This period held new possibilities for fur trappers. The fur trade became organized as fur companies were formed that provided opportunities for free-lance and commissioned trappers. Goods were taken through St. Louis to Taos and Santa Fe via the Santa Fe Trail. Americans were encouraged to trade with Mexico in the southwest after a successful Mexican revolution ended Spanish rule in 1821.

1820:
Congress adopts the Missouri Compromise: Maine is to be admitted as a free state, Missouri as a slave state. Slavery will be excluded from the territory of the Louisiana Purchase north of 36 degrees 30 minutes latitude. Fourth census: U.S. population- 9,638,453.

1821:
The Santa Fe Trail between Independence, Missouri and Santa Fe, Mexico is blazed by Missouri trader William Becknell. The trail becomes the principal avenue for manufactured goods and emigrants bound for Santa Fe and the Southwest.

1822:
William Ashley, a St. Louis trader, places an advertisement in the St. Louis Gazette asking for "one hundred enterprising young men" to join him in a trapping and trading venture in the trans-Mississippi west. This signaled the beginning of the "Mountainman Era." Clement C. Moore writes the poem "T'was the Night Before Christmas".

1824:
Jim Bridger, a mountainman, encounters and charts the Great Salt Lake.

1825:
John Quincy Adams is inaugurated as the sixth President of the United States. The Erie Canal is officially opened at Buffalo, New York. With travel time cut by a third and the cost of shipping freight to a tenth of previous figures, this connection between the east coast and the Ohio and Mississippi valleys enables a large scale westward migration.

1826:
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams die within hours of each other on July 4, the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. James Fenimore Cooper publishes The Last of the Mohicans, a novel about American Indians and the effect of European colonization.

1827:
Fort Leavenworth is constructed as a strong point for military units patrolling the Santa Fe trade route. John James Audubon, ornithologist, publishes the first edition of his engravings of The Birds of America.

1828:
Noah Webster publishes the American Dictionary of the English Language.

1829:
Andrew Jackson is inaugurated as the seventh President of the United States.

1830:
A race to prove which is more powerful and reliable, the horse or steam locomotive, is run near Baltimore, Maryland, by Peter Cooper. Cooper's little railroad engine, the Tom Thumb, loses the race due to mechanical difficulties. The first regular railroad service in America begins in South Carolina, with engines built in America at West Point, New York. Joseph Smith founds The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Fifth census: U. S. Population- 12,866,000.

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