Next year Minnesota will probably be
admitted as a state; and a new territory organized out of the broad
region embracing the valley aforesaid and the head waters of the
Mississippi. Or else it will be divided by a line north and south,
including the western valley of that river, and extending as far to
the west as the Missouri River. I understand it will be called
Dacotah, though I at first thought it would be called Pembina. There
is always a rush into new territories, and the proposed new territory
of Dacotah will present sufficient inducements for a large
immigration. When the valley of the North Red River shall be settled,
and splendid harvest fields adorn its banks; when great factories take
the place of wind-mills, and when railroads shall take the place of
Red River carts, then we will have new cause to exclaim,
"Westward the course of empire takes its way!"
LETTER XI.
THE TRUE PIONEER.
Energy of the pioneer Frontier life Spirit of emigration
Advantages to the farmer in moving West Advice in regard to making
preemption claims Abstract of the preemption law Hints to the
settler Character and services of the pioneer.
CROW WING, October, 1856.
I DESIRE in this letter to say something about the pioneer, and life
on the frontier. And by pioneer I mean the true pioneer who comes into
the West to labor and to share the vicissitudes of new settlements;
not the adventurer, who would repine at toil, and gather where he has
not sown.
As I have looked abroad upon the vast domain of the West beyond the
dim Missouri, or in the immediate valley of the Mississippi, I have
wondered at the contrast presented between the comparatively small
number who penetrate to the frontier, and that great throng of men who
toil hard for a temporary livelihood in the populous towns and cities
of the Union. And I have thought if this latter class were at all
mindful of the opportunities for gain and independence which the new
territories afforded, they would soon abandon in a great measure at
least their crowded alleys in the city, and aspire to be cultivators
and owners of the soil. Why there has not been a greater emigration
from cities I cannot imagine, unless it is owing to a misapprehension
of Western life. Either it is this, or the pioneer is possessed of a
very superior degree of energy.
It has been said that the frontier man always keeps on the frontier;
that he continues to emigrate as fast as the country around him
becomes settled. There is a class that do so. Not, however, for the
cause which has been sometimes humorously assigned that civilization
was inconvenient to them but because good opportunities arise to
dispose of the farms they have already improved; and because a further
emigration secures them cheaper lands.
