Between the 1780s and 1810s, 96 percent of all Americans lived in rural settings and farmed the land. The most established farms were within the original thirteen states, east of the Appalachian Mountains. The land west of the Appalachians and east of the Mississippi River was the American frontier. There, pioneering families carved out an existence from the wilderness. They cleared and planted small acreages, built solid cabins, and raised their children. Their day-to-day existence was more difficult and isolated than that of people living east of the Appalachians.

Only a tiny fraction of Americans lived on Southern plantations, farms worked by one hundred or more slaves. The vast majority of Southerners, like their countrymen to the north, farmed small acreages. However, many of America's most famous Founding Fathers and early presidents such as George Washington (1732–1799; served 1789–97) and Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826; served 1801–9) owned and operated plantations.

All of...