New Hampshire and Rhode Island, including Providence, six thousand each; Connecticut, from seventeen to twenty thousand; making up seventy-five thousand for all New England: New York, not less than twenty thousand; New Jersey, ten thousand; Pennsylvania and Delaware, twelve thousand; Maryland, twenty-five thousand; Virginia, fifty thousand; and the two Carolinas, which then included Georgia, probably not fewer than eight thousand souls.

After having confined their settlements for many years within a short distance, comparatively speaking, from the coast, the colonists began to penetrate the inland forests, and to settle at different points in the interior of the country, in proportion as they considered themselves strong enough to occupy them safely. Where hostility on the part of the Aborigines was dreaded, these settlers kept together as much as possible, and established themselves in villages. This was particularly the case in New England, where, the soil being less favorable to agriculture, colonization naturally assumed the compact form required for the pursuits of trade and the useful arts, as well as for mutual assistance when exposed to attack. As the New England colonists had all along devoted themselves much to the fisheries and other branches of commerce, their settlements were for a long time to be found chiefly on the coast, and at points affording convenient harbors. But it was much otherwise in the South. In Virginia, particularly, the colonists were induced to settle along the banks of rivers to very considerable distances, their main occupation being the planting of tobacco, and trading to some extent with the Indians. In the Carolinas, again, most hands being employed in the manufacture of tar, turpentine, and rosin, or in the cultivation of rice, indigo, and, eventually, of cotton, the colonial settlements took a considerable range whenever there was peace with the Indians in their vicinity. Where there was little or no commerce, and agricultural pursuits of different kinds were the chief occupation of the people, there could be few towns of much importance; and so much does this hold at the present day, that there is not a city of 40,000 inhabitants in all the five Southern Atlantic States, with the exception of Baltimore in Maryland, Richmond in Virginia, and Charleston in South Carolina.

Even at the commencement of the war of the Revolution, in 1775, the colonies had scarcely penetrated to the Allegheny or Appalachian Mountains in any of the provinces that reached thus far, and their whole population was confined to the strip of land interposed between those mountains and the Atlantic Ocean. It is true, that immediately after the treaty of Paris, in 1763, by which England acquired the Canadas and the Valley of the Mississippi-excepting Louisiana,

which remained with France, or, rather, was temporarily ceded to Spain-a few adventurers began to pass beyond the mountains, and this emigration westward continued during the war of the Revolution. But when peace came, in 1783, I much doubt if there were 20,000 Anglo-Americans in western Pennsylvania, western Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. These were but the advanced posts of the immense host about to follow, and, for many years after the peace, the colonization of the interior was slower than might be supposed. The population of the thirteen provinces at the commencement of the Revolution is not positively known, but it certainly did not exceed 3,000,000, slaves included. No doubt the population of the seaboard increased thenceforth with considerable rapidity, and Vermont was not long in being added to the original thirteen States, making fourteen in all upon the Atlantic slope. They amount now to fifteen; Maine, which was long a sort of province to Massachusetts, having become a separate State in 1820. After the establishment of Independence, danger from the Aborigines ceased to be apprehended, throughout the whole country situated between the Allegheny Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean. The remains of the numerous tribes, its former inhabitants, had, with some exceptions in New England, New York, and the Carolinas, retired to the West, and there they either existed apart, or had become merged in other and kindred tribes.

But it was far otherwise in the great region to the west of the Appalachian range. There, many of the Indian tribes occupied the country in all their pristine force, and were the more to be dreaded by settlers from the eastern States; inasmuch as they were supposed to be greatly under the influence of the British Government in Canada, and as unkindly feelings long subsisted between the Americans and their English neighbors: each charging the other, probably not without justice, with exciting the Indians, by means of their respective agents and hunters, to commit acts of violence. Excepting in some parts of western Pennsylvania and eastern Tennessee, there was little security for American settlers in the West, from 1783 until 1795. The first emigrants to Ohio suffered greatly from the Indians; two armies sent against them, in the western part of that State, under Generals Harmar and St. Clair, were defeated and shockingly cut to pieces, and not until they had received a dreadful defeat from General Wayne, on the River Miami-of-the-lake,* was there any thing like permanent peace established. But, as a prelude to the war between the United States and Great Britain, which com

* Or the Miami which flows into Lake Erie, and so called to distinguish it from the Miami that falls into the Ohio.

menced in 1812 and ended in 1815, the Indian tribes again became troublesome, particularly in Indiana and in the south-eastern part of the Valley of the Mississippi, forming now the State of Alabama. The Creeks, a powerful tribe of the Muskhogee race, then occupied that country, and it was not until defeated in many battles and skirmishes, that they were reduced to peace. In point of fact, perfect security from Indian hostilities has prevailed throughout the "Valley of the Mississippi" only since 1815; since then, there have been the insignificant war with Black Hawk, a Sioux chief, which took place a few years ago, and the still more recent war with the Seminoles in Florida-exceptions not worth special notice, as they in nowise affected the country at large.

It is now (1856) about seventy-two years since the tide of emigration from the Atlantic States set fairly into the Valley of the Mississippi; and though no great influx took place in any one year during the first half of that period, it has wonderfully increased during the last. When this emigration westward first commenced, all the necessaries that the emigrants required to take with them from the East were to be carried on horseback, no roads for wheeled carriages having been opened through the mountains. On arriving at the last ridge overlooking the plains to the west, a boundless forest lay stretched out before those pioneers of civilization, like an ocean of living green. Into the depths of that forest they had to plunge. Often long years of toil and suffering rolled away before they could establish themselves in comfortable abodes. The climate and the diseases peculiar to the different localities were unknown. Hence, fevers of a stubborn type cut many of them off. They were but partially acquainted with the mighty rivers of that vast region, beyond knowing that their common outlet was in the possession of a foreign nation, which imposed vexatious regulations upon their infant trade. The navigation of those rivers could be carried on only in flat-bottomed boats, keels, and barges. To descend them was not unattended with danger, but to ascend by means of sweeps and oars, by poling, warping, bush-whacking,* and so forth, was laborious and tedious beyond conception.

* The word bush-whacking is of Western origin, and signifies a peculiar mode of propelling a boat up the Mississippi, Ohio, or any other river in that region, when the water is very high. It is this: instead of keeping in the middle of the stream, the boat is made to go along close to one of the banks, and the men who guide it, by catching hold of the boughs of the trees which overhang the water, are enabled to drag the boat along. It is an expedient resorted to more by way of change than any thing else. Sometimes it is possible, at certain stages of the rivers, to go along for miles in this way. Even to this day the greater portion of the banks of the rivers of the West are covered with almost uninterrupted forests.

Far different are the circumstances of those colonists now! The mountains, at various points, are traversed by substantial highways, and, still further to augment the facilities for intercourse with the vast Western Valley, several canals and railroads have been made, and others are in progress. It is accessible, also, from the south, by vessels from the Gulf of Mexico, as well as from the north by the lakes, on whose waters more than a hundred steamboats now pursue their foaming way. As for the navigable streams of the valley itself, besides boats of all kinds of ordinary construction, many hundreds of steamboats ply upon their waters. And now, instead of being a boundless forest, uninhabited by civilized men, as it was seventy or eighty years ago, the West contains no fewer than fourteen regularly-constituted States, and five Territories which will soon be admitted as States into the Union, the population having, meanwhile, advanced from 10,000 or 20,000 Anglo-American inhabitants, to above 13,000,000.*

Generally speaking, the various sections of the Valley of the Mississippi, may be said to have been colonized from the parts of the Atlantic coast which correspond with them as nearly as possible in point of latitude. This is easily accounted for: emigrants from the East to the West naturally wish to keep as much as they can within the climate which birth and early life have rendered familiar and agreeable, though a regard to their health may compel some of them to seek a change by passing to the south or north of their original latitude. The New England tide of emigration, in its westward course, penetrated and settled the northern and western parts of the State of New York, and advancing still further in the direction of the setting sun, entered the northern parts of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, extended over the whole of Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, and is stretching into Kansas and Nebraska. That from the southern counties of New York, from New Jersey, and eastern Pennsylvania, first occupied western Pennsylvania, and then extended into the central districts of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. The Maryland and Virginia column colonized western Virginia and Kentucky, and then dispersed itself over the southern parts of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois;

* The names of these States and Territories are as follows:

STATES.

Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, and Iowa.

TERRITORIES.

Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska, Utah, and New Mexico.

This enumeration leaves out Indian Territory, because it is not organized as such, nor are its inhabitants under the laws of the United States.

while that from North Carolina, after having colonized Tennessee, is reaching into Missouri and Iowa. The South Carolina column, mingling with that of Georgia, after having covered Alabama and a great part of the State of Mississippi, is now extending itself into Arkansas and Texas.

This account of the progress of colonization in the great central valley, furnishes a better key to the political, moral, and religious character of the West than any other that can be given. The West, in fact, may be regarded as the counterpart of the East, after allowing for the exaggeration, if I may so speak, which a life in the wilderness tends to communicate for a time to manners and character, and even to religion, but which disappears as the population increases, and as the country acquires the stamp of an older civilization. Stragglers may, indeed, be found in all parts of the West from almost all parts of the East; and many emigrants from Europe, too, Germans especially, enter by New Orleans, and from that city find their way by steamboats into Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Wisconsin, and Iowa. But all these form exceptions that hardly invalidate the general statement.

The colonists of Oregon and Washington Territories are chiefly from the north-western States; those of California are from all the States, together with many foreigners. The Mormons in Utah are mostly from the eastern States and from Europe.

CHAPTER VII.

PECULIAR QUALIFICATIONS OF THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE FOR THE WORK OF COLONIZATION.

WHOLLY apart from considerations of a moral and religious character, and the influence of external circumstances, we may remark, that the Anglo-Saxon race possesses qualities peculiarly adapted for successful colonization. The characteristic perseverance, the spirit of personal freedom and independence, that have ever distinguished that race, admirably fit a man for the labor and isolation necessary to be endured before he can be a successful colonist. Now, New England, together with the States of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania, with the exception of Dutch and Swedish elements, which were too inconsiderable to affect the general result. were all colonized by people of Anglo-Saxon origin. And assuredly they have displayed qualities fitting them for their task, such as the world has