154 The Winning of the West 



It illustrates forcibly the fact that under the actual 

 conditions of settlement wars were inevitable; for 

 if it is admitted that the land of the Indians had 

 to be taken and that the continent had to be settled 

 by white men, it must be further admitted that the 

 settlement could not have taken place save after 

 war. The whites might be to blame in some cases, 

 and the Indians in others; but under no combina- 

 tion of circumstances was it possible to obtain pos- 

 session of the country save as the result of war, 

 or of a peace obtained by the fear of war. Any 

 peace which did not surrender the land was 

 sure in the end to be broken by the whites; and 

 a peace which did surrender the land would be 

 broken by the Indians. The history of Tennessee 

 during the dozen years from 1785 to 1796 offers 

 an admirable case in point. In 1785 the United 

 States Commissioners concluded the treaty of Hope- 

 well with the Indians, and solemnly guaranteed 

 them certain lands. The whites contemptuously 

 disregarded this treaty and seized the lands which 

 it guaranteed to the Indians, being themselves the 

 aggressors, and paying no heed to the plighted word 

 of the Government, while the Government itself 

 was too weak to make the frontiersmen keep faith. 

 The treaties of New York and of Holston with the 

 Creeks and Cherokees in 1790 and 1791 were fairly 

 entered into by fully authorized representatives of 

 the tribes. Under them, for a valuable considera- 

 tion, and of their own motion, the Creeks and 

 Cherokees solemnly surrendered all title to what 



