ut the Spanish
authorities, captured Barrancas, whose troops and officials were sent to
Havana.

[Illustration: AN INDIAN'S DECLARATION OF WAR.]

Jackson carried things with such a high hand that Spain protested, and
Congress had to order an investigation. The report censured Jackson; but
Congress passed a resolution acquitting him of all blame, and he became
more popular than ever.

Spain was not strong enough to expel the Americans, and she agreed to a
treaty, in October, 1820, by which East and West Florida were ceded to
the United States, the latter paying Spain $5,000,000. The Sabine River,
instead of the Rio Grande, was made the dividing line between the
territories of the respective governments west of the Mississippi.
Jackson was the first governor of Florida, and, as may be supposed, he
had a stormy time, but he straightened out matters with the same iron
resolution that marked everything he did.

STATES ADMITTED--THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE.

A number of States were admitted to the Union while Monroe was
President. The first was Mississippi, in 1817. The territory was claimed
by Georgia, which gave it to the United States in 1802. Illinois was
admitted in 1818, being the third of the five States formed from the old
Northwest Territory. Alabama became a State in 1819, and had been a part
of the territory claimed by Georgia. Maine was admitted in 1820, and, as
has been shown, was for a long time a part of Massachusetts, and
Missouri became a State in 1821.

The strife over the admission of the last-named State was so angry that
more than one person saw the shadow of the tremendous civil war that was
to darken the country and deluge it in blood forty years later. The
invention of the cotton gin in 1793 had made cotton the leading industry
of the South and given an enormous importance to slavery. The soil and
the climate and economic conditions caused it to flourish in the South,
and the lack of such conditions made it languish and die out in the
North.

Missouri applied for admission in March, 1818, but it was so late in the
session that Congress took no action. At the following session a bill
was introduced containing a provision that forbade slavery in the
proposed new State. The debate was bitter and prolonged, accompanied by
threats of disunion, but a compromise was reached on the 28th of
February, 1821, when the agreement was made that slavery was to be
permitted in Missouri, but forever prohibited in