Louisiana and Aaron Burr 287 



tongue, and with much the same ways of life; so 

 that they readily assimilated with them, as they 

 could not assimilate with the French and Spanish 

 Creoles. Canada lay north, and the tendency of the 

 backwoodsman was to thrust west ; among the South- 

 ern backwoodsmen, the tendency was south and 

 southwest. The Mississippi formed no natural bar- 

 rier whatever. Boone, when he moved into Mis- 

 souri, was but a forerunner among the pioneers; 

 many others followed him. He himself became an 

 official under the Spanish Government, and received 

 a grant of lands. Of the other frontiersmen who 

 went into the Spanish territory, some, like Boone, 

 continued to live as hunters and backwoods farm- 

 ers. 51 Others settled in St. Louis, or some other of 

 the little Creole towns, and joined the parties of 

 French traders who ascended the Missouri and the 

 Mississippi to barter paint, beads, powder, and 

 blankets for the furs of the Indians. 



The Spanish authorities were greatly alarmed at 

 the incoming of the American settlers. Gayoso de 

 Lemos had succeeded Carondelet as Governor, and 

 he issued to the commandants of the different posts 

 throughout the colonies a series of orders in refer- 

 ence to the terms on which land grants were to be 

 given to immigrants; he particularly emphasized 

 the fact that liberty of conscience was not to be 

 extended beyond the first generation, and that the 

 children of the immigrant would either have to be- 

 come Catholics or else be expelled, and that this 



11 American State Papers, Public Lands, II, pp. 10, 872. 



