Two passions of mine have always been geography and history. In other words, I've always been intrigued both by where things are and also when and why things happened. So when I found out that this book - a detailed look at every interstate border in America - existed, I was instantly fascinated and knew I had to read it. Maps of the United States are so commonplace that each of us, regardless of whether or not we can actually properly locate all fifty states within the country, certainly recognize the collection of borders and boundaries that slice the contiguous United States into, well, forty-eight such states. It's easy to take these boundaries for granted; none have changed in a hundred years and they've become fairy permanent fixtures in our minds. Texas has that distinct Texas shape, and Michigan has two parts, and Florida and Oklahoma have panhandles, and that's just the way it's always been. But why? When you think about it, any boundary line separating two states is fairly arbitrary. Physical features like rivers and mountain ridge-lines make for fairly practical and readily available boundaries, but clearly a majority of the state borders in America don't follow such natural shapes. Instead, lines of latitude and longitude often serve as state edges. These edges get more and more reliably straight as you travel from the East (where said lines were surveyed and established in the 17th century) to the West (using 19th century technology). The whole book fascinated me. I mean, sure, there are some real boring borders out there (is anyone all that interested in the Colorado-Wyoming line?), but I was surprised by how many of even the most apparently cut-and-dry borders were shrewdly placed or eventually relocated for political purposes. I know I'm a real nerd for stuff like this, so your mileage on finding out "how the states got their shapes" may vary. Nonetheless, I'll leave you all with a history of one state's borders. My home state (and likely yours, if I'm to believe the demographics and statistics provided by Blogger): Massachusetts. Massachusetts is one of the oldest states, and as such, its borders were among some of the most altered and disputed in the country's early history. Here's a quick reminder of what the shape of Massachusetts looks like:
Easily recognizable, right? But when you start to ask why the borders are where they are, it's easy to get flummoxed. Why does the northern border depart from being a straight line once it approaches the Atlantic Ocean? Why don't the Connecticut and Rhode Island borders line up perfectly? How did that jagged Rhode Island border in the Southeast come to be anyway? Why is there that little nub sticking out from the bottom of Massachusetts into Connecticut? Why is the Western edge slanted, rather than running vertically from North to South? And in the very Southwest corner, why is a tiny piece of the state seemingly missing? Thanks to How the States Got Their Shapes, I know the answers to all of these questions, and if you read on, you will too. (But here's the jumping off point for the rest of you.)
The MA/NH border:
So, back when the Massachusetts Bay Colony was established, its charter granted it the lands, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, between "three miles north of the Merrimack River" and "three miles south of the Southern edge of Massachusetts Bay." The latter boundary will come into play later, but let's talk about the Merrimack one. This is the Merrimack River. When New Hampshire became its own colony, it chose to interpret the border with Massachusetts as a line running due West from three miles north of the mouth of the river. Massachusetts chose to interpret the boundary as a line three miles north of the river for the length of the river, and then due West from the river's headwaters. According to the Massachusetts interpretation, then, the western half of New Hampshire, along with major Merrimack cities like Concord, Manchester, and Nashua, belonged to Massachusetts. Even the New Hampshire interpretation had present day Nashua on the Massachusetts side of the line. But when they took their dispute to the King of England - this being the Colonial Era, after all - the King went with something different altogether, saying that the border was three miles north of the Merrimack until the river reached its southernmost point (in Lowell), at which point the border ran due West. This gave New Hampshire even more land than it had even claimed itself. The reason for this very NH-favorign decision? The King fucking hated Puritans, and Massachusetts was full of them. So, yeah. Today we in Massachusetts can buy stuff with no sales tax in Nashua because three hundred years ago the king of another country was religiously intolerant. History!
Again, the original charter for Massachusetts Bay said that its southern border was three miles south of the extent of Massachusetts Bay. The colony right below it, however, was Plymouth Colony, which merged with Massachusetts Bay pretty early on. Then came grants for two new colonies, Connecticut and Rhode Island, and although the two had their own border disputes, they agreed that they both extended as far north as three miles south of Massachusetts Bay. Massachusetts decided to loosely interpret this Southern border as "three miles south of the southernmost point of any river that drains into Massachusetts Bay." It worked, and as such, the southern border of the western part of the state came to be. That strange little dip into Connecticut is the result of a settlement made by a bunch of Massachusetts people who didn't realize they'd gone far enough South to be in the Connecticut colony. This actually happened in a number of places, but in most cases the settlements were too far south to realistically claim to be part of Massachusetts. The colonies decided to split the town in half, with Massachusetts keeping one side. The northern borders of Connecticut and Rhode Island do not quite align because each one was surveyed separately (and in Rhode Island's case, incorrectly and in favor of Massachusetts). The Rhode Island colonial contract gave Rhode Island the lands up to three miles east of the East coast of the Narragansett Bay. This did not agree with Massachusetts' claims, which went right up to said East Coast of Narraganset. The colonies brought the case to England, where again Massachusetts lost. Determined to keep the important port city of Fall River, however, Massachusetts negotiated the borders with Rhode Island, tweaking them a bit to a point where Rhode Island got the chunk of land that currently makes up its Northeast corner.
So, originally, Massachusetts Bay Colony was granted all the land within its northern and southern borders from the Atlantic to the Pacific. This was an absurd claim from the start, however, as the Spanish and French and Dutch all stood between New England and the Pacific Ocean. In fact, the Dutch were as far east as the Hudson River. But England beat Holland in some war and won the old Dutch colonies of New York and New Jersey at that time. New York decided that its boundary on the East was the Connecticut River, which sliced through claims made by Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire (at the time, there was no Vermont). All three of those colonies, pretty much in unison, were like, "Bitch, please. Your claims end at the Hudson River." A compromise was made, at least between New York and both Connecticut and Massachusetts, that put the New York border at twenty miles east of the Hudson River. (No such compromise could be reached with the smaller and less powerful New Hampshire, and the disputed area eventually became the state of Vermont. Fun!) So at any rate, the final piece of Massachusetts' boundaries, this western edge that slants at an angle rather than running vertically, is based on the fact that the Hudson River itself follows this non-vertical course twenty miles to the west. Finally, that little tiny corner missing from Massachusetts? The area was originally tucked away behind some mountains and very tough to reach from the rest of Massachusetts, and in fact the only road access to this region came from New York and Connecticut. Because Massachusetts could neither govern nor police the tiny corner, it basically just said, "Here, New York. Take this." Practical!
And that's how Massachusetts got its shape. Read this book to learn how forty-nine other states did.
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