ABSTRACT
Settlers coming to colonial North America had access to land on a scale that Europeans could hardly imagine, and open access to land was a key feature of the American psyche. The laws guaranteed western settlers basic political and legal rights and allowed a territory to be admitted to the Union on an equal basis with other states when it had a population of 60,000. By guaranteeing that westward migrants would not lose their rights as Americans when they left their home states, and providing for the quick sale of land, the Ordinances set the destiny of the nation in the west. The American fixation on the West affected almost every aspect of life, even giving birth to a uniquely American school of art. In the meantime, the second major gold rush in American history started in the 1820s in the southern Appalachian Mountains of Georgia.
