Effects of Migration and Immigration (College Board AP® US History)

Timeline

Summary

One of North America’s most attractive features is its vast landscape. Since the end of the French and Indian War, Anglo-Americans had the desire to move into the wide-open territory west of the Appalachian Mountains.

• Few white people cared that a lot of this land had been home to Indigenous groups for generations.

• These groups tried to protect their land, but they were eventually overpowered by US armed forces.

Life on the frontier was not always smooth for the Anglo-Americans who settled there. In addition to conflicts with Indigenous groups over land, they also experienced disagreements with the federal government and feelings of alienation from their fellow Americans.

Challenges Faced by Indigenous Groups

• Most Indigenous peoples’ main goal from 1754–1800 was to prevent European immigrants and their descendants from claiming ancestral Indigenous lands for themselves

• France had been a longtime ally of many Indigenous groups in North America

• France’s defeat in the French and Indian War (1754–60) forced France to give up its North American territories

  • Indigenous peoples had to ally with either the British or the colonists

  • They reluctantly chose the British, who lived much farther away than the colonists

• The United States expanded its territory with the Land Ordinance of 1784 and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787

• The Treaty of Paris (1783) said these lands belonged to the United States

  • However, Indigenous peoples were not involved in the treaty. They did not agree to its terms

    • They believed the land was theirs

    • Great Britain supported the Indigenous groups with weapons and supplies

    • The British wanted a buffer zone of Indigenous territory between British Canada and the United States

• Battles broke out between Indigenous groups and Anglo-American soldiers

• At first, Indigenous peoples were successful at pushing back American settlers and soldiers

• Then the British became nervous about helping the United States’ enemy

  • The British refused to give shelter to Indigenous peoples during 1794’s Battle of Fallen Timbers

    • The British did not want to anger the US government and accidentally start another North American war

    • The two countries started peace talks without consulting, or even alerting, Indigenous leaders

    • More than a thousand Indigenous people were killed during the battle

    • Victorious Americans made Indigenous leaders sign the Treaty of Greenville, which gave almost all Indigenous land in what is now Ohio to Anglo-American settlers

Frontier Tensions

• As immigrants and migrants moved west, social tensions on the frontier grew

• People known as “squatters” and “crackers” moved onto the frontier

  • They did not own the land they used

  • They did not have the right to vote

  • They represented the lowest, most impoverished social class

• Four counties in North Carolina (today’s northeast Tennessee) created their own state, Franklin, in 1784

  • The people who lived there felt they were “a distinct people” from Americans who lived further east

  • The State of Franklin rejoined North Carolina in 1789

• There was also an increase in political tension on the frontier

  • The farmers involved in western Pennsylvania’s Whiskey Rebellion felt that the federal government was unfairly targeting them

    • They believed taxing whiskey was a violation of their rights

    • They did not care that tax revenues would benefit the nation

• Tension between ethnic groups was also on the rise

  • In December 1763, Pennsylvania frontiersmen known as the Paxton Boys killed 20 innocent Susquehannock people whom they suspected of taking part in the Pontiac Indian uprising

  • The Paxton Boys did not get into trouble because most people in the area were prejudiced against Indigenous peoples