ABSTRACT
An unrivaled sweep of land-hungry men was unleashed into the trans-Appalachian West by the close of the War of 1812. By that time, British intrigues among the Indians had been eliminated, the western frontier had been pacified, and interference by the Spanish had been reduced. All the coastal states except New York and Georgia, which had frontiers of their own and an abundance of land to settle, were seriously affected by this pull of the West. Farmers from the older settled areas had long been moving westward into the Piedmont, the Great Valley and then into the trans-Allegheny country from the South, and across New York State from New England. In 1815, American farm practices were indeed primitive and destructive although generally rewarding to the first generation who used the land. In the coastal states, soil-exhausting farm practices had by 1815 already created serious agricultural problems for which many fanners saw only one solution: fresh land.
