Columbus and Other Heroes of American DiscoveryD'Anvers, N.
History
Columbus and Other Heroes of American Discovery
D'Anvers, N.
America -- Discovery and exploration; North America -- Discovery and exploration
By the close of the 18th century, Ohio was also completely filled up
by the settlements of the white men, while the natives, who had sold
their birthright, slowly retreated before them into the present states
of Illinois and Indiana. But yet again the same programme was gone
through. The whites, to whom so much room had already been given,
clamored for more; again their Government listened to their demands.
The level lands, watered by sluggish streams, between the Ohio and
the Wabash, were bought as those of Ohio had been, and received, as if
in irony of the unlucky Indians who had taken refuge there, the name
of Indiana. In a similar manner was formed the State of Illinois, the
Sack, Fox, and other more northerly tribes ceding their territories as
readily as their southern neighbors had done.
Now and then some pioneer penetrated into the southern districts of
Michigan, where, as we know, the French had long since established
outposts, and in which were now situated Detroit and Mahimillimac,
the two chief seats of the Canadian fur-trade. In 1803, the purchase
by the Americans of five millions of acres between Lakes Michigan and
Huron brought the emigrants from the States face to face with those
from Canada. There were no more unoccupied districts to be bought
in the neighborhood of the Great Lakes; and it will be in company
with the scientific explorers of modern times that we shall renew our
acquaintance with the border lands between the American Republic and
Canada.
Returning in the wake of emigration to the South, we find the cession
of French territory to the Americans in 1763 resulting in the influx,
into the districts between Georgia and the Mississippi, of a vast
number of adventurers from the old states and the new. The general
name of Louisiana, given by the first comers to the whole of the
valley of the Mississippi, became restricted to the small state
between the Father of Waters and the then Spanish Texas, while the new
and important American settlements on the east of the great river were
called Mississippi in its honor. A little later, the tract between
the new state of Mississippi and Georgia was settled under the title
of Alabama, and of all the eastern districts between the St. Lawrence
and the sea there remained but Florida――still, in spite of a temporary
change of ownership between 1763 and 1801, in the hands of the
Spanish――to be acquired by the ambitious American Government. That its
possession was eagerly coveted will be readily understood, and after
a long series of negotiations, combined with the occasional use of
force, it was annexed to the great republic in 1821.
As a matter of course, the Mississippi was not long allowed to present
any barrier either to emigration or exploration, and the taking
possession of the districts on the east was but a preliminary step
toward the acquisition of the vast tracts stretching away to the
Pacific on the west.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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