Border Law: The First Seminole War and American Nationhood

Deborah A. Rosen

Published by Harvard University Press 2015

Border Law

The First Seminole War and American Nationhood

Deborah A. Rosen

https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674425699

Overview
Contents

About this book

The First Seminole War shaped how the United States demarcated its spatial and legal boundaries. Rooted in exceptionalism, manifest destiny, and racism, the legal framework that emerged from Andrew Jackson’s invasion of Florida laid the groundwork for the Monroe Doctrine, the Dred Scott decision, and westward expansion, as Deborah Rosen shows.

Reviews

Rosen not only provides a full account of the border conflict but also offers a thorough discussion of how the campaign reflected contemporary views of the young nation’s place in the world… Rosen argues convincingly that the Seminole War established a pattern of assertive U.S. behavior that defined the early decades of U.S. history, leading to expanded economic/political opportunities but also inevitable conflict with Native Americans and regional neighbors.
-- S. J. Ramold Choice

In the early American republic, empire-builders headed west—to Louisiana, Texas, and the Pacific. But first they went to Florida. There, as Deborah Rosen shows in this magisterial study of Andrew Jackson’s Seminole War, Americans pioneered the legal doctrines and practices that would underpin the United States’ expansion for the next century. Blending legal history with borderland history, Indian history, the history of slavery, and military and diplomatic history, Border Law is a major contribution to the story of how America’s empire of liberty became an empire.
-- Eliga Gould, author of Among the Powers of the Earth: The American Revolution and the Making of a New World Empire

Deborah Rosen’s provocative Border Law conceptualizes the Seminole War as a defining moment of American nation-building. Beyond the diplomatic high-handedness and low territorial motives, Rosen finds that Americans struggled creatively to match their ambitions with the law of nations. On the floor of Congress and beyond, popular desire for spatial expansion, racial exclusion, and national justice overrode conventional understandings of international diplomacy and law, helping to remake that law along the way. Among other virtues, Rosen puts Native Americans, Spaniards, and Britons at the center of early American history. Part of a new political history that blends diplomacy, law, and political culture, Rosen’s in-depth examination bridges the Early Republic and Jacksonian America.
-- Daniel Hulsebosch, New York University School of Law

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
List of Maps Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1 U.S.-Spanish Relations and the Florida Campaigns Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	11
2 Rules of War and American Nation-Building Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	40
3 Challenges and Conflicts Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	72
4 Creeks, Seminoles, and Indian Wars Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	102
5 Civilization and Nationhood Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	123
6 Race and Territoriality Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	158
7 Military Tribunals and Rule of Law Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	185
Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	208
Appendix Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	223
Abbreviations Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	229
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	231
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	303
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	305

Language: English
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Pages
- Main content: 328
Illustrations
- Other: 7 maps, 1 table

eBook

Published: April 6, 2015
ISBN: 9780674425699