CHAPTER III 



THE NAVIGATION OF THE MISSISSIPPI; SEPARATIST 



MOVEMENTS AND SPANISH INTRIGUES, 



1784-1788 



IT was important for the frontiersmen to take 

 the Lake Posts from the British ; but it was even 

 more important to wrest from the Spaniards the 

 free navigation of the Mississippi. While the Lake 

 Posts were held by the garrisons of a foreign power, 

 the work of settling the Northwestern territory was 

 bound to go forward slowly and painfully; but 

 while the navigation of the Mississippi was barred, 

 even the settlements already founded could not at 

 tain to their proper prosperity and importance. 



The lusty young commonwealths which were 

 springing into life on the Ohio and its tributaries 

 knew that commerce with the outside world was es 

 sential to their full and proper growth. The high, 

 forest-clad ranges of the Appalachians restricted 

 and hampered their mercantile relations with the 

 older States, and therefore with the Europe which 

 lay beyond; while the giant river offered itself as a 

 huge trade artery to bring them close to all the outer 

 world, if only they were allowed its free use. 



Navigable rivers are of great importance to a 

 country's trade now ; but a hundred years ago their 

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