2 The Winning of the West 



Franklin were carrying on with the Spaniards nego- 

 tiations quite incompatible with the continued sov- 

 ereignty of the United States. Indeed it was some 

 time before the Southwestern people realized that 

 after the Constitution went into effect they had no 

 authority to negotiate commercial treaties on their 

 own account. Andrew Jackson, who had recently 

 taken up his abode in the Cumberland country, was 

 one of the many men who endeavored to convince 

 the Spanish agents that it would be a good thing for 

 both parties if the Cumberland people were allowed 

 to trade with the Spaniards ; in which event the 

 latter would of course put a stop to the Indian hos- 

 tilities. 2 



This dangerous loosening of the Federal tie shows 

 that it would certainly have given way entirely had 

 the population at this time been scattered over a 

 wider territory. The obstinate and bloody warfare 

 waged by the Indians against the frontiersmen was 

 in one way of great service to the nation, for it kept 

 back the frontier and forced the settlements to re- 

 main more or less compact and in touch with the 

 country behind them. If the red men had been as 

 weak as, for instance, the black-fellows of Australia, 

 the settlers would have roamed hither and thither 

 without regard to them, and would have settled, 

 each man wherever he liked, across to the Pacific. 

 Moreover, the Indians formed the bulwarks which 

 defended the British and Spanish possessions from 



9 Tennessee Hist. Soc. MSS. Andrew Jackson to D. Smith, 

 introducing the Spanish agent, Captain Fargo, Feb. 13, 1789. 



