American telegraph. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1851-1851, 1851-07-24
The Colonization or this Continent.

Nearly three hundred and sixty years have
passed since this Western World was revealed
to mankind by the discovery of Columbus; and
though three centuries and half afford ample
time for the doing of many deeds, yet scarcely
year elapses without adding some new marvel
to the influence of America upon the progress
sive civilization and comfort Of the human race
If we look on the map, at the portion of this
continent occupied by US at present, we are
amazed ut the vast expansion Of our territorial
limits within much less than one third of this
time. In the middle Of the last century, the
British dominions in America were but a fringe
upon the Atlantic shores. Beginning in the
Bay Of Fundy, their outline ran southwest
wardly, skirting the eastern shore Of Lake On
tario, until it touched the northern spur of the
Alleghanies, and then descending along the
slopes of those mountains, il struck the north
ernmost angle of Florida and finally terminated
on the Atlantic at the mouth of the Alatamaha
The average breadth Of this scant region was
not more than five degrees. West and north
west lay the vast primeval forests, the gigantic
lakes and rivers, claimed by the French as
Canada and the province of Louisiana; while
south, on the Gulf of Mexico, and the Atlantic,
stretched the romantic shores of Florida, under
the dominion of Spain. r.
1t was not until the epoch of the Indian trou-
bles, of which am about to speak, and on the
eve Of our Revolutionary War, that the Ohio
became the recognised boundary between the
white and the red man and he who now enters
in one Of these floating palaces of the western
waters at Brownsville, and descends the Ohio
to the Mississippi, and the Mississippi to the
Gulf, can hardly believe that within less than
eighty years the whole of this magnificent
region, where the progress Of trade has not
effaced all traces of romantic nature was still n
dreary and dangerous wilderness, tenanted alone
by the wild beast, or by human beings almost
as savage. There are men still living who re.
collect the legends of Indian warfare or foray
in Maryland, Pennsylvania, or Virginia, and
can recount the escape or the death Of some
ancestor by the tomahawk and scalping- knife.
There are those amongst us, too, whose hair is
still unsilvered, who may remember their sports
as boys in watching the struggling Indians
half beggars, half bandits-who every winter
thronged our streets, but whose only use of the
bow and the arrow was to win the pennies we
ventured in order to test the sureness Of their
aim.
But where, even now is the "Far West"
which in those days was spoken of as some
thing mysteriously indefnite-as something
lenoting perils of journey and Indian cruelty
It was then that we had still territorial bound
aries to settle with Britain, and titles as well
rs rights to adjust with stubborn tribes. 1t
was then that the far-seeing and comprehensive
merchant laid the foundation of his wealth by
tracking the beaver in its widest haunts in Ore
ron. 1t was then that California was remem-
bered as field of romantic missionary labor,
cherished under Mexican Viceroys, but as
land Of abandoned enterprise. IL was then
that our young and restless spirits sought the
valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi as homes
which were beginning to be fully redeemed
from the hunter and the savage. That was the
Far West" of those days. But now, strange
names salute our ears; sounding no more of
Indian conquests, but commemorative monu-
ments as long as language shall last, Of victo-
ries over civilized men. We have abandoned
m Indian nomenclature and adopted the calen-
lar of Christian saints Santa Fe, the Rio
Bravo del Norte the Colorado of the West !;
the Pecos; the Gila the Valleys Of San Juan
and Santa Clara the Plains of the Sacramento
and San Joaquin, and the upland Vale ct the
foot of Mount Shasti the Great Basin, around
whose saline waters the Mormon enthusiasts
have nestled, seeking refuge among the savages
rom the bigoted prosecutions of civilization
Monterey; San Francisco; San Diego Chry-
sopolm or the Golden Gates and, last Of all, the
Pacific itself, for IAN acknowledged boundary,
and the Isthmus for q highway .a ai
There is no longer a q Far West" States,
now planting on the brink Of the Pacific and
washed by its surge, curb, in that direction, the
utmost possible limit of our dominion. Gold,
in apparently inexhaustible quantities, has
magnetically attracted On immense population
in the brief space of three years The first
great experiment Of planting the Anglo-Saxor
race on the Pacific, facing the Indies with 9