After the treaty of 1763 Louisiana remained in possession of Spain until 1803, when it was again restored to France by the terms of a secret article in the treaty of St. Ildefonso, concluded with Spain in 1800. France held but brief possession; on the 30th of April she sold her claim to the United States for the consideration of fifteen millions of dollars. On the 20th of the succeeding December Generals Wilkinson and Claiborne took possession of the country for the United States, and entered New Orleans at the head of the American troops.

On the 11th of January, 1805, Congress established the Territory of Michigan, and appointed William Hull governor. This same year Detroit was destroyed by fire. The town occupied only about two acres, completely covered with buildings and combustible materials, excepting the narrow intervals of fourteen or fifteen feet used as streets or lanes, and the whole was environed with a very strong and secure defence of tall and solid pickets.

At this period, the conspiracy of Aaron Burr began to agitate the western country. In December, 1806, a fleet of boats, with arms, provisions, and ammunition, belonging to the confederates of Burr, was seized upon the Muskingum, by agents of the United States, which proved a fatal blow to the project. In 1809 the Territory of Illinois was formed from the westerm part of the Indiana Territory, and named from the powerful tribe which once had occupied its soil.

The Indians, who, since the treaty of Greenville, had

been at peace, about the year 1810 began to commit aggressions upon the inhabitants of the west under the leadership of Tecumseh. The next year they were defeated by General Harrison, at the battle of Tippecanoe, in Indiana. This year was also distinguished by the voyage from Pittsburg to New Orleans of the steamboat "New Orleans," the first steamer ever launched upon the western waters.

In June, 1812, the United States declared war against Great Britain. Of this war the west was the principal theatre. Its opening scenes were as gloomy and disastrous to the American arms as its close was brilliant and triumphant.

At the close of the war the population of the Territories of Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan was less than fifty thousand. But from that time onward the tide of emigration again went forward with unprecedented rapidity. On the 19th of April, 1816, Indiana was admitted into the Union, and Illinois on the 3d of December, 1818. The remainder of the North-west Territory, as then organized, was included in the Territory of Michigan, of which that section west of Lake Michigan bore the name of the Huron District. This part of the west increased so slowly that, by the census of 1830, the Territory of Michigan contained, exclusive of the Huron District, but twenty-eight thousand souls, while that had only a population of three thousand six hundred and forty. Emigration began to set in more strongly to the Territory of Michigan in consequence of steam navigation having been successfully intro

duced upon the great lakes of the west. The first steamboat upon these immense inland seas was the "Walk-in-the-Water," which, in 1819, went as far as Mackinaw; yet it was not until 1826 that a steamer rode the waters of Lake Michigan, and six years more had elapsed ere one had penetrated as far as Chicago.

The year 1832 was signalized by three important events in the history of the west, viz., the first appearance of the Asiatic cholera, the great flood in the Ohio, and the war with Black Hawk.

The west has suffered serious drawbacks in its progress from inefficient systems of banking. One bank frequently was made the basis of another, and that of a third, and so on throughout the country. Some three or four shrewd agents or directors, in establishing a bank, would collect a few thousands in specie, that had been honestly paid in, and then make up the remainder of the capital with the bills or stock from some neighboring bank. Thus, so intimate was the connection of each bank with others, that, when one or two gave way, they all went down together in one common ruin.

In 1804, the year succeeding the purchase of Louisiana, Congress formed from part of it the "Territory of Orleans," which was admitted into the Union in 1812, as the State of Louisiana. In 1805, after the Territory of Orleans was erected, the remaining part of the purchase from the French was formed into the Territory of Louisiana, of which the old French town of St. Louis was the capital. This town, the oldest in

the territory, had been founded in 1764, by M. Laclede, agent for a trading association, to whom had been given, by the French government of Louisiana, a monopoly of the commerce in furs and peltries with the Indian tribes of the Missouri and Upper Mississippi. The population of the territory in 1805 was trifling, and consisted mainly of French Creoles and traders, who were scattered along the banks of the Mississippi and the Arkansas. Upon the admission of Louisiana as a state, the name of the Territory of Louisiana was changed to that of Missouri. From the southern part of this, in 1819, was erected the Territory of Arkansas, which then contained but a few thousand inhabitants, who were mainly in detached settlements on the Mississippi and on the Arkansas, in the vicinity of the "Post of Arkansas." The first settlement in Arkansas was made on the Arkansas River, about the year 1723, upon the grant of the notorious John Law; but, being unsuccessful, was soon after abandoned. In 1820 Missouri was admitted into the Union, and Arkansas in 1836.

Michigan was admitted as a state in 1837. The Huron District was organized as the Wisconsin Territory in 1836, and was admitted into the Union as a state in 1848. The first settlement in Wisconsin was made in 1665, when Father Claude Allouez established a mission at La Pointe, at the western end of Lake Superior. Four years after, a mission was permanently established at Green Bay; and eventually the French also established themselves at Prairie du Chien. In

1819 an expedition, under Governor Cass, explored the territory, and found it to be little more than the abode of a few Indian traders, scattered here and there. About this time the government established military posts at Green Bay and Prairie du Chien. About the year 1825 some farmers settled in the vicinity of Galena, which had then become a noted mineral region. Immediately after the war with Black Hawk, emigrants flowed in from New York, Ohio, and Michigan, and the flourishing towns of Milwaukie, Sheboygan, Racine, and Southport were laid out on the borders of Lake Michigan. At the conclusion of the same war, the lands west of the Mississippi were thrown open to emigrants, who commenced settlements in the vicinity of Fort Madison and Burlington in 1833. Dubuque had long before been a trading post, and was the first settlement in Iowa. It derived its name from Julien Dubuque, an enterprising French Canadian, who, in 1798, obtained a grant of one hundred and forty thousand acres from the Indians, upon which he resided. until his death in 1810, when he had accumulated immense wealth by lead mining and trading. In June, 1838, Iowa was erected into a territory, and in 1846 became a state.

In 1849 Minnesota Territory was organized; it then contained a little less than five thousand souls. The first American establishment in the territory was Fort Snelling, at the mouth of St. Peter's, or Minnesota River, which was founded in 1819. The French, and afterwards the English, occupied this country with