The War in the Northwest 53 



their foes, at King's Mountain they were no more 

 than equal; yet in the former battle they suffered 

 twice the loss they did in the latter, inflicted much 

 less damage in return, and did not gain nearly so 

 decisive a victory. 



The Indians were urged on by the British, who 

 furnished them with arms, ammunition, and pro 

 visions, and sometimes also with leaders and with 

 bands of auxiliary white troops, French, British, 

 and tories. It was this that gave to the Revolution 

 ary contest its twofold character, making it on the 

 part of the Americans a struggle for independence 

 in the East, and in the West a war of conquest, 

 or rather a war to establish, on behalf of all our 

 people, the right of entry into the fertile and vacant 

 regions beyond the Alleghanies. The grievances 

 of the backwoodsmen were not the same as the 

 grievances of the men of the seacoast. The Ohio 

 Valley and the other western lands of the French 

 had been conquered by the British, not the Ameri 

 cans. Great Britain had succeeded to the policy 

 as well as the possessions of her predecessor, and, 

 strange to say, had become almost equally hostile 

 to the colonists of her own stock. As France had 

 striven for half a century, so England now in her 

 turn strove, to bar out the settlers of English race 

 from the country beyond the Alleghanies. The 

 British Crown, Parliament, and people were a unit 

 in wishing to keep woodland and prairie for the 

 sole use of their own merchants, as regions tenanted 

 only by Indian hunters and French trappers and 



