hen
by them to the United States (1803). Napoleon had agreed, when he
secured this territory from the Spaniards, not to turn it over to the
United States. A pressing need of funds, however, led him to strike an
easy bargain with the American government which was negotiating for the
control of the mouth of the Mississippi. Napoleon insisted that the
United States take, not only the mouth of the river, but also the
territory to the West which he saw would be useless without this outlet.
After some hesitation, Jefferson and his advisers accepted the offer and
the Louisiana Purchase was consummated.

The Louisiana Purchase gave the young American nation what it needed--a
place in the sun. The colonists had taken land for their early
requirements from the Indians who inhabited the coastal plain. They had
enslaved the Negroes and thus had secured an ample supply of cheap
labor. Now, the pressure of population, and the restless, pioneer spirit
of those early days, led out into the West.

Until 1830 immigration was not a large factor in the increase of the
colonial population, but the birth-rate was prodigious. In the closing
years of the eighteenth century, Franklin estimated that the average
family had eight children. There were sections of the country where the
population doubled, by natural increase, once in 23 years. Indeed, the
entire population of the United States was increasing at a phenomenal
rate. The census of 1800 showed 5,308,483 persons in the country. Twenty
years later the population was 9,638,453--an increase of 81 per cent. By
1840 the population was reported as 17,069,453--an increase of 77 per
cent over 1820, and of 221 per cent over 1800.

The small farmers and tradesmen of the North were settling up the
Northwest Territory. The plantation owners of the South, operating on a
large scale, and with the wasteful methods that inevitably accompany
slavery, were clamoring for new land to replace the tracts that had
been exhausted by constant recropping with no attempt at fertilization.

Cotton had been enthroned in the South since the invention of the cotton
gin in 1792. With the resumption of European trade relations in 1815 the
demand for cotton and for cotton lands increased enormously. There was
one, and only one logical way to meet this demand--through the
possession of the Southwest.

2. _The Southwest_

The pioneers had already broken into the Southwest in large numbers.
While Spain still held th