commenced on a base more favorable to free action. The individual made more room around himself, so to speak, and the social and political structures resulting no longer hampered him at any point. He could put forth his whole strength, and, as he was as fully penetrated with a sense of the advantages of association and order as any European, or citizen of the Atlantic States, he inclined to reconstruct with all necessary thoroughness and solidity. Thus the institutions of the Valley proved, in the end, to be more liberal as to the individual, and equally vigorous and decisive in action. The ideal of freedom and strength in union was more nearly approached in the West than in the East. As settlement extended and these tendencies revealed themselves, the various restrictions to popular suffrage that had obtained in the Atlantic States were abandoned in the Valley. Their example proved contagious and extended back to the East. So, in a thousand ways, the Valley proved to be a liberalizing force in the country.

The careful attention of the intelligent leaders of settlement in the Northwest Territory was at once given to education; but adequate provision for it was attainable, at first, only in the towns and more populous settlements. The people spread over a vast region, the larger part of them were farmers, and more attention was paid to securing the best land, after danger from the Indians ceased, than to any other point. We see two hundred and fifty thousand people thinly sprinkled over much of the State of Ohio in the first twenty-five years following the commencement of settlement. Then the prairie sections of the West were opened, the northern parts of the State were safe, and there was much migration to those regions. The solitude of the woods and thinly settled prairies had become attractive to some; the desire for change and to secure the best lands of new regions inspired others; so that, sometimes, by repeated removals, families were formed and passed into the second or third generation in want of all the opportunities of education and social culture.

AN IMPROVEMENT ON THE NEW ENGLAND TYPE. 337

But, notwithstanding isolation and hardship, and though the surface of their life became rude and rough, the real New England type did not deteriorate. The wild growth was a Western youth, if almost

healthy one; it was solid and firm. ignorant of books and of the habits of good society of the older regions, were bold, inquisitive and pushing; well versed in popular politics, and inclined to pursue their aims with a vigor that commonly secured success. The thoughtfulness, ingenuity and persistence of the Yankee were not lost. They acquired heartiness, independence and force, and kept up the advance in a definite direction, as a whole. They were ready to make sacrifices for public improvements, to promote education, and were extremely thrifty in the conduct of their private affairs.

The New Englander lost in the West the European peculiarities of thought and habit which, though useful in some ways, cramped and limited him in others. Social distinctions, political and other theories, a thousand modes of thought and habits of life inherited from an old and imperfect civilization which had grown out of circumstances long since passed away, but which left their impress on later life, were preserved on the Atlantic Slope by institutions originally cast in a European mould and preserved by commercial, social and literary relations across the ocean. To develop the full strength and peculiarities suited to the time and place of a new class of men and of ideas, to render the new nation truly American or Continental, this western discipline was greatly needed. The new isolation and the opportunity to forget the different interests and aims of this new and vast interior world-recast the New Englander as they had recast the Virginian. Without losing his excellencies, he gained by girding himself more fully to a new career-gained in breadth and depth, even as his new horizon was more expanded and his soil and resources were deeper and richer.

He lost in sectional feeling, which is necessarily too limited,

and gained by contact with new and larger facts, and association with people of other regions and other nationalities on equal terms—the power of judging more freely and justly and in a larger sense. He became less a New Englander and more an American. The new boldness and force of independence the western people acquired under their long apprenticeship to solitude, hardship and difficulty fitted them to exert a controlling influence on new comers into the Valley whom they constrained to become mentally and socially acclimated, even as they must needs become physically. The intelligent, the cultured and the prejudiced from old communities, however strong-willed, must learn to clothe their thoughts and conduct in western style to secure influence, and thus the peculiar tone acquired in this region dominated all the vast multitudes. of immigrants from other States and from Europe. They received, however, as well as gave, and were modified and greatly improved by all the solid worth and refinement that had matured elsewhere; but they selected what was appropriate and suppressed what they deemed unfitting.

The later New Englander usually brought to the Valley methodical business habits, a good education, the polish of an old and progressive society, and all these he imparted to the aspiring settlers of the backwoods and lonely prairies. He found an opportunity to display all the genuine power that was in him, on a broad field, and received many suggestions of value that would not have occurred to him in a narrower one. The West, as every new country, was merciless to shams but most kindly toward all that was true and valuable. Somewhat against its will, the East has felt the influence of the West, in many ways, and been benefited by it.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE SOUTHERN PLANTER IN THE VALLEY.

The Southern Valley east of the Mississippi was settled to a small extent along the Gulf coast by the Spanish, French and English, previous to the American Revolution. Comparatively few Spaniards or Frenchmen remained, however, after the English took possession of it, and, except to the trading towns on the Gulf, and the east bank of the Mississippi, there was no extensive immigration before the severe chastisement of the Creeks by Gen. Jackson, in 1814. The Tennessee settlements which had extended below the bend of the Tennessee River numbered several thousand at the close of that war. Northwestern and southwestern Mississippi had many thousand settlers by that time. Many were from Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia and the Carolinas. Others were descended from English, Scotch and Irish parents; some were from Northern colonies or States, and some from Louisiana. The forced labor system had been introduced by Spanish, French, English, the colonies and the States alike.

The hardships and difficulties which had been experienced in the upper Valley were comparatively little known here except in the settlements near the Tennessee River, and in later times in neighboring localities. Elsewhere the settlements were along the rivers; there was a ready market for agricultural products, and the special staples raised only there had a sure and profitable sale. Many of the settlers were well supplied with colored labor, from the first, and soon all were so. There was much more of comfort and no long period of helpless poverty for those who required money to pay for farms and improvements.

The northern part of Alabama was in the Valley of the

Tennessee and had no water outlet except by that river to the Ohio and Mississippi, so that it lay about four hundred miles farther from markets than Pittsburgh. It was 1,600 miles to New Orleans, by that route, though that part of Alabama is but 500 miles from the same place in a direct line. This, however, was but a small section of the state; the larger part had access to the Gulf markets by its river system.

Pioneer life, for the multitudes in the early periods, except in the Tennessee Valley, was less embarrassed with difficulty, either in reaching the objective point for settlement or in producing a comfortable income, than the upper Valley. More conveniences, implements and laborers could be introduced at the first, or very soon accumulated. The first settlers east of the Mississippi were extremely various in origin, being adventurous people from the various parts of the coloniesor later, the States and Territories-and some immigrants direct from Europe. The original number, however, was not very large. The larger part of the settlers after the close of the war, in 1815, were from Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia; many were people of wealth, character and position, many were young and enterprising men of good families and education; while many more, perhaps, were the struggling poor who sought to retrieve their fortunes in a productive new region.

Prosperity was great and tolerably general, for cotton was in great demand and brought a high price for some years, and those who could profit by the opportunity soon acquired wealth. It is stated that many plantations produced a revenue of $40,000 per annum, in those times, and smaller estates in the same proportion. This extraordinary condition of things did not last long, but still, southern staples were always ready of sale and extremely profitable to raise. The employment of colored labor and the great advantage secured by the large over the small cultivators by the facility of increasing the area of their lands, very soon produced great dif