THE INDIAN WARS, 1784-1787 



CHAPTER I 



THE INRUSH OF SETTLERS, 1784-1787 



AT the beginning of 1784 peace was a definite 

 fact, and the United States had become one 

 among the nations of the earth; a nation young 

 and lusty in her youth, but as yet loosely knit, and 

 formidable in promise rather than in actual ca 

 pacity for performance. 



On the Western frontier lay vast and fertile va 

 cant spaces; for the Americans had barely passed 

 the threshold of the continent predestined to be the 

 inheritance of their children and their children's 

 children. For generations the great feature in the 

 nation's history, next only to the preservation of its 

 national life, was to be its westward growth; and 

 its distinguishing work was to be the settlement of 

 the immense wilderness which stretched across to 

 the Pacific. But before the land could be settled 

 it had to be won. 



The valley of the Ohio already belonged to the 

 Americans by right of conquest and of armed pos 

 session; it was held by rifle-bearing backwoods 

 farmers, hard and tenacious men, who never lightly 

 yielded what once they had grasped. North and 



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