Geography of Ohio 413 



tains. The Atlantic coast was being overpopulated rapidly, and 

 already many of the hardy Anglo-Saxon colonists had scaled the 

 divide and were living in the Mississippi basin. 



Only resolute people were colonists in early times; the sturdy 

 characters of old communities became frontiersmen. Today 

 travel is easy, and the struggle upon arrival is tempered by indus- 

 trial opportunities. But in the early days it did require some 

 courage even for the journey, and much faith for the struggle in 

 the wilderness; usually only the fittest men and women faced these. 

 The most courageous of the sea-board settlers found their way 

 over the Appalachians, and they went for the purpose of making 

 homes, but this movement into the wilderness of the west was 

 obstructed by the French and the Indians. 



The border disturbances were intermittent but chronic. Often 

 the Indians were urged on by the French traders and coureurs 

 des hois. The regular outbreaks between the Frenchmen and 

 the British colonists in America were always side issues of open 

 warfare in Europe. The " French and Indian War," terminated 

 by the treaty at Paris, was the American side of the Seven Years' 

 War. In this struggle France lost her American possessions. 

 King George of England then became the monarch of all North 

 America east of the Mississippi river. Heretofore the section 

 west of the Appalachians had been ''royal domain" under the 

 French king; now by the "King's Proclamation," October 7, 

 1763, this became ''crown" possessions of George III. Where 

 then did the charters of the colonies come in, those generous 

 charters, most of which mentioned lands reaching to the west 

 as far as the ''South Sea?" 



George IIPs "royal domain," and the Quebec Act. King George 

 in this proclamation expressed particular concern for the Indians; 

 he desired to protect them against the encroachments of the 

 whites, who, as we have already seen, were converting their 

 hunting grounds into wheat and corn fields. The King forbade 

 settlements beyond the basins of the Atlantic colony rivers; and 

 he directed, furthermore, that all persons already beyond these 

 limits should remove at once. Complaints arose among King 

 George's subjects on this side of the Atlantic. Many ardent 

 spirits of the older colonies, even before the French and Indian 

 war, had fixed their abodes west of the Appalachians; others 

 continued to do so. As loyal soldiers of their king, thej' had 



