Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/721

 -1814] Westward migration. Transition. 689 stimulated by the opportunities of the neutral trade during the period of the European wars. Domestic manufactures were in a fairly flourishing condition, and helped to supply both the home and the Southern market. Little advance, however, had been made in the introduction of mechanical processes, while the factory system was nearly unknown. In the main, all luxuries and many of the necessities which could be easily transported were imported from England. There was little to encourage capital to compete with the powerful industries of England, especially in view of the fact that the opportunities for its employment in agriculture and shipping were in any case more attractive. In the meantime that movement toward the settlement of the West, which for a century was to be the controlling factor in economic development, but whose effects at this early period were scarcely felt, had already begun. Ever since the Revolution, the migration of the pioneers beyond the mountains had been going on; and by 1800 about one-tenth of the population, roughly 500,000 in number, had moved into the western territory. Settlers had penetrated the wilderness of western New York and of western Virginia; but the chief stream of migration had gone from Virginia into Kentucky and Tennessee till it had reached the Ohio river and its tributaries. This population, for the time being, consisted of hardy pioneers practically shut off from close commercial connexion because of the great difficulties of conducting trade across the mountains, and the necessity on their own part of devoting all their energies to self-preservation. Nevertheless they increased rapidly year by year. The course of economic development at this time was but a continuation of the colonial period. There was a considerable degree of widespread comfort, leading to a rapid increase in population, about 35 per cent, to the decade; but there were no important changes in the nature of the economic life or in the relations of its various groups. More people were simply making more things in the same way. Before long, however, a marked change began; and the second war against England may be taken as a convenient line of demarcation between the two periods. The transition may be described as that from the period of homogeneous expansion to the period of organic growth; and the chief factors to which the change was due were the rise of manufactures, the improvements in transport, and the extension of cotton culture into the South-west, on the one hand; and, on the other, the adoption of a national economic policy which included protection to manufactures, government aid to internal improvements, and a land policy which favoured rapid settlement. The cessation of foreign trade in the years 1808-9, and again in 1812-14, had forced the nation into an industrial development, which not only was more rapid than before, but also involved a change C. M. H. VJI. CH. XXII. 44