'America: Our Defining Hours': How the Erie Canal changed the course for modern American civilization
When it comes to the foundations of the United States of America, it would seem many fortuitous moments came together to help make the country what it is today. Now, History Channel's latest three-part miniseries, 'America: Our Defining Hours', draws upon 300+ years of US history — from the Mayflower, the American Civil War to September 11 — to tell a relevant, emotional tale of how the US seized moments of crisis to create a better tomorrow.
As explored in 'America: Our Defining Hours', one of the key events in the history of the country was the establishment of the Erie Canal, which at one point was called "Clinton's Folly", named after DeWitt Clinton who served as the Governor of New York from 1817 to 1822. It was DeWitt who helped make the canal a reality. Before the Erie Canal, the country had two great water transportation systems: the Mississippi-Missouri-Ohio River System and the Great Lakes System.
It was a man named Jess Hawley who initially wrote a plan to connect the Hudson River to Lake Erie while he was in debtors' prison during 1807-08. His plans were influential enough to come to the attention of Clinton, who was then the mayor of New York City. In 1808, the New York State Legislature appropriated funds for a survey of possible routes for such a canal.
Initially, the project was decried by many. Thomas Jefferson himself disparaged the project as sheer madness. Many thought the project was impracticable and opponents mocked it as "Clinton's Folly" and "DeWitt's Ditch". It was only in 1817, after years of opposition, that Clinton was able to get the legislature to appropriate $7M dollars for construction.
The canal was finished in 1825, with Clinton opening it by traveling in the packet boat Seneca Chief along the canal into Buffalo. After riding from the mouth of Lake Erie to New York City, he emptied two casks of water from Lake Erie into New York Harbor, celebrating the first connection of waters from East to West. The canal was an immense success, carrying huge amounts of passenger and freight traffic. The cost of freight between Buffalo and Albany fell from $100 to $10 per ton, and the state was able to quickly recoup the funds it spent on the project through tolls along the canal. The completion of the canal brought about a significant shift in public opinion on Clinton, who was now hailed for completing the canal.
The Erie Canal had a massive role to play in the early years of the country and impacted much of how the country is today. For instance, the canal opened at a time when the divide between the North and the South was growing over slavery. Before the opening of the Erie Canal, New Orleans had been the only port city with an all-water route to the interior of the US. With the Erie Canal, that trend changed as new settlers from New England, New York and Europe brought their abolitionist views with them to the newly established Midwest states, while helping reduce the dependence of the industrial North on the agriculturally dominant South.
Moreover, you can thank the canal for New York City's greatness today. The Erie Canal gave New York City access to a large area of the Midwest, helping establish it as a premier port in the country. New York City then became the country's commercial capital and the primary port of entry for European immigrants. The city's population quadrupled between 1820 and 1850 and the financing of the canal’s construction also allowed New York to surpass Philadelphia as the country's pre-eminent banking center.
However, the canal transformed the lives of Native Americans in the state of New York. Its construction occurred during a period of intense “Indian removal” policies, and the canal itself ran through territory traditionally occupied by the Haudenosaunee (better known as the Iroquois Confederacy), forcing many of them to move. When Clinton was New York’s mayor, he claimed that “before the passing away of the present generation, not a single Iroquois will be seen in this state".
Unlike the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, another influential 19th-century waterway, the Erie Canal, is still used for commercial shipping but it is no longer profitable. However, people can still visit the canal and go through the routes that are marked as a transformative landmark in American history.
'America: Our Defining Hours' will air on History Channel on July 5 at 9/8c.
