Creative Books

Pattie; H. H. Bancroft, Hist. of California,
III., 162.] had been followed by frontiersmen into the promised land
of the Pacific coast and the southwest. In the course of ten years,
not only had the principal secrets of the topography of the Rocky
Mountains, the Great Basin, the passes across the Sierra Nevadas
been revealed, but also the characteristics of the Spanish-American
settlements of California and the Rio Grande region. Already
pioneers sought Texas, and American colonization was preparing for
another and greater conquest of the wilderness.
The interest of the United States government in the far west in this
period was shown in exploration and diplomacy. Calhoun projected an
extension of the forts of the United States well up the Missouri
into the Indian country, partly as protection to the traders and
partly as a defense against English aggressions. Two Yellowstone
expeditions [Footnote: Chittenden, Am. Fur Trade, II., 562; Long's
Expedition (Early Western Travels, XIV.-XVII.


Pages:
172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196