Virginia, with a population of over a
million, increased but 13.7 per cent., and the Carolinas only 15.5
per cent. In the next decade these tendencies were even more clearly
shown, for Virginia and the Carolinas then gained but little more
than 2 per cent.
Georgia alone showed rapid increase. At the beginning of the decade
the Indians still held all of the territory west of Macon, at the
center of the state, with the exception of two tiers of counties
along the southern border; and, when these lands were opened towards
the close of the decade, they were occupied by a rush of settlement
similar to the occupation of Oklahoma and Indian Territory in our
own day. What Maine was to New England, that Georgia was to the
southern seaboard, with the difference that it was deeply touched by
influences characteristically western. Because of the traits of her
leaders, and the rude, aggressive policy of her people, Georgia
belonged at least as much to the west as to the south. From colonial
times the Georgia settlers had been engaged in an almost incessant
struggle against the savages on her border, and had the instincts of
a frontier society.
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