ENGLISH AND COLONIAL POLICY IN THE WEST.

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the British Government favored the eager desire of the colonists to secure lands and commence settlements west of the mountains; but the discontent of the tribes, as shown in Pontiac's war, the commencing troubles between the colonies on the Atlantic and the Home Government, and other circumstances connected with the government of Canada, now in their hands, induced a change. The authorities of the colonies were forbidden to grant lands or authorize settlement beyond the headwaters of the streams falling into the Atlantic. Pontiac's principle was to be, in substance, adopted and the tribes were to be left in undisturbed possession of the eastern Valley. The French policy of conciliation and gentleness was more fully adopted.

When war with the colonies actually broke out, the British Government, determined to subdue the colonies at any cost, sought the alliance and aid of the tribes north and south, furnished them with warlike stores and organized their expeditions against the settlements of the border. Had Pontiac been alive he would have seen his desire realized, and it would have gone hard with the settlers of Western Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee, for the irresistible tide had began to flow in spite of the commands of the British Government. Pontiac's war had made the people of the border still more familiar with the inviting features of the agricultural Valley; discontent with the colonial policy of England begot many troubles along the coast, and the rough mountain regions were not attractive after a glimpse of the charming and fruitful territory beyond.

In 1753 an American settlement of eleven families was made on the Youghiogheny, on the Valley side of the watershed of the Alleghanies, while yet the French held possession of the great rivers. After the occupation of Pittsburgh settlement began north and south on the more eastern branches of the Ohio. Pontiac's war mostly extinguished these in blood, but, a general pacification having quelled Indian animosity

for the time, they were re-occupied by the courageous frontiersmen, and the oncoming tide of a most fruitful civilization was announced by the gradual filtering through the mountains, from above Pittsburgh to the upper Tennessee, of some hundreds of families. Among these there could not fail to be some both rash and abandoned characters, whose careless or criminal violence would furnish the spark required to cause the smouldering wrath of the Indian to burst into flame. A misdeed of the Indians below Pittsburgh was retaliated by a party of whites with blind fury, and among the innocent victims was the entire family of Logan, a Mingo chief, friendly to the whites. A violent war broke out at once. An army sent by the Governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, to subdue the Indians fought a battle with them at the mouth of the Great Kenhawa, October 10, 1774. The Indians fought with obstinate resolution, and the battle lasted the whole dayseventy-five whites being killed and one hundred and forty wounded. Logan fully glutted his vengeance for the slaugh ter of his family. The Indians were at length beaten and retreated over the Ohio.

The wise and eloquent Logan sued for peace for his people in a memorable speech, preserved by Jefferson, which gives fine expression to one side of the Indian character. But far more trying than bloody battles to the settlers were the sudden attacks of small bands of enraged Indians on explorers and families, in which women and children were pitilessly slaughtered. Nothing would appear better calculated to intimidate and restrain the wave of settlement, and yet it seemed to arouse hardihood and courage instead of awakening fear. Although a formal peace was made many times, the conflict was really continuous from 1774 to 1795; and yet, during this period, the numbers of the settlers were increased by more than 150,000 in Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and the parts of Pennsylvania and Virginia adjacent. The possibility of having to endure the most dreadful forms of suffering and

THE RESOLUTE COURAGE OF EARLY SETTLERS.

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death seemed to have no power to terrify these courageous men and intrepid women. No signs of quailing or retreating were shown. They floated down the river in flat boats with wives, children and all the property they possessed, liable at every turn to be ambushed and fired on from the shore. Individuals wandered, often alone, through the forests, hunting, exploring, or passing from settlement to settlement. They gathered a few families at most-within a stockade fort liable to be at any moment attacked. More courage and resolution could not well be displayed.

The contest was very obstinate and very bloody during the Revolutionary War. The British, from the posts at Detroit, near Lake Erie and in the "Illinois Country," distributed the "sinews of war" to the tribes. British agents stirred up their animosity, organized, and sometimes led, expeditions against the feeble settlements south of the river; and in the south stimulated the Creeks and Cherokees to slaughter. The Indians were only too ready. In 1776, the settlers of Tennessee fought two desperate but successful battles with the Cherokees which kept them quiet for a time. The Ohio tribes hovered around the settlements in Kentucky until they could safely strike a quick, sure blow, or capture a straggler, then swiftly fled across the river. Sometimes they laid siege to the block-houses and forts; sometimes bloody battles were fought. The Indians found a people "worthy of their steel" and even more resolute, fearless and capable than themselves. But hundreds were cut off, many promising homes were laid waste, the women and children barbarously murdered. The wild hunter fought well for his race and his hunting grounds against the intruding civilization he abhorred

But he did not always find himself safe on the north side of the river though his towns were some days' journey in the interior. Frequent expeditions of the settlers penetrated to them and inflicted severe retaliation. Nor were the posts of the British, though distant hundreds of miles from the

settlements, secure from attack. After considerable persistence, Gen. (then Col.) George Rogers Clarke, a truly representative pioneer of Kentucky, obtained authority from Patrick Henry, Governor of Virginia, to organize an expedition against the British posts in the Illinois." He collected a small troop at Pittsburgh and gathered the rest from the new and constantly threatened settlements in Kentucky. Notwithstanding the serious danger to their homes, they answered the call. Clarke made a forced march through the forests, captured all the posts by surprise or artifice, deprived the British of their prestige and stores for the Indians, and secured the rear of the settlements in that direction. Thus no small share of work was done by these pioneers in aiding to secure American Independence.

But the Ohio and Indiana tribes were determined to hold their lands, and still maintained the contest with great pertinacity. When the war closed, the British still remained many years at Detroit and gave them more or less encouragement. The settlers suffered some bloody defeats, and the more they increased the more determined became the Indian attack. From 1782 to 1789 it was computed that 2,000 horses were stolen by the Indians, 1,500 persons killed or captured and $60,000 worth of property destroyed.

Their attempt to uproot the settlements south of the Ohio had proved vain, but they were the more resolute to hold the country on the north. Until 1788 Ohio was not opened to settlement; and the impossibility of obtaining titles to lands, the hostility of the Indians and the proclamation of the Government forbidding settlers to enter, (which was sternly enforced by the Indians), until treaties and surveys were completed, confined the whites to the regions south of the river. During that year many thousands entered the region which had been so populous during the time of the Mound Builders. But this occupation was based chiefly on the assumption that the treaty of peace

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with England had conveyed a permanent right over the soil to the Government of the United States. The Indians refused to recognize any such right, and demanded that the whole country north of the Ohio should be vacated and left to them. Rights resting on conquest have ever been considered among nations as valid. The Indians had joined England in the war and both had been successfully resisted; therefore their territory was held to belong to the conqueror. To make treaties that should quiet the Indians and maintain this point was the effort of the new Government. This effort failed, although various treaties were made with one or more tribes. They were constantly disregarded, after a little time, and more or less desultory war carried on against the settlements north and south of the river.

Finding that negotiation made no real headway, although a formidable outbreak was delayed by the tribes, General Harmar was sent against the Miamis in 1790. Although he laid waste their fields and burned some of their towns, his battles were not entirely successful and he retired, leaving a sense of victory in the minds of the Indians. In the following year, General St. Clair led an army of 1,400 men against them and met a defeat as decisive as Braddock's, thirty-six years before. More than 800 were slain and the rest fled in

dismay from the field.

Preparations were commenced at once to send an adequate force to retrieve these disasters and protect the settlements, while persevering efforts to effect a treaty with the combined tribes without further bloodshed were undertaken. The Indians would not listen, insisted on the evacuation of their lands, continued to attack outlying and vulnerable points and labored to form a strong confederation like that under Pontiac. General Anthony Wayne occupied the years 1792 and 1793 in organizing and training an army equal to the emergency, and, August 20, 1794, fought a decisive battle with them on the Maumee River. This virtually put an end to the war and