Mississippi River Valley. And why? Because he sees it as the breadbasket for French sugar-producing colonies in the West Indies– that is, that whole region. This is before the Louisiana Purchase. This is after the Peace of Amiens in 1802.

And he now has his sights on extending his quest for universal empire across the Western hemisphere. This is the great fear, is that Napoleon will be walking astride the earth, controlling everything. And the Mississippi is going to be key to the Western hemisphere, his Western design.

BRIAN BALOGH: So Peter, you’re saying he’s not even bothering with the East Coast, with Boston and Philadelphia. He’s got his eye on the prize. That’s the Mississippi River and everything that feeds into it?

ED AYERS: Peter, how would somebody, even Napoleon, control a vast area like the Mississippi River?

PETER ONUF: Well, you don’t have control the whole hinterland of the river. You just have to control the port of New Orleans, where all of that commerce flows down. It’s kind of a choke point, Ed. It’s where everything comes together.

And when Jefferson tries to buy Louisiana, he wants New Orleans. He doesn’t want the Louisiana Purchase. Who cares about that? Because that will flow naturally. The control of the hinterland will flow naturally.

What he wants right now in 1803, he wants control of New Orleans, because he wants to secure the union. Because the union could fall apart. If we don’t control the outlet to the sea, to the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Atlantic Ocean, then that whole region could be pried away from the United States.

You know, it doesn’t take that much to pry parts of the United States apart. Think of your civil war. Well, there are lots of almost civil wars before. And there are lots of separatist plots in the West.

BRIAN BALOGH: So Peter, is the real danger that people all the way up the river– farmers growing wheat, let’s say– that their allegiance would follow the flow of that wheat towards whoever controls the mouth of the Mississippi?

PETER ONUF: Yeah. Remaining loyal to the United States would run against the grain, so to speak, Brian.

[LAUGHTER]

PETER ONUF: Think of these people who settle in the Western waters, as they call them. They’ve already separated from their original states. Some of them, in fact, are the products of separatist movements. Tennessee used to be North Carolina. Kentucky used to be Virginia.

So why not a new jurisdiction? Why not connect with Spain, if Spain has control of that choke point?

BRIAN BALOGH: Especially because they have really more allegiance to the states than they do to something called the United States.

PETER ONUF: Yeah, it’s really weak. This is why the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812 is so vitally important. It’s not just a point of national pride– hey, we beat the hated British, even if the war was already technically over. What’s really important is to consolidate American control in this region, because it could have flown apart. The Union could have collapsed. It was on the verge.

If the British control New Orleans, they control the Caribbean. They control the heartland of the North American continent, linking the British Caribbean with Canada, encircling the United States.

So Ed, all of the things you talk about in your century that are so important, well, the cotton kingdom was going to develop. And slavery was going to spread. And so we’d have an important history of the Mississippi. But it might not be American history. This is up for grabs as late as 1815, as late as the Battle of New Orleans, as late as Andrew Jackson’s triumph over a superior British invading force.