servoirs and drains for the wonderful
floods which annually visit this country. Around these were lands
remarkable for their fertility--indeed, unsurpassed by any on the face
of the earth; but worthless, however, for cultivation, as long as
unprotected against these annual floods. The system of leveeing was too
onerous and expensive to be undertaken by the people sparsedly
populating the eastern bank throughout the hill-country. The levee
system which had reclaimed so much of the low country in Louisiana, had
not extended above Pointe Coupee, in 1826. Yet there were some
settlements on several of the lakes above, especially on Lakes
Concordia and St. Joseph.

The immense country in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi in
possession of the Indians, interposed a barrier to emigration. To think
of leaving home and friends to go away beyond these savages, seemed an
undertaking too gigantic for any but men of desperate fortunes, or of
the most indomitable energy.

Adventurers had wandered into the country and returned with terrible
stories of the unhealthiness of the climate as well as the difficulties
to be overcome in reaching it; thus deterring the emigrant who desired
a new home. When General Jackson was elected to the Presidency a new
policy was inaugurated. The Indians were removed beyond the
Mississippi; the lands they had occupied were brought into market, and
a flood of emigration poured into these new acquisitions. Cotton had
suddenly grown into great demand. The increase of population, and the
great cheapness of the, fabrics from cotton, had increased the demand.
In Europe it had rapidly increased, and in truth all over the world.
Emigration from Europe had set in to a heavy extent upon the United
States, and the West was growing in population so rapidly as to create
there a heavy demand for these fabrics. The world was at peace;
commerce was unrestricted, and prosperity was everywhere. Europe had
recovered from her long war, and the arts of peace had taken hold of
every people, and were bearing their fruit. All the lands intermediate
between the frontiers west of Georgia and Tennessee and those of the
east of Mississippi and Louisiana were soon appropriated; and the more
fertile lands of the two latter States were coming rapidly into request
for the purpose of cotton cultivation.

The great flood of 1828 had swept over every cultivated field west of
the Mississippi, and seemed to demonstrate the folly