34 The Winning of the West 



to live on it. The few white inhabitants were sub 

 jects of the King of Spain, and lived under Spanish 

 law; the Creeks and Choctaws were his subsidized 

 allies ; and he held the country by right of conquest. 

 Georgia, a weak and turbulent, through a growing, 

 State, was powerless to enforce her claims. Most 

 of the territory to which she asserted title did not 

 in truth become part of the United States until 

 Pinckney's treaty went into effect. It was the 

 United States and not Georgia that actually won 

 and held the land in dispute; and it was a discredit 

 to Georgia's patriotism that she so long wrangled 

 about it, and ultimately drove so hard a bargain con 

 cerning it with the National Government. 



There was a similar state of affairs in the far 

 Northwest. No New Yorkers lived in the region 

 bounded by the shadowy and wavering lines of the 

 Iroquois conquests. The lands claimed under an 

 cient charters by Massachusetts and Connecticut 

 were occupied by the British and their Indian allies, 

 who held adverse possession. Not a single New 

 England settler lived in them; no New England 

 law had any force in them; no New England sol 

 dier had gone or could go thither. They were won 

 by the victory of Wayne and the treaty of Jay. If 

 Massachusetts and Connecticut had stood alone, the 

 lands would never have been yielded to them at all ; 

 they could not have enforced their claim, and it 

 would have been scornfully disregarded. The re 

 gion was won for the United States by the arms and 

 diplomacy of the United States. Whatever of real- 



