The Growth of the Republic

Foreign Policy Choices in the Early Republic

As the United States began its history as a sovereign nation, its leaders needed to make decisions about relationships with other countries. The foreign policy decisions made by the leaders of the Early Republic reveal the tension between America’s declared values and other interests, including citizenship, the economy, and security. Throughout the 12 lessons of Clusters 1 - 3, students work to understand how and why these choices were made, who had the power to make them, and how the decisions benefited some while harming others. Each of these clusters is animated by a different Supporting Question. Students will encounter the voices of diverse peoples, analyze their points of view, and work to understand how and why history unfolds as the product of human choices. This cluster focuses on the foreign policy decisions of the Early Republic with regard to Indigenous nations, France, Britain and Haiti and focuses on how the new nation made these decisions.

Indigenous Nations’ Foreign Policy Choices

In this cluster, students will continue exploring the tensions between America’s declared values and other interests, including citizenship, the economy, and security. This cluster is an Inquiry Cycle focused on the foreign policy of Indigenous nations. Students work to answer the question: How did Indigenous nations take action to protect their sovereignty and what motivated their choices?

Indigenous Resistance and Resilience

Building on the themes explored in Clusters 1 and 2, in this cluster, students will focus on the consequences of the foreign policy relationships between Indigenous nations and the Early Republic and the outcomes of the foreign policy decisions students learned about in previous lessons. Students ask the question: How did the citizens and government of the U.S. respond to Indigenous resistance? What were the consequences? In this cluster, students also have the opportunity to engage with the unit’s Essential Question about how different groups of people have fought for their rights and demonstrated resilience through a study of the Indian Removal Act and the Trail of Tears.

Slavery and the Growth of the Nation

The framers of the Constitution explicitly protected the institution of slavery as a source of political, economic, and social power. This reality violated the nation’s declared values and profoundly affected the nation’s territorial and economic expansion. After the invention of the cotton gin, the nation expanded westward and into the South, onto the lands of sovereign Indigenous nations. A significant amount of this land was in the Cotton Belt. As the demand for cotton increased, so did the demand for enslaved labor used to grow and harvest it. By 1860, nearly 4 million African Americans were enslaved in the United States. Many of these enslaved persons were forced to labor on cotton plantations. Indeed, the tremendous wealth created by the cotton economy was fueled by the stolen labor of enslaved African Americans. In Clusters 4 and 5 of Unit 3, students grapple with the reality of a labor system based on the enslavement of human beings and the enormous profits it brought to the nation in concert with full recognition of the humanity of the persons who endured it. Through these lessons, students confront this “hard history” in powerful and culturally affirming ways. This cluster focuses on the economic aspects of the institution of slavery. Students interact with video segments, maps, and primary sources to analyze how the growth of the cotton industry was fueled by the expansion of territory, the invention of the cotton gin, the role of the Northern economy, and the sale of human beings as property.

African Americans’ Resistance, and Resilience

In this cluster, students will continue confronting the “hard history” and reality of a labor system based on the the enslavement of human beings and the humanity of the persons who endured it. This cluster focuses on the resistance and resilience of free and enslaved African Americans who were profoundly affected by the territorial and economic growth of the United States while being denied the promise of the nation’s declared values. Through this set of three lessons, students engage with first-hand accounts of African Americans who endured enslavement as well as secondary sources that elevate the perspectives of African Americans in the Early Republic. This cluster is enhanced by two Literacy Blocks that allow students to engage more deeply with the resistance and resilience of enslaved African Americans. We highly recommend teaching them if time permits.

The Economy of the Early Republic

This cluster begins with a study of the civic and economic importance of education to the nation’s early success. In doing so, students engage with the idealism of the period as well as the shortcomings of the nation in extending opportunities to all as they prepare to study the fight for educational access as a key component of the Civil Rights Movement in Unit 4. After engaging with the topic of education, students are introduced to the industries and workers of the Early Republic through a set of research-based activities. In these lessons, students experience the diverse voices of people who contributed to the growth of the Early Republic and work to analyze the interconnectedness of the economic ecosystem of the nation and the lives of the people who worked within it. In seeing the work and workers of the Early Republic connected through both cooperative and exploitative relationships, students are able to appreciate the complex relationship between economic interests and the nation’s declared values and consider the role that diverse peoples played in building the nation. Throughout these lessons, students consider multiple perspectives, identify evidence, and make claims about the work and workers of the Early Republic. In doing so, they practice historical reasoning, revisiting the unit’s three essential questions before the Summative Assessment.