before, they had suffered for want of bread. . . . There was no fear of famine, but they cloyed on animal food and almost loathed it, though of an excellent quality. Deer were numerous, and wild turkeys numberless.... My parents often told me afterwards that I would cry and beg for bread, when we were seated round the table, till they would have to leave it, and cry themselves. . . .

(From Photograph of Abraham Lincoln's father's cabin, built in Illinois in early part of the century.)

I have already spoken of grating and pounding corn, toting water from a distant spring... and divers other labors.... [Among them were coloring, soap-making, and the] art and mystery of cheesemaking.... Mother generally did the spinning, ... [both of linen and wool]. The linen was bleached on the green grass, the wool was dyed with indigo, madder and different sorts of barks.

In a year or two after our removal a small log school-house was erected by the joint labor of several neighbors. . . . It was entirely in the woods, but one of the wagon roads passed by its very

...

door. In the winter, light was admitted through oiled paper by long openings between the logs. . . .

The "meeting-house". . . was built of logs, hewn on both sides, and had a shingled roof, one of the first I ever saw. . . . The scene around this village temple can never fade from my memory or my heart. Horses hitched along the fence, and men and women on

foot or horseback arriving from all quarters. . . . The hour for worship arrived, the congregation were seated within and around. the cabin-church, on benches without backs, . . . while Old Hundred, by twice as many voices, was mingled with the notes of birds. in the surrounding trees.222

Beyond the Mississippi. - We have already seen something of what life was like in the new Louisiana Purchase. The

fur-traders pushed into the country more and more. Their relation with the Indians is shown by the following extract from the autobiography of an Indian chief:

When we returned to our village in the spring from our wintering grounds, . . . our traders. . . always followed us. . . . We purposely kept some of our fine furs for this trade; and, as there was great opposition among them, who should get these skins, we always got our goods cheap. [Again, in the fall,] the traders arrive, and give as credit for such articles as we want to clothe our families, and enable us to hunt. We first, however, hold a council with them, to ascertain the price they will give us for our skins, and what they will charge us for goods. We inform them where we intend hunting - and tell them where to build their houses. this place, we deposit part of our corn, and leave our old people. The traders have always been kind to them, and relieved them when in want. They were always much respected by our peopleand never since we have been a nation, has one of them been killed by any of our people.223

At

On the North-west Coast. In the years 1789 to 1793, a Scotchman by the name of Mackenzie made his way across the continent, by routes lying north of that taken by Lewis and Clarke, and had written:

Whatever course may be taken from the Atlantic, the Columbia is the line of communication from the Pacific Ocean, pointed out by

By opening this intercourse between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and forming regular establishments through the interior, and at both extremes, the entire command of the fur trade of North America might be obtained. . . except that portion of it which the Russians have on the Pacific. To this may be added the fishing in both seas, and the markets of the four quarters of the globe. . . . The coast of the Pacific ocean. is at present left to

American adventurers, who... collect all the skins they can procure... and having exchanged them at Canton for the produce of China, return to their own country.2

224

STUDY ON 8.

1. What were the advantages of the site of Maysville? 2. Make a list of the ways in which its settlers provided against the Indians. 3. Why was the cabin and its furniture so rough? 4. Why was there no glass for the windows? 5. Why should they suffer for the want of bread? 6. Make a list of the industries carried on in one of these early Kentucky homes. 7. How did they get from place to place? 8. How did they get manufactured articles? 9. What pleasures were in this early life? 10. What was the occupation of white men living beyond the Mississippi? 11. Of what benefit were the Indians to them? 12. Of what benefit were they to the Indians? 13. Why should the Indians look with more favor upon their business than upon that of the Kentucky settlers? 14. What three nations were beginning to become acquainted with the north-west coast? 15. What was to be had on that coast? 16. What part of the United States did the American adventurers come from? 17. What American settlement was started on the north-west coast in 1810, by whom, and why? (See list at close of Group.) 18. What great inventions were found out between 1783 and 1815? (See list. This study may be divided at discretion.)

Supplementary Reading.

A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett, of the State of Tennessee, written by himself. Philadelphia and Boston, 1834. Bryant's Hunter of the Prairies. Mrs. John H. Kinzie's Waubun, the Early Day in the North-west (Chicago). Catlin's North American Indians. Washington Irving's Astoria. Edward Eggleston's The Graysons, 1888. Samuel Adams Drake's The Making of the Great West. New York, 1887.

9. TROUBLES WITH ENGLAND; BEGINNING OF WAR OF 1812.

JEFFERSON AND MADISON, Presidents.

Not content with seizing upon all our property which falls within her rapacious grasp, the personal rights of our countrymen — rights which must forever

are trampled on and violated [through the] impressment of our

What are we to gain by war? has been emphatically asked. In reply . . . what are we not to lose by peace? Commerce, character, a nation's best treasure, honor! — HENRY CLAY, in speech of 1811, before Congress. 225

A War of Blockades.

From 1800 on, Great Britain and France had been at war; and, in 1807, Great Britain forbade American vessels to go into any harbors except those of Great Britain itself, and of Sweden, who was on her side in this great war. Then Napoleon, to punish England, forbade any American vessel to go into any British harbor; America, on her part, passed the Embargo Act, which forbade the departure of any vessel for a foreign port; but the people of New England were so troubled by this, that it was changed for a Non-Intercourse Act, which simply forbade them to go to France or England.

Impressment of American Sailors. - At this same time Great Britain claimed the right to take a British-born sailor from any American ship where she could find him, and make him serve in the British navy; the way this worked may be seen from the following passage taken from a leading magazine of that time:

Future generations of the American people will not surely believe that their ancestors, immortal in history for their resistance to oppression... really submitted to such outrages. ... We, of the present day, know and feel the horrid certainty of these things. We have endured them for years . . . and at last are compelled to resist them by force. . . . Would Great Britain permit her ships to be searched and her seamen to be carried off, at the discretion of any American officer who pleased to take them? ..

The editor then gives the following letter:

.

Dear Brother. I am sorry to acquaint you with my unfortunate situation, but necessity obliges me. . . . Being on shore one day at