37 The Winning of the West 



task of subduing the formidable forest Indians, with 

 their peculiar and dangerous system of warfare ; and 

 he possessed no capacity for getting on with the 

 frontiersmen, being without sympathy for their vir 

 tues while keenly alive to their very unattractive^ 

 faults. 



In the fall of 1787 another purchase of public 

 lands was negotiated, by the Miami Company. The 

 chief personage in this company was John Cleves 

 Symmes, one of the first judges of the Northwestern 

 Territory. 



Rights were acquired to take up one million 

 acres, and under these rights three small settle 

 ments were made toward the close of the year 1788. 

 One of them was chosen by St. Clair to be the seat 

 of government. This little town had been called 

 Losantiville in its first infancy, but St. Clair re- 

 christened it Cincinnati, in honor of the Society of 

 the officers of the Continental army. 



The men who formed these Miami Company colo 

 nies came largely from the Middle States. Like the 

 New England founders of Marietta, very many of 

 them, if not most, x had served in the Continental 

 army. They were good settlers; they made good 

 material out of which to build up a great state. 

 Their movement was modeled on that of Putnam 

 and his associates. It was a triumph of collectiv 

 ism rather than of individualism. The settlers were 

 marshaled in a company, instead of moving freely 

 by themselves, and they took a territory granted 

 them by Congress, under certain conditions, and de- 



