 Initial white visitors to the area were speculators, hunters, and outlaws, but the remote region remained sparsely populated by settlers.An extremely intense New Madrid earthquake swarm, produced by the New Madrid Seismic Zone nearby in present-day Missouri, struck the area in 1811–1812.The results were widespread soil liquefaction and a change in geography that produced "sunken lands", which were sandy berms of silt and sediment disturbed by the earthquakes.