- Term
People on the American Frontier
- Qualifier
Encounters exhibition
- Remarks
The people of the United States of America have always been on the move, with many citizens eager to take their chances in the newly explored lands. In the first half of the 19th century, millions of Americans streamed across the Appalachian Mountains, settling the areas just beyond. The prairie states of the Old Northwest, the region northwest of the Ohio River that became the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, became home to farms growing wheat and corn, and raising hogs. The cotton belt of the Old Southwest, the area that became the states of Virginia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Kentucky, supported large plantations. Farmers loaded their harvested crops onto flatboats and steamboats, selling farm products in the market centers of St. Louis and New Orleans. Many of those who moved west found new opportunities for themselves and their families, but there were also those migrants who did not move by choice. Slaves were forced to move west with their masters. North American Indians were forced to move further west onto reservations by the United States government. On the frontier of the American West, cultures transformed rapidly in response to the massive population movements.