Geography Question

Factual Questions
1

I just started teaching American History for the first time in my teaching career, and I’ve found a lot of great resources online, but some of the material I have to cover is far too specific to be found. Next week, I have to cover “Geographic conditions that influenced settlements in the North American colonies.”

Does anyone want to share any information they may have about this subject or direct me to helpful websites.

I figure some geographic conditions would include:

Mountain Ranges slowing the progress of settlements.

Colonists tended to settle near a source of freshwater.

I’m quite sure the farther north they settled, the more severe the weather.

Does anyone care to add more?

Thanks

2

I’d modify the “source of freshwater” concept to specifically include larger rivers for transportation and shipping.

Didn’t some geographic features become important for settlers moving west? Scotttsbluff NE came into being because the settlers used it as a good landmark and weigh station for their travels.

3

I agree with Sigene on the transporation aspect. Look at major American Cities and ask why are they there – there needs to be a commercial aspect (that usually means easy transporation), they need proximity to fresh water and a food supply.

Rochester, New York was settled before the nineteenth century, but what really made it blosom was the Erie Canal – suddenly they had a way to transport all that grain to New York City. The surrounding countryside was idea for growing grain, and the Falls of the Genessee provided he water power to grind it into flower. But Rochester didn’t become the “Flour City” until the Eries Canal provided an affordable way to get that flour to a big market. (Nowadays they’ve changed it to “Flower City”, and the Falls are hidden away behind buildings. I wonder how many Rochesterians know the history of their own city?)

Atlanta Georgia – it’s not near a major river, so why is it there? This is a case of the Railroads being the source of transportation.
It’s also interesting to look at why some cities fail. The railroads could apparently make or break cities by including them or bypassing them on their routes. I’ve heard that many burgeoning midwest towns died when the railroads decided to go elsewhere. Salem, Massachusetts lost out to its nearby rival Boston because the latter had deeper and better-protected ports. Salem had been one of the biggest and most important trading citries of its day.

4

As far as this is concerned, IIRC the colonists’ discovery of the Cumberland Gap allowed them to expand westward past the Appalachians. Didn’t this happen sometime in the 1730s?

Doesn’t seem that the extreme weather of the North kept people out - Quebec was settled well before most of New England started blossoming into the industrial center it became. Seems to me the French got into places like Michigan and Illinois before the English did, seeing as how they didn’t have large mountain ranges to contend with in their trapping expeditions.

As for fresh water, I guess you’d have to look at old maps of places, say from the mid- to late 17th century and see what was indicated as far as water sources. Cities would probably be located near rivers, of course, but I’d be willing to bet smaller towns and villages would be located farther away, if the settlers could find a spring or had good luck digging wells.

5

Damn, Cal beat me to the Erie Canal!

Something Cal implied, but did not mention explicitly in his post, is that the EC was built as a result of geography; there is a singular and fortuitous break in the otherwise relentless Appalchian Mt. range in central New York State. The impact of the canal on the region – and the nation – was remarkable, and often overlooked.

I suggest you read a brief article from November 1990 American Heritage called “Real Estate: Where and When” by John Steele Gordon. (I don’t know if it’s online, but I doubt it.) He discusses the geographic (and other) influences that created cities, and talks extensively about the Erie Canal.

6

My hometown of Grand Junction, CO, was created because of its geography. It was at the confluence of the Gunnison and Grand Rivers, which became the Colorado River. (Nowadays, the Colorado is now considered to start where the Grand River did.)

It wasn’t the navagability of the rivers that was key (you can walk across certain parts of the Colorado near GJ in the summer). Rather, it was that they had formed valleys that were the easiest land routes from Denver and Pueblo to points west. This is where the railroads then highways were laid.

During the 20th century, it again became an important depot, not because of geography, but geology. There were uranium and oil shale booms in western Colorado up until the 1980’s. Sadly for GJ, oil shale went bust, and uranium isn’t as big as it used to be. Even it’s airport, which used to be quite busy, now only has maybe 2 a day. They don’t even bother to check you through the metal detector. They wait until you deplane in Denver, then walk you through one before you can enter the terminal building.

7

Wiggum, see my reply to the thread Another Geography Question in this forum, which relates to your issue.

8

WIGGUM

I’m surprised that your sources missed this one: the fall line. There is a relatively sharp break in the continental elevation near the Atlantic Ocean. Higher ocean levels in the past and subsequent patterns of erosion have left that fall line considerable inland. So, there are mostly flat areas of about three to five hundred feet elevation that suddenly drop to the tens of feet of elevation of the coastal plain. Thus, the many streams and rivers produce waterfalls, and hence the name.

Such waterfalls were important power sources, and many of the largest eastern cities grew around the fall line. Even though being a seaport is also an economic advantage, if you look at a map, you’ll notice that large cities favored the fall line rather than the coast line–Montgomery, Atlanta, Charlotte, Raleigh, Richmond, Washington, Philadelphia. Of course, the fall line intersects the coastline at New York City–and it’s our largest city.

9

Great answers! Thanks for the help.

Random, what was the name of the thread that you posted to?

10

Besides the other features mentioned you might consider how definsible the colony would be from attack. (Other colonial poweres and natives) Plus I think many of them just ended up wherever they hit land so don’t rule out dumb luck. Remember that not all colonies were successful so don’t just consider NYC, Boston, but the loser colonies as well.

11

Another Geography Question. It’s been on the same page as this one all day, as both are active.

12

Wow, elementary school history class finally pays off!

In Virginia, and to a lesser extent Pennsylvania, the geography of the Atlantic coastal region played a major role in the history of English settlement. The small sailing vessels of the English colonial effort were able to navigate the rivers in Virginia along the coastal plain, but were unable to pass the “Fall Line” into the interior.

This natural barrier determined the locations of the earliest colonies, and the later larger towns. The Piedmont region, featuring rolling hills and the gradual rise to the Appalachian Mountains were settled only by road travel. Roads were difficult to build in the densely forested regions beyond the coastal plain. While the settlement happened, it happened in small steps, and the communities created were highly isolated. This fostered a very strong sense of self-reliance, and was a very fertile environment for the same aspects of character that made independence a likely intellectual step later.

The rivers in Virginia are of little importance in travel now. The placement of the fall line is still evident, though, from the location of the oldest cities in the State. Richmond, Jamestown, Petersburg, Alexandria, and the Maryland port city of Georgetown, later to become a part of Washington, DC. The City of Baltimore is still a major port, due entirely to the protected waterway offered by the Chesapeake Bay. Norfolk, Suffolk, Newport News, Falmouth, and their naval yards are a direct inheritance of their obvious geographical benefits to a society dependent upon ship born trade.

The most obvious and easily seen example, of course, is the City of New York, New York. The entire earth has no more obvious port city location. Whoever settled the North American continent, the greatest port on that side of the continent would have been in the same place. With that port, the city there must necessarily become a finance center, and a city of world wide commercial significance.

San Francisco is in the same circumstance on the opposite coast, although the sheer size of the Pacific mitigates its importance until such time as the society is able to reliably negotiate such vast distances in a commercially useful manner. Seattle is much the same, although the matter of distance is even greater.

In the southeastern quarter of the US the matter of sea travel and river travel become overwhelming in importance. Without existing roads, walking among the many swamps and forests of the Pristine American continent would be tedious indeed. Placement of communities is almost entirely based on the availability of adequate harbors, and the military defense of same. Those cities that were established were far more closely connected to their sea trade partners than to the other colonies on the continent for the simple reason that road travel from Savannah to Richmond was at best an adventure involving significant discomfort, and real risk. The effect that isolation had would continue into the next century, and perhaps beyond.

Geography is part of history.

Tris

13

There were discussions of settlement in this thread:
Cairo Illionis (What happened?)

And Cecil did a column on where the rich and poor sections of large cities are located Is the south side always the baddest part of town? that generated a lot of discussion in The Baddest Part of Town, some of which is relevant to your questions.

Do not forget what is on the topology of the land, as well. Farmland in much of New England is rather poor, and in places where it is not, it is still often very rocky. The area we now call the “The Nation’s Breadbasket” was called, for years, “The Great American Desert” because the people passing over it confused a lack of trees for an inability to raise crops. These traits influenced the decisions of settlers of where to settle.

The region settled by the French has been noted for its harsher climate than the region settled by the British, but the ideas of colonization that each group brought worked to the advantage of the French (in terms of making their colony “successful”). The French basically came to establish control for trade. The British looked for a way to acquire and settle the land. By the time of the U.S. War for Independence, there were still fewer than 10,000 people in the colony of New France that the British had taken 12 years earlier–yet New France had been a “successful” colony, sending a substantial amount of wealth (in furs and other trade goods) back to France. The St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers extending into the enormous Great Lakes Basin allowed them direct and swift access to the regions where they could develop trade.

Later developments (you mentioned “frontier settlement” in the OP) included:

  • the steeply rising (if only moderately high) New England countryside that provided admirable locations for many water mills;
  • the fortuitous positions of coal at one end and iron and copper at the other end of the Great Lakes, making it very easy to bring together the ingredients necessary to fuel the industrial revolution
  • the proximity of the headwaters of rivers draining into the Mississipi to the narrowly circumscribed Great Lakes Basin, providing fairly easy communication between the East Coast, the center of the nation, and the foothills of the Rockies;
  • the Mississippi Basin, itself, that stretches a single major arterial network from the Gulf of Mexico through the center of the nation, entending navigable branches as far East as Pennsylvania and as far North and West as Minnesota and Montana;
  • the enormous forests of the Southeast and Great Lakes, (and, later, the West Coast), unharvested by the indigenous peoples, that provided timber to (literally) “build” the nation;
  • the large deposits of ores found throughout the West that provided incentive to develop that area, even in regions where food and water were not easily provided, locally;
  • and in a mixed geographic/political situation, the advanced cultures and political power of the Iroqois Confederacy and the Natchez, who had established trade routes throughout their respective regions, reducing the amount of “exploring” that the European invaders needed to do fresh.
14

Not specifically Colonial period, but don’t forget the accessibility of natural resources, like coal and iron ore. Pittsburgh is a classic example – a fort at the confluence of three rivers that turned out to be located close to a wealth or resources. Other towns might have had the coal seam play out, and been abandoned.

Abundant wildlife is another example. St. Louis, while near the confluence of major rivers, was founded by fur trappers.

15

If you want more detailed info, set some time parameters.

Are you looking for the period ending with the War for Independence? The very initial settlements ending prior to 1660 or so? Or for the general settlement and expansion into or throughout the nineteenth century?

16

And don’t forget cities that sprung in spite of their geographical problems, like Los Angeles, which has little fresh water of its own and no natural port, yet managed to bring enough water to make it the second biggest city and somehow made the Ports of L.A. and Long Beach two of the busiest in the world.

Much of the settlement of the West was a matter of overcoming geographical problems similar to L.A.'s

17

When the northern transcontinental rail line was being built, Seattle and Tacoma, Washington were both being considered to be the western terminus. The two towns both had great ports, and the populations were about the same. But everybody knew that whichever one was picked would become the big city of the region.

Of course the winner was…

Tacoma.

Well, the powers-that-were in Seattle couldn’t take that lying down, so they started their own effort to build a railroad from Seattle to points east. The original project collapsed (I don’t remember why), and the second one didn’t.

You might also point out how cities can suffer the consequences of the geography that made them prosper in the first place. If you look at a map of the Seattle area now, you almost couldn’t pick a worse spot for a city of that size. Downtown is between Elliot Bay to the west and Lake Washington to the east. That limits the number of routes into the city, and rush-hour traffic is a nightmare.