rticle, treatment of so vast a
region, however, can at best afford no more than an outline sketch, in
which old and well-known facts must, if possible, be so grouped as to
explain the position of the section in American history.

In spite of the difficulties of the task, there is a definite advantage
in so large a view. By fixing our attention too exclusively upon the
artificial boundary lines of the States, we have failed to perceive much
that is significant in the westward development of the United States.
For instance, our colonial system did not begin with the Spanish War;
the United States has had a colonial history and policy from the
beginning of the Republic; but they have been hidden under the
phraseology of "interstate migration" and "territorial organization."

The American people have occupied a spacious wilderness; vast
physiographic provinces, each with its own peculiarities, have lain
across the path of this migration, and each has furnished a special
environment for economic and social transformation. It is possible to
underestimate the importance of State lines, but if we direct our gaze
rather to the physiographic province than to the State area, we shall be
able to see some facts in a new light. Then it becomes clear that these
physiographic provinces of America are in some respects comparable to
the countries of Europe, and that each has its own history of occupation
and development. General Francis A. Walker once remarked that "the
course of settlement has called upon our people to occupy territory as
extensive as Switzerland, as England, as Italy, and latterly, as France
or Germany, every ten years." It is this element of vastness in the
achievements of American democracy that gives a peculiar interest to the
conquest and development of the Middle West. The effects of this
conquest and development upon the present United States have been of
fundamental importance.

Geographically the Middle West is almost conterminous with the Provinces
of the Lake and Prairie Plains; but the larger share of Kansas and
Nebraska, and the western part of the two Dakotas belong to the Great
Plains; the Ozark Mountains occupy a portion of Missouri, and the
southern parts of Ohio and Indiana merge into the Alleghany Plateau. The
relation of the Provinces of the Lake and Prairie Plains to the rest of
the United States is an important element in the significance of the
Middle West. On the north lies the similar region o