Dying for Dirt

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Manifest destiny. Essay. 800 words, 4-minute read.

Image: The Territory of the Thirteen Original States, 1783, University of South Florida Maps Archive

Dying for Dirt

By Ray Tabler

Did you know that Michigan and Ohio once fought a short, low-grade war over the city of Toledo? Some Michiganders joke that Ohio lost the Toledo War of 1835. Some Ohioans point out that if they’d lost the war, they would’ve been saddled with the city of Detroit as well. Can’t argue with that logic.

Early, internal US territorial disputes are mostly forgotten now. But back in the day, they were a hot topic. As the accompanying map shows, the original colonies laid claim to enormous swaths of land to the west. Massachusetts owned Maine and quite a bit of New York, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia marched all the way to the Mississippi. New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and South Carolina were, relatively speaking, short changed. Believe it or not, Connecticut once claimed the sites for both Cleveland and Chicago.

This contentious situation arose from the way the original royal charters to the various colonies were worded. A charter might state that the crown granted the lands between the mouth of this river, and that river on the Atlantic coastline, and “inland.” The King of England only had a vague idea of what lay to the west of his American colonies. And he probably didn’t much care, either.

“Inland” turned out to be an imprecise term. Rivers don’t run in straight lines. If a river is followed upstream, it eventually gets smaller and smaller, turning into a stream, then a brook, then a watershed. What then? The practical answer was to draw a westward line and move on. That’s what you see on the map above. Presumably, those lines extend all the way to the Pacific Ocean, the likely origin of the phrase “sea to shining sea.”

Fortunately for America, the disagreements were worked out in Congress, back when political gridlock hadn’t set in quite so much as today. New states were created. Pennsylvania wrangled a narrow, strategic corridor to the Great Lakes, modern day Erie, PA. I don’t know what Massachusetts, Connecticut, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia received in return for relinquishing their claims in the west. But they must’ve got something.

Throughout history, and likely before that, the more dirt a monarch could claim and successfully defend, the more power he held. Land was everything. More land meant more dirt for crops, more people for taxes (and to raise troops from), and minerals to exploit. There were exceptions to and variations upon this theme. The Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Venetians, Portuguese, Dutch, and British all built trading empires controlling sea lanes (until they didn’t). Still, each of these maritime powers needed far-flung port colonies for their ships to trade, refit, and (with the advent of steam power) coal. Even modern powers rely upon strategically located ports and air bases about the globe.

Real estate agents and empire builders alike live by the motto that God isn’t making anymore land. As such, there is only a fixed supply of dirt. That means territorial control is a zero-sum game. Brings to mind comedian George Carlin’s bit about American football. “… we’re Europe, Jr. We came from Europe, man; we’re Europe Jr. We really got it all down. We play the Europe game. What is the Europe game? “Let’s take their f***ing land!”

Now, it’s not exactly true that God isn’t making any more land. Planets are coalescing in orbit about distant stars. Volcanos are extending the coastlines in Iceland and Hawaii and vomiting up barren new islands in the middle of oceans. New land is being made. Just not in convenient locations, or fast enough to suit us. Hence, we are still trapped in the zero-sum game. Mercifully, humanity seems to be in a relatively uneventful stretch of history. Sort of like the lunch break in a cricket match or half-time at the Superbowl.

Some argue that is old thinking. Since the great trauma of the World Wars, we have come to a consensus about countries conquering each other and abandoned that barbaric practice. Ahem. China annexed Tibet in 1950 and appears to be preparing to do the same with Taiwan. Russia is committed to “liberating” Ukraine from the Ukrainians. The US is making noises about annexing Greenland, and casting come-hither looks at western Canada.

This purpose of this essay isn’t to make value judgements about this land or that. In fact, I don’t think I’ve been particularly cynical. The world has changed in significant ways. In others, it hasn’t. One constant has been people, and the manner in which they…we behave. Perhaps in the future human nature will change. I doubt it. Crafty, opportunistic, adaptable, and morally flexible seems to be a winning combo for homo sapiens to date. Dying for dirt is likely to continue. Even when that dirt will be on the Moon, Mars, or beneath another sun.

END.

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