SUMMARY
1. The dull times on the seaboard, the cheap land in the West, the love of adventure, and the desire to “do better” led, during 1814-1820, to a most astonishing emigration westward.
2. The rush of population into the Mississippi valley caused the admission of six states into the Union between 1816 and 1821.
3. The question of the admission of Missouri brought up the subject of shutting slavery out of the country west of the Mississippi, which ended in a compromise and the establishment of the line 36 deg. 30’.
MOVEMENT OF POPULATION.
Northern Stream.
Effect of hard times in the East.— Scenes along the highways.—Arrival of the emigrants in the West.—The half-faced camp.—The log cabin.— Household utensils.—Clearing the land.—Growth of towns.
Middle Stream.
Moves down the Ohio valley, across southern Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and pushes up the Missouri.
Southern Stream.
The defeat of
the Creek Indians
opens their lands
in
Mississippi Territory
to settlement.
* * * * *
This settlement of the West leads to:
Admission into the Union of:
1816. Indiana. 1817. Mississippi. 1818. Illinois. 1819. Alabama.
Admission of these states brings up the question of slavery.
1820. Maine.
1821. Missouri.
Organization of new territories.
1819. Arkansas.
1822. 1823.
Florida.
Status of slavery after 1820.
FREE STATES.
N.H.,
Vt.,
Mass.,
R.I.,
Conn.
N.Y.,
N.J.,
Pa.,
Ohio,
Ind.,
Ill.,
Maine.
SLAVE STATES.
Del.,
Md.,
Va.,
N.C.,
S.C.,
Ga.,
Ala.,
Miss.
La.,
Ky.,
Tenn.,
Missouri.
Country west of the Mississippi.
1804. Not settled.
1819. Attempt to make Missouri
a slave state.
1820. The compromise.
CHAPTER XXII
THE HIGHWAYS OF TRADE AND COMMERCE
%312. Improvement in Means of Travel%.—We have now considered two of the results of the rush of population from the seaboard to the Mississippi valley; namely, the admission of five new Western states into the Union, and the struggle over the extension of slavery, which resulted in the Missouri Compromise. But there was a third result,—the actual construction of highways of transportation connecting the East with the West. Along the seaboard, during