Both slavery and the slave trade were based on a purely economic motive--the desire for profit. In order to satisfy that desire, the American people helped to depopulate villages,--to devastate, burn, murder and enslave; to wipe out a civilization, and to bring the unwilling objects of their gain-lust thousands of miles across an impassable barrier to alien shores. FOOTNOTES: [12] "History of the Gold Coast," W. W. Claridge. London, Murray, 1915, vol. I, p. 39. [13] "American Negro Slavery," U. B. Phillips. New York, Appleton, 1908, p. 43. [14] "A History of the Gold Coast," W. W. Claridge. London, Murray, 1915, vol. I, p. 144. [15] Ibid., p. 150. [16] "American Negro Slavery," U. B. Phillips. New York, Appleton, 1918, p. 20. [17] "History of the Gold Coast," W. W. Claridge. London, Murray, 1915, vol. I, p. 172. [18] "Economic History of the U. S.," E. L. Bogart. New York, Longmans, 1910 ed., p. 84-5. [19] "The American Slave Trade," J. R. Spears. New York, Scribners, 1901, p. 69. [20] "The Suppression of the American Slave Trade," W. E. B. DuBois. New York, Longmans, 1896, p. 178-9. [21] "The American Slave Trade," J. R. Spears. New York, Scribners, 1901, p. 84-5. [22] "American Negro Slavery," U. B. Phillips. New York, Appleton, 1918, p. VII. [23] Ibid., p. 190. [24] Ibid., p. 40. [25] Benton, "Abridgment of Debates." XII, p. 718. [26] "American Negro Slavery," U. B. Phillips. New York, Appleton, 1918, p. 370. V. THE WINNING OF THE WEST 1. _Westward, Ho!_ The English colonists in America occupied only the narrow strip of country between the Alleghanies and the Atlantic Ocean. The interior was inhabited by the Indians, and claimed by the French, the Spanish and the British, but neither possession nor legal title carried weight with the stream of pioneers that was making a path into the "wilderness," crying its slogan,--"Westward, Ho!" as it moved toward the setting sun. The first objective of the pioneers was the Ohio Valley; the second was the valley of the Mississippi; the third was the Great Plains; the fourth was the Pacific slope, with its golden sands. Each one of these objectives developed itself out of the previous conquest. The settlers who made their way across the mountains into the valley of the Ohio, found themselves in a land of plenty. The game was abundant; the soil was excellent, and soon they were in a position to offer their surplus products for sale. These products could not be successfully transported across the mountains, but they could be floated down the Ohio and the Mississippi--a natural roadway to the sea. But beside the Indians, who claimed all of the land for their own, there were the Spaniards at New Orleans, doing everything in their power to prevent the American Colonists from building up a successful river commerce.