Early Days in the Mississippi Valley
James Monroe was the last of the quartet of Virginia Presidents which had begun with George Washington. He was elected after serving as Madison’s Secretary of State, but before that he had fought in the Revolution, sat in the Continental Congress, been a Senator, a governor, and a minister to France. His term as President is known as the Era of Good Feeling because of the absence of serious problems to divide the country. It was a period of rapid growth as settlers pushed west and the beginnings of the industrial revolution began to change the East.
During the early decades of the nineteenth century the wilderness across the Allegheny Mountains began to fill up with farmers. Throughout Jefferson’s administration there were occasional skirmishes with the Indians, but gradually the Indians were pushed out of their traditional hunting grounds. While Madison was President, the Shawnee chief Tecumseh, who had attempted to organize Indian resistance, was crushed by William Henry Harrison in the Battle of Tippecanoe. Meantime, Ohio had become a state in 1803, and in 1816, the year that James Monroe was elected President, Indiana was admitted to the Union. Two years later, Illinois joined the growing Union.
In the selections reprinted in this part of The Jeffersonians we have chosen four pieces that show various aspects of life in the Mississippi Valley. Here you will find examples of farm life, religion, and politics in the new states west of the mountains.