"They made no serious effort, because there was nothing attractive to them in those vast stretches. And the proof of this stubborn fact is that in 1860 there were no slaves at all in the New Mexico, Utah, and Washington Territories, none in the Indian or Oklahoma Territory, none in the Dakota Territory, virtually none in the Kansas Territory which entered the Union as a free State in 1861, and barely more than a dozen in the Nebraska Territory, nor was there a prospect that more would ever arrive."
nc: Thanks for the post -- worth repeating!
|Not true. The "Civilized" Cherokee owned many slaves. Read up on Stand Watie and the Ross factions.
nor was there a prospect that more would ever arrive."
Also read Jeff Davis' 1850 speech in the Senate lamenting the fact that California was admitted as a free state when slaves could have been working the gold mines instead of white men. Without the Civil War, the western territories of the Dakotas, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona would have filled with slaves when the gold and silver mines were discovered just a few years later.