Sidenote: The colonial spirit. Although the period 1700-1750 has not the interest of the previous half century of colonization, it has great constitutional importance. The rugged individuality of the founders of the colonies,--New England, middle, and southern,--was beginning to give way to a distinctly American character. The colonies lived separate lives; there was little intercommunication, but their interests were much the same, their relations with the mother-country were the same, and in the intercolonial wars they learned to act side by side. More than this, they all enjoyed a greater degree of personal freedom and local independence than was known anywhere else in the world. They had no consciousness of any desire to become independent. They had their own assemblies, made their own laws, and disregarded the Acts of Trade. In population the colonies increased between 1650 and 1700 from about 100,000 to 250,000; during the period 1700-1750 they grew to 1,370,000. A few passable towns were built,--Boston, Philadelphia, and New York. Their means were small, their horizon narrow, but their spirit was large. Sidenote: The English Ohio Company. As the year 1750 approached, there came upon the colonies two changes, destined to lead to a new political life. In the first place, the colonies at last began to overrun the mountain barrier which had hemmed them in on the west, and thus to invite another and more desperate struggle with the French. The first settlement made west of the mountains was on a branch of the Kanawha (1748); in the same season several adventurous Virginians hunted and made land-claims in Kentucky and Tennessee. Before the close of the following year (1749) there had been formed the Ohio Company, composed of wealthy Virginians, among whom were two brothers of Washington. King George granted the company five hundred thousand acres, on which they were to plant one hundred families and build and maintain a fort. The first attempt to explore the region of the Ohio brought the English and the French traders into conflict; and troops were not long in following, on both sides. Sidenote: New colonial policy. At the same time the home government was awaking to the fact that the colonies were not under strict control. In 1750 the Administration began to consider means of stopping unlawful trade. Before the plan could be perfected the French and Indian War broke out, in 1754. The story of that war and of the consequences of simultaneously dispossessing the French enemies of the colonies, and tightening the reins of government, belongs to the next volume of the series,--the Formation of the Union. INDEX. Acadia, united to Massachusetts, 176. _See_ Nova Scotia. Africa, supposed migrations from, to America, 21; European explorations of coast of, 24. Aix-la-Chapelle, treaty of, 255, 278. Alaska, Asiatic migration to, 2; aborigines of, 12.