Explore how America’s rivers shaped its history, trade, and cities like Chicago, Milwaukee, and Detroit in Trailokya Jena’s travel chronicle
Trailokya Jena
A look at the map would show an intricate pattern of water flow through small and big rivers joining the Mississippi that drains its water into the Gulf of Mexico at New Orleans. That apart, many other rivers, not part of the Mississippi system, flow east into the Atlantic, like Hudson at New York, Potomac at Washington DC, Mystic at Boston, the Delaware that connects many important cities and the important one of St Lawrence that connects the Great Lake to the Atlantic.
US in that sense is much like India where its important rivers flows east while only two of note flows west into the Pacific Ocean. Those are the Colorado and the Columbia. It’s the Mississippi River system however that engulfs almost 60% of the country. It sweeps from north to the south spreading a web through the heartland leaving indelible marks on the history, culture and economy of the country.
India, on the other hand, has not been able to exploit its rivers that well for the entirely different nature of its water flow.
During my school days the clever Americans combined the length of Mississippi with its main tributary Missouri to proclaim it as world’s longest river system. That got corrected in time though. But strangely Mississippi got recognized as America’s longest river though its main tributary Missouri is in fact a few kilometers longer.
If one looks at the map, it would be clear as to how the American heartland, that is anchored by the region called as Mid-West is so well connected to the sea through the south and how almost all important cities and towns in those regions are interconnected by waterways. Mississippi River system has been the highways of America long before the concept of highways arose in that country.
For many Native American tribes, rivers were not just practical resources but also held deep spiritual and cultural significance. When the white settlers moved in, these rivers held different meaning to them as they just used those as resources. For white settlers this network of waterways influenced settlement patterns, spurred economic growth, and acted as strategic factor in both military conflicts and industrialization.
River system was used by the settlers for early trade routes that enabled them to discover useful geography of the region to serve their many purposes. It helped their explorers find paths to the interior, acquire fertile land for agriculture, use river systems as primary mode of transportation enabling early trade and westward expansion, and facilitating the growth of major cities. The river systems of the United States were fundamentally important to its historical development. It was developed as the country’s first highways for trade and transportation, war and expansion and eventually played great part in its industrialization.
As engine for industrialization, rivers provided the necessary waterpower for the earliest textile mills and factories in the 18th and 19th centuries. Later, with the advent of steam engines, rivers supplied the vast quantities of water needed for steam power and cooling industrial equipment. No wonder great cities fuelling industry, trade, commerce all bound together by robust banking system grew up along the rivers. Wherever needed cities not connected by direct streams were made to be connected through creation of complex canals. Eventually, the great lakes in the border of US and Canada could be connected not only to one another but also to major cities through river system united by canals. Great port cities such as New Orleans, St. Louis, and Pittsburgh, were founded and grew into major centers of commerce due to their strategic locations along river systems. All played their parts in the American story, but one inland city that stood out has been Chicago.
My journey into America this time began at Duluth from where I drove close on the banks of Lake Michigan first to Milwaukee and from there to Chicago. While my main focus on this blog will be Chicago, I would like to dwell on a few other cities those lie in close proximity and have contributed in no small ways to the American might.
While the cities of Aurora, Peoria, Decatur and Rockford, all in close proximity, have contributed to Chicago’s industrial strength by developing as major manufacturing centers, there are others lying a bit farther in neighboring States that also need special attention. This time I concentrated on two cities, Milwaukee to its north and Detroit to its east, which are considered bedrock of America’s automotive industry.
(Born in Cuttack, the author is a historian, traveler, and a former Income-Tax Commissioner)