hile the southern tier of States was sought by swarms of settlers,
Wisconsin and Michigan still echoed to Canadian boating-songs, and
voyageurs paddled their birch canoes along the streams of the wilderness
to traffic with the savages. Great Britain maintained the dominant
position until after the War of 1812, and the real center of authority
was in Canada.

But after the digging of the Erie Canal, settlement began to turn into
Michigan. Between 1830 and 1840 the population of the State leaped from
31,000 to 212,000, in the face of the fact that the heavy debt of the
State and the crisis of 1837 turned from her borders many of the
thrifty, debt-hating Germans. The vast majority of the settlers were New
Yorkers. Michigan is distinctly a child of the Empire State. Canadians,
both French and English, continued to come as the lumber interests of
the region increased. By 1850 Michigan contained nearly 400,000
inhabitants, who occupied the southern half of the State.

But she now found an active competitor for settlement in Wisconsin. In
this region two forces had attracted the earlier inhabitants. The
fur-trading posts of Green Bay, Prairie du Chien, and Milwaukee
constituted one element, in which the French influence was continued.
The lead region of the southwest corner of the State formed the center
of attraction for Illinois and Southern pioneers. The soldiers who
followed Black Hawk's trail in 1832 reported the richness of the soil,
and an era of immigration followed. To the port of Milwaukee came a
combined migration from western New York and New England, and spread
along the southern tier of prairie counties until it met the Southern
settlers in the lead region. Many of the early political contests in the
State were connected, as in Ohio and Illinois, with the antagonisms
between the sections thus brought together in a limited area.

The other element in the formation of Wisconsin was that of the Germans,
then just entering upon their vast immigration to the United States.
Wisconsin was free from debt; she made a constitution of exceptional
liberality to foreigners, and instead of treasuring her school lands or
using them for internal improvements, she sold them for almost nothing
to attract immigration. The result was that the prudent Germans, who
loved light taxes and cheap hard wood lands, turned toward
Wisconsin,--another _Voelkerwanderung_. From Milwaukee as a center they
spread north along the shore of Lake Mi