Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1875-07-22
The Old Thirteen States.

Although the Spanish and Mexican
cessiOns comprise towns which far an
teddte the earliest settlements within
the original thirteen States, it is TO the
latter that we must first turn in any at
tempt to broadly grasp the history of
population within the United States.
But we shall fail to reach the full sig4
nificance of the situation if we only
give to ourselves, as reasons for treat
ing this portion of territory first in Or
der, its present population, exceeding
that of any other section, its earlier pc
litical development, or its more con-
spicuOus figure in American history.
1t is more, but rather less, on account
of these than on account of the actual
contributions which this section has
made to the population of each one in
turn of the other geographical divis-
ions OF the United States, early or re-
cent, that the writer on population
must turn first to jamestown and Ply
mouth, or he will read his theme back
ward. st. Augustine (565) aud Santa
Fe 15S2) were, indeed, planted before
English. Cavalier or English Puritan
sought the more northern lands for set
tlement; but st. Augustine and Santa
Fe were barren stock, ard the popu-
lations that to-day occupy the regions
in which these were planted in the six
teenth century have poured forth from
States founded in penury and neglect
long afterward. When the great prov
ince of Louisiana came to Us, in 1903,
more than three centuries after the dis
covery of the mainland of America, it
contained, from the delta of the Missis-
sippi to Puget Sound, scarcely twenty
thousand white Inhabitants. That this
vast territory now contains more than
five millions of inhabitants, who will
by 1880 be eight millions or ten, is not
due to the robustness If the stock which
Jefferson annexed With the soil, or
mainly to direct immigration. In like
manner, when we received Florida
from Spain by the treaty of 1919 not
consummated, however, until 1921, the
white population was but twelve or
fifteen thousand, so slight had been the
fecundity of the Spanish settlements.
And when, in 1922, Congress directed
the Postmaster-general to make pro-
vision for post-route from st. Angus
tine to Pensacola, that officer was
obliged to report the next year as fol-
lows:
''Diligent inquiry has been made, and it
does not appear that there is a road between
these places on the route designated on which
the mail can be conveyed. There are Indian
paths which pass through different Indian
settlements, but none, it is understood, that
extend for any considerable distance in the
proper direction"
And 80 late as 1850, the first date for
which we have the statistics of nativity
in the United States, it was found that
of the free inhabitants of Florida more
had been born in the original thirteen
States than in Florida itself, while less
than six per cent. of the free inhabit-
ants were of foreign birth. The Texan
annexation, again, now contains about
$50, 200 souls: but when Texas revolted
from Mexico, it contained probably not
more than 10000, of whom by far the
greater part had come, in anticipat lion
of manifest Destiny from the States.
In 1850, of the free inhabitants scarcely
more than one-third, including, of
course, an undue proportion of child
rem, were natives of Texas.
In the same way the first Mexican
cession, when taken possession of by
the United States, embraced but
small white population. OF this tract
it is true that, in the furious excite
ment caused by the discovery of gold
at Suffers Mill in 1S4S, it was settled
more largely than any other had been
by direct immigration. Yet of the first
eighty thousand eager gold-hunters
who pressed into the valleys of CalifOr-
mia, more than three-fourths were born