Spread of English-Speaking Peoples 67 



porters ; and instead of their fate being settled by the 

 treaty of peace with Britain, they continued an ac- 

 tive warfare for twelve years after it had been 

 signed. Had they defeated us in the early years 

 of the contest, it is more than probable that the 

 Alleghanies would have been made our western 

 boundary at the peace. We won from them vast 

 stretches of territory because we had beaten their 

 warriors, and we could not have won it otherwise; 

 whereas the territory of the Iroquois was lost, not 

 because of their defeat, but because of the defeat of 

 the British. 



There were two great groups of these Indians, 

 the ethnic corresponding roughly with the geo- 

 graphic division. In the northwest, between the 

 Ohio and the Lakes, were the Algonquin tribes, 

 generally banded loosely together; in the southwest, 

 between the Tennessee then called the Cherokee 

 and the Gulf, the so-called Appalachians lived. Be- 

 tween them lay a vast and beautiful region where 

 no tribe dared dwell, but into which all ventured 

 now and then for war and hunting. 



The southwestern Indians were called Appala- 

 chians by the olden writers, because this was the 

 name then given to the southern Alleghanies. It 

 is doubtful if the term has any exact racial signifi- 

 cance; but it serves very well to indicate a number 

 of Indian nations whose system of government, 

 ways of life, customs, and general culture were 

 much alike, and whose civilization was much higher 

 than was that of most other American tribes. 



