Spread of English-Speaking Peoples 147 



could have done little. For one square mile the reg- 

 ular armies added to our domain the settlers added 

 ten, a hundred would probably be nearer the truth. 

 A race of peaceful, unwarlike farmers would have 

 been helpless before such foes as the red Indians, and 

 no auxiliary military force would have protected 

 them or enabled them to move westward. Colonists 

 fresh from the Old World, no matter how thrifty, 

 steady-going, and industrious, could not hold their 

 own on the frontier; they had to settle where they 

 were protected from the Indians by a living barrier 

 of bold and self-reliant American borderers. 45 The 

 West would never have been settled save for the 

 fierce courage and the eager desire to brave danger 

 so characteristic of the stalwart backwoodsmen. 



These armed hunters, woodchoppers, and farmers 

 were their own soldiers. They built and manned 

 their own forts; they did their own fighting under 

 their own commanders. There were no regiments 

 of regular troops along the frontier. 46 In the event 

 of an Indian inroad each borderer had to defend 

 himself until there was time for them all to gather 

 together to repel or avenge it. Every man was ac- 

 customed to the use of arms from his childhood; 

 when a boy was twelve years old he was given a 

 rifle and made a fort-soldier, with a loophole where 

 he was to stand if the station was attacked. The 

 war was never-ending, for even the times of so- 



45 Schopf, I., 404. 



46 The insignificant garrisons at one or two places need not 

 be taken into account, as they were of absolutely no effect. 



