Spread of English-Speaking Peoples 109 



Mere outrages could be atoned for or settled ; the 

 question which lay at the root of our difficulties was 

 that of the occupation of the land itself, and to this 

 there could be no solution save war. The Indians 

 had no ownership of the land in the way in which we 

 understand the term. The tribes lived far apart; 

 each had for its hunting-grounds all the territory 

 from which it was not barred by rivals. Each 

 looked with jealousy upon all interlopers, but each 

 was prompt to act as an interloper when occasion 

 offered. Every good hunting-ground was claimed 

 by many nations. It was rare, indeed, that any tribe 

 had an uncontested title to a large tract of land; 

 where such title existed, it rested not on actual oc- 

 cupancy and cultivation, but on the recent butchery 

 of weaker rivals. For instance, there were a dozen 

 tribes, all of whom hunted in Kentucky, and fought 

 each other there, all of whom had equally good titles 

 to the soil, and not one of whom acknowledged the 

 right of any other; as a matter of fact they had 

 therein no right, save the right of the strongest. 

 The land no more belonged to them than it belonged 

 to Boone and the white hunters who first visited it. 



On the borders there are perpetual complaints of 

 the encroachments of whites upon Indian lands ; and 

 naturally the central government at Washington, 

 and before it was at Washington, has usually been 

 inclined to sympathize with the feeling that con- 

 siders the whites the aggressors, for the government 

 does not wish a war, does not itself feel any land 

 hunger, hears of not a tenth of the Indian outrages, 



