Thread by @shrikanth_krish

The United States today is the 3rd most populous country on earth with 326MM people.

We all know that the first European settlements in US began circa 1600, but what did the country look like, some 200 years later in 1800 - i.e 24 yrs after the Declaration of Independence?

To understand US some 200 years ago, one of the best books to read is Henry Adams's History of the Administrations of Jefferson and Madison

The period covered is from 1800 to 1816

But let's just focus on Chapter 1 of the work - that discusses the physical state of US in 1800

In 1800 the whole of United States (i.e the 13 states, and not the whole continent) had 5.3 MM persons.

To put that in perspective, the US in 1800 when Jefferson took office had fewer people than the city of Bangalore today

In 1800 itself, the figure of 5.3MM is relative to the 15MM who lived in the much much smaller British Isles the same year, and the 27MM people in the French Republic post revolution.

Out of 5.3MM, about a fifth were African slaves. So the free white population was about 4.5MM

This ofcourse excludes the native American population (on whose population I can't readily find estimates in the book or elsewhere).

Nearly all of this 5 MM was concentrated along the Atlantic seaboard and the 13 original states. Barely about 0.5MM lived beyond the Alleghany mountains of Pennsylvania and had made their way to territories westward like Ohio and Kentucky

Travel was mostly through land for getting to the interior regions even on the eastern seaboard.

And land travel as one would expect was pretty expensive and very very long.

Let's take the cities of New York and Boston - separated by some 220 miles - a distance covered in about 4 hours by car today

Back in 1800, the Boston to New York journey was a 3 day affair, despite the existence of a "tolerable highway" in Adams's words

There were apparently stage-coaches from NY that departed to Boston thrice a week carrying passengers and mail. So it's not just about the 3 day long journey but also the infrequency of travel options. Just thrice a week.

Let's take NY to Philadelphia - two towns separated by 100 miles (and a 2 hour cab drive today).

Back in 1800, the stage-coach ride from NY to Philadelphia took the "greater part of two days" in Adams's own words.

The journey between Baltimore and Washington DC (the country's capital then as now) was a perilous one in 1800 - as there were forests to traverse.

These two towns are barely an hour's drive from each other today.

Let's see what Adams has to say about housing in 1800 US -

"Fifty or a hundred miles inland more than half the houses were log-cabins, which might or might not enjoy the luxury of a glass window. Throughout the South and West houses showed little attempt at luxury; "(Contd..)

"but even in New England the ordinary farmhouse was hardly so well built, so spacious, or so warm as that of a well-to-do contemporary of Charlemagne."

Back in 1800, it used to take 16 days for a mail to reach Lexington Kentucky from Philadelphia - two towns separated by 650 miles.

A mail from Philadelphia to Nashville took 22 days

How large were the great cities of US in 1800 -

Philadelphia - 70,000 people
New York - 60,000
Boston - 25,000

So Philadelphia was no larger than a midsized town like Liverpool (also 70K) in England.

London to put things in perspective had 1 million inhabitants in 1800

For those familiar with NYC, here's an interesting tidbit from Adams on how the city was back in 1800 -

"the Battery was a fashionable walk, Broadway a country drive, and Wall Street an uptown residence"!!

So this was the state of US, a good 200 years after the European first settled it! That's a long long time.

And even after 200 years, 2/3rd of the American population was within 50 miles of the Atlantic seaboard!

Adams's take on the state of US presided over by Jefferson is very sobering

It tells us how difficult "progress" is, and how much of a long haul just about everything was all over the world, before the railroad and the steam engine (particularly in the absence of waterways)

Also this chapter underscores the sheer physical challenge posed by the American continent - a far greater challenge than say Western Europe where the sea is within a couple of hundred miles of most parts

It also helps explain why North America was so uninhabitable and backward for millennia despite being colonized by man as early as 15,000BC

Even the highly civilized Eurasian man could barely bring himself to move away from the seaboard after spending 200 years on the continent