THE FARM LAND 31 



soil so he couldn't make a living in one place, he would move 

 on and try his luck elsewhere. He might go to Pennsylvania, 

 New York, perhaps, or with Manasseh Cutler to the Connecti' 

 cut Reserve in Ohio. Southerners followed Boone's trail out 

 to the Kentucky bottom lands. Many poorer farmers drifted 

 into the Northwest Territory where they did not have to 

 compete with the rich slave owners. 



In 1763 the English Parliament passed the Quebec Act for 

 bidding the colonists to settle west of the summit of the Alle' 

 ghenies. Supposedly, this act was to protect the Indians from 

 the whites. Actually, it was a law to protect the English fur 

 traders from the advancing American trappers and farmers. 

 To many restless Americans the Revolutionary War was 

 fought to win that land. Adventurous men didn't wait for the 

 issue to be decided, but set out to settle this country, redcoats 

 or no redcoats. Thus the first trickle of settlers began. After 

 the war the trickle became a flood. 



In Auburn, New York, a traveler noticed that all winter 

 long the roads were crowded "with flitting families from the 

 Eastern States." 13 In Pennsylvania they streamed west through 

 the Cumberland Gap, down into Kentucky and Tennessee and 

 south over the Appalachian plateau. Over the same route came 

 Southerners seeking always new land. The federal govern' 

 ment, noticing the value of Pennsylvania's Lancaster Turnpike, 

 decided in 1806, 14 after much urging from the West, to build 

 the Cumberland Road into the Ohio country. One man looked 

 on this great highway and saw "As many as twenty four'horse 

 coaches ... in line at a time on the road, and large, broad' 

 wheeled wagons, covered with white canvas stretched over 

 bows laden with merchandise and drawn by six Conestoga 

 horses, were visible all day long at every point, and many times 



13 J. B. McMaster, History of the People of the United States from the Revolt 

 tion to the Civil War, Vol. IV, D. Appleton-Century Company, New York, 1895, 

 p. 383. 



"Faulkner, op. c:t. ( p. 330. 



