In point of fact, during all the years between the various dates of Indian removal and the breaking out of the Civil War, the Indian country was constantly beset by difficulties. Some of the difficulties were incident to removal or to disturbances within the tribes but most of them were incident to changes and to political complications in the white man's country. Scarcely had the removal project been fairly launched and the first Indian emigrants started upon their journey westward than events were in train for the overthrow of the whole scheme. [Illustration: MAP SHOWING FREE NEGRO SETTLEMENTS IN THE CREEK COUNTRY [_From Office of Indian Affairs_]] When Calhoun mapped out the Indian country in his elaborate report of 1825, the selection of the trans-Missouri region might well have been regarded as judicious. Had the plan of general removal been adopted then, before sectional interests had wholly vitiated it, the United States government might have gained and, in a measure, would have richly deserved the credit of doing at least one thing for the protection and preservation of the aborigines from motives, not self-interested, but purely humanitarian. The moment was opportune. The territory of the United States was then limited by the confines of the Louisiana Purchase and its settlements by the great American desert. Traders only had penetrated to any considerable extent to the base of the Rockies; but experience already gained might have taught that their presence was portentous and significant of the need of haste; that is, if Calhoun's selection were to continue judicious; for traders, as has been amply proved in both British and American history, have ever been but the advance agents of settlers.