North Americans and especially many citizens of the United States forget that well into the nineteenth century most of the Americas were part of the Spanish and Portugues empires. The British Empire held relatively small regions, in the United States east of the Mississippi River and considerable parts of the eastern Canada. Even there, British control was often weak and mostly confined to coastal areas and the immediate interior. White settlement would expand dramatically in the nineteenth century as the map of much of the Americas was completely re-written. See also maps 7.2 and 19.1.