38 The Winning of the West 



the long run, the mass of Easterners always backed 

 up their Western brethren. 



The kind of colonizing conquest, whereby the 

 people of the United States have extended their 

 borders, has much in common with the similar 

 movements in Canada and Australia, all of them 

 standing in sharp contrast to what has gone on in 

 Spanish-American lands. But of course each is 

 marked out in addition by certain peculiarities of 

 its own. Moreover, even in the United States, the 

 movement falls naturally into two divisions, which 

 on several points differ widely from each other. 



The way in which the southern part of our west- 

 ern country that is, all the land south of the Ohio, 

 and from thence on to the Rio Grande and the 

 Pacific was won and settled, stands quite alone. 

 The region north of it was filled up in a 

 very different manner. The Southwest, includ- 

 ing therein what was once called simply the 

 West, and afterward the Middle West, was won 

 by the people themselves, acting as individuals, 

 or as groups of individuals, who hewed out 

 their own fortunes in advance of any governmental 

 action. On the other hand, the Northwest, speak- 

 ing broadly, was acquired by the government, the 

 settlers merely taking possession of what the whole 

 country guaranteed them. The Northwest is essen- 

 tially a national domain; it is fitting that it should 

 be, as it is, not only by position but by feeling, the 

 heart of the nation. 



North of the Ohio the regular army went first. 



