Week 9 — Jeffersonian & Jacksonian America

Why this matters

A business student tracing how a canal or a rail line remakes a town's trade and a future teacher serving a Native community whose nation survived removal both meet this week's question: when a country grows, who gains and who pays?

In plain language

This week covers the three decades after Thomas Jefferson took office in 1801. The country doubled in size with the Louisiana Purchase (land bought from France in 1803), fought Britain in the War of 1812, and built canals, steamboat lines, and factories that tied farms to distant markets. Voting widened under Jacksonian democracy (the opening of the vote to most white men around Andrew Jackson's rise), but only for white men. The same government forced the Cherokee Nation and other Native nations from their homelands in the Southeast, a policy called removal (forcing a people off its land to a place the government chose). You will read three dated documents from these years and ask, each time, who speaks in the document and who does not.

• Already covered: Week 1's four moves for reading a source, Week 7's strict construction and Jefferson's First Inaugural Address, and Week 8's review.
• This week: the Louisiana Purchase, the War of 1812, the market revolution, the Missouri Compromise, Jacksonian democracy, Indian removal and the Trail of Tears, and the nullification crisis.
• How they connect: you follow the new majority of 1801 into three decades of growth and ask who paid for it.
• Where we're going next: Week 10, Reform, Religion & Reawakening.

Focus

How did politics, markets, and expansion change the country between 1801 and 1832, and who bore the cost?

By the end of this module, you should be able to:

• [ ] tell the Missouri Compromise line from popular sovereignty
• [ ] source Jackson's removal message as evidence of his argument
• [ ] explain why Jacksonian democracy did not widen the vote for everyone

To-do

Plan your week

1. Read Chapter 9 (~60–70 minutes), then the lecture and slides.
2. Work the lecture tutorial (60–90 minutes).
3. Work the practice set (15–25 minutes).
4. Do the Primary Source Workshop (about 90 minutes), the discussion, and the assignment.
5. Take the quiz.

This week's checkpoint: before you trust a President's word, say what the source shows and what it does not.

You've got this

Take it one section at a time, and ask your instructor if a step snags.

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