The Frontier in American History | Page 7

Philadelphia market.[16:2] The
ranges of the Great Plains, with ranch and cowboy and nomadic life,
are things of yesterday and of to-day. The experience of the Carolina
cowpens guided the ranchers of Texas. One element favoring the rapid
extension of the rancher's frontier is the fact that in a remote country
lacking transportation facilities the product must be in small bulk, or
must be able to transport itself, and the cattle raiser could easily drive
his product to market. The effect of these great ranches on the
subsequent agrarian history of the localities in which they existed
should be studied.
The maps of the census reports show an uneven advance of the farmer's

frontier, with tongues of settlement pushed forward and with
indentations of wilderness. In part this is due to Indian resistance, in
part to the location of river valleys and passes, in part to the unequal
force of the centers of frontier attraction. Among the important centers
of attraction may be mentioned the following: fertile and favorably
situated soils, salt springs, mines, and army posts.
The frontier army post, serving to protect the settlers from the Indians,
has also acted as a wedge to open the Indian country, and has been a
nucleus for settlement.[16:3] In this connection mention should also be
made of the government military and exploring expeditions in
determining the lines of settlement. But all the more important
expeditions were greatly indebted to the earliest pathmakers, the Indian
guides, the traders and trappers, and the French voyageurs, who were
inevitable parts of governmental expeditions from the days of Lewis
and Clark.[17:1] Each expedition was an epitome of the previous
factors in western advance.
In an interesting monograph, Victor Hehn[17:2] has traced the effect of
salt upon early European development, and has pointed out how it
affected the lines of settlement and the form of administration. A
similar study might be made for the salt springs of the United States.
The early settlers were tied to the coast by the need of salt, without
which they could not preserve their meats or live in comfort. Writing in
1752, Bishop Spangenburg says of a colony for which he was seeking
lands in North Carolina, "They will require salt & other necessaries
which they can neither manufacture nor raise. Either they must go to
Charleston, which is 300 miles distant . . . Or else they must go to
Boling's Point in V{a} on a branch of the James & is also 300 miles
from here. . . Or else they must go down the Roanoke--I know not how
many miles--where salt is brought up from the Cape Fear."[17:3] This
may serve as a typical illustration. An annual pilgrimage to the coast
for salt thus became essential. Taking flocks or furs and ginseng root,
the early settlers sent their pack trains after seeding time each year to
the coast.[17:4] This proved to be an important educational influence,
since it was almost the only way in which the pioneer learned what was
going on in the East. But when discovery was made of the salt springs

of the Kanawha, and the Holston, and Kentucky, and central New York,
the West began to be freed from dependence on the coast. It was in part
the effect of finding these salt springs that enabled settlement to cross
the mountains.
From the time the mountains rose between the pioneer and the seaboard,
a new order of Americanism arose. The West and the East began to get
out of touch of each other. The settlements from the sea to the
mountains kept connection with the rear and had a certain solidarity.
But the over-mountain men grew more and more independent. The East
took a narrow view of American advance, and nearly lost these men.
Kentucky and Tennessee history bears abundant witness to the truth of
this statement. The East began to try to hedge and limit westward
expansion. Though Webster could declare that there were no
Alleghanies in his politics, yet in politics in general they were a very
solid factor.
The exploitation of the beasts took hunter and trader to the west, the
exploitation of the grasses took the rancher west, and the exploitation
of the virgin soil of the river valleys and prairies attracted the farmer.
Good soils have been the most continuous attraction to the farmer's
frontier. The land hunger of the Virginians drew them down the rivers
into Carolina, in early colonial days; the search for soils took the
Massachusetts men to Pennsylvania and to New York. As the eastern
lands were taken up migration flowed across them to the west. Daniel
Boone, the great backwoodsman, who combined the occupations of
hunter, trader, cattle-raiser, farmer, and surveyor--learning, probably
from the traders, of the fertility of the lands of the upper Yadkin,