1. When Washington was inaugurated, the United States consisted of eleven states, with a population of about 3,380,000.
2. These people lived not far from the Atlantic coast. Few cities existed; not one had 50,000 inhabitants. Even the largest was without many conveniences which we consider necessaries.
3. Travel was slow and difficult, and though a steamboat had been invented and used, it was too far ahead of the times to succeed.
4. West of the Alleghany Mountains a few settlements had been made between 1763 and 1783. But it was after 1783, when streams of emigrants poured over the mountains, that settlement really began.
6. In the South cotton was just beginning to be cultivated; there all labor was done by slaves. In the North slavery was dying out, and in five of the states had been abolished.
State of the Country in 1790
- On the Seaboard.
The population. {Number.
{Distribution.
{Movement west.
The cities {Size.
{Absence of many conveniences known to us.
{Newspapers and magazines.
Communication between states. {Bad roads. Slow travel.
{The post offices.
{The stagecoaches. The inns.
{The early steamboat.
- In the Ohio Valley. {Population. Squatters.
{Pittsburg in 1790.
{A trip down the Ohio.
{Towns in the valley.
- In the South. {Slavery.
{Cotton planting.
{Whitney and the cotton gin.