Crossing the Appalachians [Image source:

The United States was a rapidly growing nation in the early-1800s. [Image source:

The population of the United States doubled every twenty years between 1780 and [Image source: America - Pathways to the Present, page 202.]

Immigration accounted for only 10% of the growth. [Image source:

This population growth occurred in spite of a high infant mortality rate. [Image source: Jon Parkin]

The median age of Americans in 1820 was about 17 years old. [Image source: om/littlehouseontheprai rie1/PHOTOS.html]

Laura Ingalls Wilder at age seventeen. [Image source:

Many people moved west into trans-Appalachia in search of a prosperous future. [Image source: Microsoft Encarts]

Many settlers from western Pennsylvania and Virginia traveled down the Ohio River. [Image source: America - Pathways to the Present, page 226.]

These settlers worked hard to clear the land in order to plant crops and build homes. [Image source: America - Pathways to the Present, page 203.]

Frontiersman Daniel Boone explored the present-day state of Kentucky during the late-1760s and early-1770s. [Image source: nov/boone.html1]

As an employee of the Transylvania Company, Boone blazed a trail through the Cumberland Gap. [Image source:

This road, which began in eastern Tennessee and ran to Louisville, Kentucky, became known as the Wilderness road. [Image source:

One of the more famous folk- heroes of this westward migration was John Chapman, better known today as Johnny Appleseed. [Image source: Harper’s Weekly]

Pinckney Treaty [Image source: ence/maps/main.asp] 1. Southern border of U. S. set at 31 degrees North. 2. U. S. allowed use of the Mississippi through Spanish Territory. 3. Spain and U.S. agreed to curtail Native Americans from attacking the other’s territory.

The Seminole Indians of Florida raided settlements in south Georgia and allowed escaped slaves sanctuary. [Image source: Eyes of the Nation, page 100.]

General Andrew Jackson used the Indian depredations as a pretext for invading Spanish Florida with 2,000 men. [Image source:

The Spanish ceded Florida to the United States in the Adams-Onis Treaty. [Image source: Microsoft Encarta]

The Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819 also fixed the boundary between the Louisiana Purchase and Spanish territory in the West. [Image source:

The treaty was negotiated by John Quincy Adams, the son of John Adams, who was the Secretary of State under President James Monroe. [Image source:

[Images source: "North American Origins of Middlewestern Frontier Populations" by John C. Hudson in Annals of the Association of American Geographers, volume 78, number 3 (September 1988), page 400.]

Many of the pioneers who made their way west into the trans-Appalachian region did so in Conestoga wagons. [Image source:

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During the early- 1800s, the population center of the United States shifted west. [Source: America - Pathways to the Present, page 206.]

Before long, over half of the U. S. population lived in trans- Appalachia. [Source: America - Pathways to the Present, page 206.]

Among the people who migrated to the western frontier were large numbers of African Americans. [Image source:

Native Americans struggled to preserve their way of life as they were uprooted and forced to move west of the Mississippi River. [Image source:

[Image source: Microsoft Encarta] Even though the Cherokees made an effort to blend European ways with their traditional culture, they, too, were forced to move.

Because so many perished along the way, the Cherokee trek westward is known today as the Trail of Tears. [Image source:

[Image source: America - Pathways to the Present, page 205.]

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