The death of Benjamin Franklin was a devastating event which brought the entire Commonwealth into mourning; hailed as the Father of Confederation, Doctor Franklin's funeral was a massive affair which drew thousands onto the streets of Philadelphia. His demise came quickly, though word of his failing health had been subject to whispers and gossip throughout his duration in office. Through the throes of old age, he steered the Commonwealth through war and peace,setting precedents that would endure as part of the nation's constitutional traditions. Suffering from pleurisy in his final days, the Prime Minister's end came quickly, stating "a dying man can do nothing easy" before taking his final parting breath. News spread quickly across Philadelphia as crowds gathered outside Franklin's home, with the devastating developments making it's way across the country as post riders heralded the news. The business of government paused in honor of Franklin, who was accorded the first state funeral in American history, and in a moving eulogy, Joseph Galloway - the leader of the opposition - praised Franklin as being "first in the hearts of his countrymen" in a speech which was widely reprinted across the country.
The funeral procession of Benjamin Franklin.
What followed Franklin's funeral was a political knife fight that threatened to fracture the Whigs. Both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson each commanded a strong presence within the caucus, with many, including War Minister George Washington, finding themselves in the middle of both camps. Though many of the parliament's leading voices entertained greater political ambitions, only Adams and Jefferson had the support to be able to lead a viable government. It was apparent, regardless who came out ahead, that an election would have to be held in accordance with the constitution. The death of Franklin before the expiration of parliament's mandate set the stage for the first true leadership election in American history.
Just ten days after Franklin's passing at age 84 on April 27th, 1790, the parliament reconvened at the request of the Governor-General to reach a consensus over the late Prime Minister's successor. Adams saw an opportunity in the opposition, knowing that he had a plurality of Whig aligned MPs, and reached out to Galloway and his Tories for support. Though the Tory faction was less inclined to support Adams, the radical strain of ideology that Jefferson represented ensured there was no other clear choice. Thomas Pickney, a Tory MP and officer in the Royal American Army, proposed Alexander Hamilton while James Monroe, also an MP, nominated his fellow Virginian James Madison. Yet these proposals required the careful construction of a bipartisan coalition government that would follow in Franklin's footsteps, which was implausible to the diverse nature of the two factions. In accordance with the longstanding parliamentary traditions of London, the Governor-General quickly decided to intervene and establish a precedent for future vacancies, ensuring that the legislature did not have complete autonomy over such appointments.
After summoning Adams to his mansion on Market Street, the Governor-General instructed the Foreign Minister to form a government. Though both Adams and Galloway were weary of sharing power, knowing that such a coalition would surely energize the Jefferson wing of the Whigs, they both also shared a common vision of further integration within the Empire. They also shared as a mutual distaste for what they perceived to be the dangers of political radicalism, which they felt was a threat to the traditional order and values of English society. As a result, a new government emerged, though it's future was unclear as the parliament's mandate neared expiration. A vote of confidence passed 80-65, allowing Adams and his Ministry to assume office for the remaining duration of the first Parliament's original mandate. The new government retained several figures from the Franklin Ministry; Hamilton was to remain Finance Minister, though Adams was keen to change this in the aftermath of the impending election. Washington and Madison too were retained, with the apolitical Washington desiring to reaffirm American control over Louisiana, conquered from Spain during the Colombian War. Madison, on the other hand, stayed with the internal desire to act as a bulwark against Adams's perceived indifference to the rights of provincial legislatures and the constitution.
The polarization of the American public was as bad as it had been in fifteen years, with memories of the ill fated American revolt still fresh in the minds of many. The decision by the Duke of York and Albany to use his position as Governor-General to cobble together a Tory supported government led to a torrent of outrage. As Governor-General, the Duke had never been particularly popular, and he had become increasingly bored in the role, desiring a return to his previous and more luxurious life. In a letter addressed to and read publicly before parliament, the Duke announced his intention to resign from his position upon the formation of a government. His resignation would lead the Lt. Governor, the Earl of Cornwallis, to succeed him until the King named a replacement; Cornwallis would ultimately receive this appointment after a brief period as the interim acting Governor-General. The resignation came just five days after the House passed the a motion of confidence.
The resignation of the Duke was followed by Cornwallis dropping writs of election, sparking the 1790 American Federal Election...
The 1790 American federal election was a nasty affair that polarized the Commonwealth and sowed the seeds of the political divide which would carry through much of the following century. The death of Benjamin Franklin came within months of the expiration of the first parliament's mandate, giving his eventual successor John Adams little time to prepare. With the House initially deadlocked in the days following Franklin's demise, it was the Governor-General's intervention that led to Adams being appointed Lord President of the Council with Galloway, who held more sway in London, as Foreign Minister. This would prove to be a disastrous coalition between the two opposing factional leader that would shatter both their personal relationship with one another and permanently fostered a deep mutual distrust between the Whigs and Tories. The cracks began early on in the early days of the coalition when Adams informed Galloway that he would soon be dismissing Hamilton, a Tory MP and banker from New York who had been the architect of Franklin's fiscal policies. Adams reasoning was two fold; in removing Hamilton, he telegraphed to London that the Commonwealth would be pursuing trade and commercial activities that promoted the interests of the former colonies rather than the agenda set in London by the Prime Minister.
Galloway, a loyalist to the crown, was appalled at Adam's ambitions. Hamilton's policies had promoted internal development which would generate economic growth and expand Britain's wealth. While Adams was himself a loyalist as well, he also realized the danger of allowing London to resume an active role in the colonial markets. Though Adams had approved of many of Hamilton's programs, including the assumption of provincial debt and the establishment of the bank of America, he was weary of the Finance Minister's influence, and viewed him as a powerful rival who needed to be dispatched to the backbenches. Both the Tories and the Whigs alike were divided internally between the southern and northern wings; this was more true of the former than the later, with Adams eyeing James Madison, the Minister of Justice,
The legacy of the American revolt was still fresh in the Commonwealth in the wake of Franklin's ministry, and it was Galloway's remarks at the late Prime Minister's funeral in Philadelphia that were most remembered in the days following his passing. Declaring Franklin to be "first in the hearts of his countrymen" in a widely reprinted and well received eulogy, Galloway's reputation began to evolve. Having once been one of the original supporters of the Albany Conference during the Seven Years War, he alienated many for his support of the King during the brief troubles that nearly threw the New World into war once again. Yet within a decades time, he had emerged as one of the leading figures in America's parliament, rehabilitated in the eyes of the American people as memory of "the troubles" (as many Americans described the failed revolt) faded into the past. A deeply religious man, Galloway positioned himself as a less radical figure who could continue the popular consensus style of government. Adams, who was as moderate and tempered a man as Galloway, was at a disadvantage due to his opposition to slavery in the south, and many southern Whigs viewed Jefferson as their leader. Adams, who was outspoken in favor of the abolition of slavery, alienated half of his own party, a fact Galloway noted much to Adam's displeasure.
The Whig from Massachusetts responded to Galloway in an open letter printed in newspapers across the Commonwealth. In the terse statement directed at Galloway, Adams attempted to rally support in the northern provinces by warning that Galloway was "the chief merchant of the London slave trade." But Adams attacks did little to rally support in the north, while creating a chasm in the Whig caucus as well. While Jefferson, Madison, and Washington all stood for many of the patriotic principals that had manifested in the last decade, they were also slave owners who owned large plantations in Virginia. In response, the southern Whigs and Tories found themselves in an informal arrangement. This coalition of sorts saw the first realignment of the governing factions, the transcending of ideological differences left a vortex filled by regional rivalries, economic disparities, and cultural clashes.
Over the summer of 1790, voters gathered at caucus sites and hustings to elect their respective MPs. The results trickled in slowly, but by early August it was clear that the Tories had displaced the Whigs. Though they still lacked a majority, they were able to gain the support of six of the twelve independents elected to the House. This informal grouping of independents were led unofficially by George Washington, who was respected by most of the members of the House of Commons. Yet Washington could only muster the support of half of these independents, with Patrick Henry (who had abandoned his efforts to abolish the monarchy in favor of full American independence) being the most prominent. With this loose majority, Joseph Galloway asked by the Governor General to form a new government.
The 1790 election saw an internal debate within the Commonwealth that centered around regional concerns and the role of London in American politics. As both Galloway and Adams hurled allegations at one another, their rhetoric would soon be compounded by events overseas. Confined to the palace in Paris, the King found himself a prisoner in his own palace, devoid of any power. The Kingdom's government fell into the hands of the National Assembly, which introduced the Declaration of the Rights of Man, abolished feudalism, and seized the property of the Catholic Church. As was the case across the Atlantic, two factions emerged in the National Assembly. Some, including Jacques Necker, looked to America and Britain for inspiration, though the radicals - particularly the Jacobins, encouraged a more radical vision for the new government of France.
The Jacobin Club in Paris became a hotbed of radicalism.
Events in France seemed only to grow more brutal and more violent; when a new constitution was introduced, the Marquis de Lafayette, a royalist nobleman, marched on this assembly with a contingent of soldiers under his command; after the radicals began hurling rocks and other projectiles at the troops, they opened fire, killing 50 citizens before retreating away from the site of the slaughter. The event was enough to galvanize many, in Paris and in the countryside, to embrace the revolution. Sensing the growing crisis, the National Assembly voted to shut down the political clubs and many newspapers, driving radicals like Georges Danton into exile and Jean Paul Marat into hiding. Realizing that France's army had been thrown into chaos due to the unclear leadership, the Prussian King and the Holy Roman Emperor issued a declaration affirming King Louis XVI, still imprisoned in Paris, as the legitimate constitutional leader of France.
Paris fell into panic when word reached the city of this declaration by the two most powerful German leaders, with rumors spreading that Britain would also join an invasion of France. This lead to chaos spreading from the capital to the countryside. Angered by the National Guardsmen's recent actions in Paris, the situation worsened over the course of 1791. By the spring of 1792, the situation was spiraling out of control. Deluded that a war with Austria could be won, the National Assembly launched preemptive attack into the Austrian Netherlands, which was surprisingly successful given the lack of a relatively clear chain of command. But their initial gains were matched by upheaval at home; across the country, noblemen loyal to the King began forming their own militias with their own personal wealth. The radicals lashed out against the church, encouraging their followers to ransack monasteries and cathedrals, events which shocked and horrified Europe. Worried about the successful campaign by French forces in the Austrian Netherlands, the Prussian army under the command of the Duke of Brunswick pushed into France through Luxembourg, pulling the French army away from Brussels as part of a broader trap.
The trap failed.
At the battle of Longwy. the Prussians engaged the French on terrain of their choosing, successfully splintering the advancing French army and capitalizing on the internal disagreements between the top officers overseeing the campaign. With a third of the French army bolting back to Paris while the remaining force returned to Brussels in preparation for another Prussian attack, panic broke out in Paris. Fearing the end of the revolution, radicals such as Marat called for the slaughter of those viewed as threats to the new order. Priests were dragged out of parishes across the country, beaten and hacked to death in the streets as blood trickled through the cobblestone. The jails, where many noblemen and conservative or reactionary figures were held, were emptied as a mob of raging Parisians killed them in their cells. Even the King's elite Swiss Guard, who protected the monarch and the royal family, were killed in mass by the storm of angry Parisians. Many more fled, primarily to England or Spain, where horrific stories of brutality and blasphemy were widespread. But the worst was yet to begin.
The slaughter of the Swiss Guard in Paris.
The execution of King Louis XVI was the beginning of the terror; tried by the National Assembly, the King was accused of conspiring against the revolution by communicating sensitive intelligence about the French army to his wife's Austrian relatives. The King's trial was a circus, with a predetermined outcome apparent to all. Sentenced to death, the King was taken to the guillotine in his royal carriage for one final jury. When the blade fell down on his neck, the Ancien Regime had at last fallen. But this was only the mere beginning of the terror. Within a few weeks time, Marat, a leading Jacobin, would be stabbed to death in his bathtub by Charlote Cordray, who was soon after guillotined for the assassination.
The death of King Louis XVI saw debate over who should replace him; the National Assembly eventually passed legislation declaring the Republic of France, drafting another constitution that created the position of "President." Another governmental body, the Committee of Public Safety, also began to rise to prominence during this period. Chaired by Maximilian Robespierre, the Committee was legally defined as the chief defense and security organ of the new Republic's convoluted and unorganized government. Robespierre became obsessed with the revolution, purging rival factions and ordering the execution of numerous perceived enemies. This period would become known as "the terror," with numerous atrocities taking place across France. The horrors in Paris spread throughout the country, and in the rural regions, many towns and villages simply began ignoring orders from Paris. Though Robespierre fancied himself the de-facto leader of the French Republic, he had little support outside of Paris, which was firmly in revolutionary hands. The execution of Marie Antoinette some time later was one of the more prominent examples of an action taken by the Jacobins that was unpopular outside of Paris. As the campaign of carnage continued, Robespierre's power was near it's peak.
The fall of Robespierre.
All of the anti-clerical rhetoric took on an even more bizarre form when Robespierre established the Cult of the Supreme Being, an alternative to the Catholic Church. Appearing to a skeptical audience, clad in a white robe while standing atop a paper mache mountain, Robespierre's attempt to replace religion only proved to damage his reputation as French citizens became increasingly weary of his power and presence. Several former allies, including Georges Danton, as well as many enemies like the Marquis de Lafayette, were sent to the "republican razor" as the terror continued. But the people were beginning to buckle. In an event deemed the Thermidonian Reaction, Robespierre himself was removed from office after his address to the National Assembly nearly turned into a riot. Practically chased out of the building, he was eventually sent to the guillotine himself after a failed suicide attempt. His attempt to take his own life failed, resulting only in the radical shooting his jaw practically off the side of his face. In extreme pain, the revolutionary leader was dragged to the guillotine, ending the terror, and setting France on a collision course with a young Corsican officer.
The Proclamation of 1763's repeal led to widespread westward migration into Appalachia and the Ohio Country. The Colombian Revolution had resulted in all of Louisiana coming under British control, but the new territory annexed during this war was instead decided to be administered by the Commonwealth's authorities in Philadelphia. The port city of New Orleans resulted in a rapid uptick in westward settlement, as the now American controlled Mississippi River gave farmers and settlers a considerably less cumbersome method of transporting their crops to markets across the country. While Acadian settlers had long lived in the region wedged between Louisiana and Georgia (which later became the provinces of Indiana and West Florida), the Ohio Country remained more or less sparsely populated until this point.
As the opportunity presented by these lands continued to attract a wave of settlers, the Parliament in Philadelphia found itself engaged busily in debate over how to organize these lands. Many of the former colonies claimed large tracks of land in the west, and were frequently engaged in legal fights over the regulation of these unorganized lands. The government of the new Prime Minister Joseph Galloway looked towards the precedent set by Alexander Hamilton when the provincial debts were absorbed by the federal government. This was enacted via the Western Lands Act, which abolished all existing provincial claims and established two new territories, Indiana and the Ohio Country. Westward expansion through the Cumberland Gap led settlers, including the famed Daniel Boone, to flood into what is now Kentucky and eastern Tennessee. The act also resolved the dispute between New York and New Hampshire by establishing the province of Vermont in the Green Mountains. Only Virginia and North Carolina's claims were honored, with the two provinces stretching from the Atlantic to the Mississippi River. Yet these lands were impossible to govern from their coastal capitals in Richmond and Raleigh. As a result, the province of Kentucky was formed out of Virginia's western claim, and was admitted to the Commonwealth not long after the admission of Vermont. The decision to carve Kentucky out of the western ranges of Virginia was in part due to the delicate issue of slavery; while Vermont was a "free province" where slavery was illegal, Kentucky remained a slave state even though very few slave owners resided within it's boundaries. This was done to create a balance in the Senate, which was within five years of it's creation firmly viewed as the lesser chamber in terms of influence.
Daniel Boone was a famed early western settler.
There had been a history of conflict between the settlers and indigenous people of the Ohio Country, most notable being the conflict now remembered as Pontiacs Rebellion. A second and equally brutal conflict with the Indian Confederacy had secured the eastern reaches of the territory for American settlers at great cost. But south of the Ohio River, relations between the indigenous and the Francophone community had been considerably more cordial. With Francophone and Acadian settlement growing out of Mobile northward up the Tensaw River, the indigenous inhabitants were integrated into the economy, with trade growing between the two inhabitants of the region with each passing year. The Indiana Territory's organization saw an influx of Anglo settlers, but most of the prime agricultural land had already been occupied by the existing Francophone planters, who had years earlier begun the process of purchasing African slaves from markets in New Orleans and Mobile. Though horrific perpetrators of the slave trade were not limited to the Anglo and Francophone settlers, however. The indigenous tribes, particularly the Creek, took part in the trade as well, with some tribes even contracting out their scouts to hunt escaped slaves in exchange for gunpowder, muskets, and gold.
Being only sparsely populated, the Louisiana Territory was fast, unexplored, and legally undefined. Similar to the Hudson's Bay territory, which was largely populated by indigenous peoples and a handful of British fur traders, the government in London led by William Pitt the Younger had lobbied the King to form a Louisiana Company that could profit on the new territory and keep it from falling into the hands of the Commonwealth of America. Despite Pitt's concerns, the King held that since American forces had captured the territory from Spain during the Colombian Wars, it should fall under the jurisdiction of the American Board of Trade. Though Pitt and his Ministers felt such a move would ultimately result in the Spanish or French control of Louisiana, the King was confident that the American Board of Trade could effectively control the region and set the conditions for rapid economic growth. Controlling both New Orleans and Saint Louis, the Commonwealth's geographical boundaries stretched further than ever expected, yet so little of the land had actually been settled.
New Orleans in the 1790s.
Resulting from this abundance of untamed wilderness was a wave of immigration from Europe, particularly from Ireland and the various German states. A considerable amount of wealthy French emigres began flooding into Louisiana, where they established themselves among the Francophone communities in cities like New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Many of these refugees from the revolution would choose to stay, quietly but quickly climbing the steps of social success. It was decided after the 1790 election that a census would be necessary to take into account the complete and total population of the nation, which would effect the future composition of parliament. With such important consequences dependent on the number of citizens, a debate in Parliament arose as to what exactly defined a citizen.
The Immigration Act of 1791 was introduced early on in the Prime Minister's tenure; the legislation required new immigrants to live two years in the Commonwealth before applying for naturalization as a citizen. However, its strident stipulations only applied to white males of good character, effectively erecting a barrier that removed any chance for indigenous or black residents from gaining citizenship and it's constitutional protections. The law's passage by Parliament resulted in a influx of immigrants who moved westward to carve out a living from the wilderness; fittingly enough, the diverse populations of new arrivals spread themselves across the Commonwealth. Scotts-Irish settlers, primarily from Ulster, would find themselves in the western mountains of Virginia and Kentucky. French speaking emigres pushed deeper and deeper into the interior of the Indiana Territory. From Halifax to Saint Augustine, a steady but slow influx of new arrivals landed in every port, the amount growing yearly during the five years under Prime Minister Franklin.
The first decade of the Commonwealth's existence had helped foster a growing sense of patriotism and populism across the provinces, and demonstrated to many across the world that reform without revolution was possible. Yet circumstances across the Atlantic provided a more radical alternative, one fueled not by patriotism but rather an engrained, deeply rooted, dormant anger. The French Revolution had released a surge of revolutionary activity around the world; in Colombia, the central government had trouble holding control of Spain's former colonies in Central America, resulting in Mexico's independence. In La Plata, rebels had taken control of Buenos Aires, while Chile remained in the hands of Spain. There was increasing concern over possible insurrections in Madrid and Vienna alike. As the world was rocked by the wave of revolutionary activity, one uprising in particular would haunt the American public and shake the world to the core.
There was a storm brewing in the Caribbean that was quite unlike any before; on the island of Santo Domingo, African slaves had toiled on sugarcane plantations for nearly two centuries. The richest colony of all the Caribbean, Haiti was prosperous for some, but for many more, Haiti was hell on earth.
The systemic abuse of African slaves in the colony combined with the spread of tropical diseases took a toll on the enslaved population, and in 1787 alone, over 20,000 black Africans were brought into the French owned western third of the island. The vulnerability of slaves to disease also meant that slave overseers were particularly cruel, forcing their slaves to work from sun up to sun down and sustaining them on the bare minimum amount of food and shelter in order to keep costs down. By the late 1780s, tensions were brewing as the enslaved population could only handle so much. In the 17th century, King Louis XIV issued an edict regulating the ability of slave owners to punish or torture their slaves, but this decree was widely ignored on the island. The slave owning planter class often imported slaves from the Congo or Angola in mass to ensure their laborers could communicate with each other in their native tongue, though with each passing generation, the Creole culture and language slowly evolved from this melting pot of African identity.
Another reason for the brutal force used by slave overseers was based in fear. Demographically, the enslaved Africans outnumbered their masters ten to one, and the white planter class was terrified of a potential slave revolt. This necessitated the use of fear, intimidation, and pain to preserve the societal order. Escaped slaves who tried to flee to the Spanish half of the island of Hispaniola were whipped, burnt, mutilated, and sometimes executed if they were unfortunate enough to be recaptured. A caste system of sorts emerged from this climate of fear; at the bottom were African slaves, who were consistently dehumanized and prohibited from obtaining any form of education. Very few men of color were emancipated, and those who were often remained on the plantation as they have never known anything else. Above this were the mulattoes, of mixed ancestry. Some were born into freedom, others into slavery, depending on which plantation they were born into. In addition to the mulatto class, there was a middle class of white French artisans and merchants. But the bulk of the island's revenue was generated and consumed by the planter class, which only served to alienate the slave population even further.
Though the bulk of the island's population was illiterate and in bondage, the white French planter class could not prevent the spread of enlightenment ideals to the people. In 1789, word of the French Revolution and the implementation of the Declaration of the Rights of Man reached the colony. The white planters attempted to keep the slave population from learning of these events, and there were concerns that the new French government would enforce their ban on slavery on the island as well. Several mulatto and poor whites began to agitate in favor of adopting the revolutionary ideals of new France, demanding full equality under the law, but the colonial government did not recognize the revolutionary government and continued to insist that the King of France alone could remove him from office.
On the night of August 21st, 1791, over a thousand slaves walked off their plantations in the darkness of the night, and attended a secret Voodoo ceremony as a hurricane made landfall on the island. With the white planter class hunkered down in their homes, the slaves stormed their plantations and massacred every white they could fine. This event, deemed "the red deluge" (in reference to the bloodshed) would continue for a month as mansions were burnt down in an orgy of murder, rape, and mutilation. White planters fled in droves to the relative safety of Port-au-Prince, while armed bands of now liberated slaves organized a more professional military force. What followed was a years long guerrilla war in which the revolutionaries held their own, keeping a third of the colony in their hands.
"The Red Deluge"
In Philadelphia and London, the rebellion was met with horrified shock. The brute savagery of the French planter class was met with the unmitigated hatred of their now liberated slaves, and there was concern that they could inspire similar slave revolts in the Commonwealth of America or in the British colonies across the Caribbean. Though many American political figures, in particular northern Whigs, were increasingly vocal in their support of abolishing slavery, the events in Haiti horrified the Commonwealth. This put the government of Prime Minister Galloway in a difficult position, as Britain was in a state of war with the French revolutionary government. With the British navy largely distracted fighting the French, it was incumbent on the Commonwealth of America to act on the King's orders. The Royal American Navy, consisting of two frigates and a handful of smaller ships, set out from New York and Boston with the mission of joining a British fleet bound from Jamaica with the purpose of encircling the French colony. By denying the remaining French forces badly needed supply lines, the British and Americans were able to support the revolt in indirectly. By not endorsing the revolution and encircling the colony, Britain's goal of seizing the prosperous colony for themselves seemed closer to reality.
Out of the chaos emerged a central leader after nearly two years of anarchy in the northern part of the colony. His name was Toussaint Louverture, a free black man who was exceedingly well-educated considering he had been born into slavery. A supporter of the revolutionary Jacobins in France, Louverture saw the slave revolts and the accompanying deluge as a chance to rally the black majority of the island behind the cause of independence and abolition. Traveling to the Spanish colony on the western side of Hispaniola, Louverture served as an informal emissary to the European powers and the neighboring Commonwealth of America and the Colombian, but his stint in Spanish territory was short-lived, having managed to only get a meager amount of financial support and weaponry from the local colonial government.
Louverture used his knowledge of European affairs to train the army of freed slaves in the European style of war; by 1793, the second year of the revolt, the rebel army was organized, uniformed, and trained to a degree that surprised foreign observers. They laid siege to Port-au-Prince for months before the last white French citizens were evacuated by sea (many of these planters would migrate to the territories of Louisiana and West Florida), bringing an end to the war to a close. Louverture was declared "King of Haiti" by the revolutionaries, whose leadership gathered to draft a constitution in order to restore order to the nation. Neither Spain nor Britain were interested in recognizing Louverture's regime, fearing such an action could legitimize slave revolts. Yet neither power were willing to abandon the blockade of the new nation, fearing that France could one day retake the prosperous colony. Though Haiti would experience continuous tumult internally, the liberated Haitian people had two constants - the unwilling protection Britain had provided, and the unyielding drive of their King and beloved national hero. Weathering revolts, coup attempts, assassination plots, foreign meddling, and several devastating hurricanes, Louverture ruled Haiti with a firm but fair hand until his eventual demise in 1815, following a cholera outbreak that devastated the country.
The seizure of Louisiana opened the Midwest up for rapid development, and doubled the Commonwealth of America's territory overnight. With access to the port of New Orleans making it possible for western farmers to ship their crop to market resulted in an explosion of westward movement towards the Mississippi River. Yet most of its initial bounties were reaped on the eastern shore of the Mississippi River, where settlers had begun establishing farms and plantations, and America remained an almost entirely agrarian economy well into a decade after confederation. This would begin to change in 1791, when English businessman Samuel Slater, having smuggled a blueprint of an English textile mill out of London (where it was illegal to export scientific and industrial knowledge outside the British Isles), received financing from Rhode Island banker Moses Brown to construct a textile mill within the Commonwealth. By tweaking multiple minor aspects of the blueprint, the two were able to skirt around the law and construct a plant powered by water through use of a spinning wheel. This in effect would be the first modern factory within the Commonwealth's borders, and would have widespread repercussions for decades to come.
Slater's mill in Rhode Island.
The successful construction of the mill was enough to inspire the Bank of America to finance more industrial projects, such as businessman Robert Fulton's construction of a steam powered boat which traveled up the Hudson River between Albany and New York, and Eli Whitney's cotton gin. The latter, which both transformed American agriculture while financially ruining its inventor), would single handily revive the increasingly controversial practice of slavery. By inventing a device which significantly eased the process of removing cotton seeds from the bulb, which more than tripled the nation's cotton output. Within a decades time, American grown cotton would constitute 75% of the world's supply, resulting in a dramatically increased amount of slave importations across the feared "middle passage." The practice of slavery would continue in the southern provinces of Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, and the Mississippi and Louisiana territories, revitalized by the invention. Yet in a dark twist of irony, the cotton gin would bankrupt it's own inventor, who squandered much of his financial resources attempting unsuccessfully to enforce the patent he had received for the invention.
Whitney would later go on to be a modestly successful gunsmith, rapidly building and selling muskets to the federal government and provincial militias by use of interchangeable parts. Though he had often been (incorrectly) referred to as the inventor of this method, Whitney nonetheless had more success in this endeavor but still failed to recover the money gained and then lost after the invention of the cotton gin. The cotton gin revolutionized American agriculture, and would fuel and sustain the early mills in the northeast, employing hundreds of people in the process. Having generated considerable returns on their investments, the successful endeavors would inspire the Bank of America to invest in further industrial projects, as well as various infrastructure improvements that could lower transport time and increase commercial activity.
Other early industrial innovators included the DuPont family, who were émigrés from France. Bringing with them a long history of commerce and knowledge of chemistry, the family established a gunpowder mill just west of Philadelphia which expand and endure on centuries later. Having been successful in their revitalized commercial efforts, the family would grow and eventually reclaim the same level of influence that they had once commanded in their native France. Within a decade of constructing their mill near Brandywine Creek in Pennsylvania with the help of a loan from a Bank of America, the DuPont family had restored their reputation as being among the leading chemists in the early modern era.
Alexander Hamilton, the first Minister of Finance.
This period of American history would vindicate the policies proposed by Alexander Hamilton, the Finance Minister under Franklin, Adams, and Galloway, asserting his position as one of the most powerful men in the country. Talked of as a potential successor to Galloway, Hamilton's push for greater federal investment and regulation in and of the economy made him many enemies within and without the parliament. One of these rivalries was with Aaron Burr, a Whig MP who had often spoke critically of Hamilton on the floor of the House and within the press. So intense was their rhetoric against one another that it resulted in a duel, which resulted in Hamilton fatally shooting Burr. Despite the duel being illegal, Hamilton never faced charges for Burr's death and remained popular with the public in his home province of New York. But events across the ocean would soon pull the Commonwealth once more into the throes of conflict, presenting the burgeoning industrial revolution with the first true test of America's growing economic power.
