Tides of Nationhood Page 1 of 6 Charles F. Reed uropeans had
been claiming ownership of North America for 200 years before
the Thomas Jefferson set in motion his first successful plan for
exploring the West — the extent of time equal to that separating
us from Lewis’s arrival in Philadelphia. After six or eight
generations, whatever their national origins, the Europeans
considered themselves no longer guests, but indigenous, perhaps
even predestined, occupiers of the American continents. Perhaps
the Lenni Lenape Indians, watching these trespassers coming up
the Delaware River, or the Iroquois, watching others come up the
St. Lawrence, at first had reason to greet them with
forbearance, but that time soon passed. The visitors meant to
stay. "The City & Port of Philadelphia, on the River Delaware
his view, William Birch wrote in the introduction to his book of
original prints, titled The City of Philadelphia . . . as it
appeared in the Year 1800, "represents, with the city at large a
busy preparation for commer