40 The Winning of the West 



Southerners had won, and they were kept there by 

 the strong arm of the Federal Government ; whereas 

 the Southerners owed most of their victories only 

 to themselves. 



The first-comers around Marietta did, it is true, 

 share to a certain extent in the dangers of the exist- 

 ing Indian wars; but their trials are not to be men- 

 tioned beside those endured by the early settlers 

 of Tennessee and Kentucky, and whereas these lat- 

 ter themselves subdued and drove out their foes, 

 the former took but an insignificant part in the con- 

 test by which the possession of their land was se- 

 cured. Besides, the strongest and most numerous 

 Indian tribes were in the Southwest. 



The Southwest developed its civilization on its 

 own lines, for good and for ill; the Northwest was 

 settled under the national ordinance of 1787, which 

 absolutely determined its destiny, and thereby in 

 the end also determined the destiny of the whole 

 nation. Moreover, the gulf coast, as well as the in- 

 terior, from the Mississippi to the Pacific, was held 

 by foreign powers ; while in the north this was only 

 true of the country between the Ohio and the Great 

 Lakes during the first years of the Revolution, until 

 the Kentucky backwoodsmen conquered it. Our 

 rivals of European race had dwelt for generations 

 along the lower Mississippi and the Rio Grande, in 

 Florida, and in California, when we made them 

 ours. Detroit, Vincennes, St. Louis, and New Or- 

 leans, St. Augustine, San Antonio, Santa Fe, and 

 San Francisco are cities that were built by French- 



