The Winning of the West, Volume Three

䝂The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Winning of the West, Volume Three
by Theodore Roosevelt This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: The Winning of the West, Volume Three The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790
Author: Theodore Roosevelt
Release Date: April 7, 2004 [EBook #11943]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WINNING OF THE WEST, V3 ***

Produced by Mark Hamann, Terry Gilliland and PG Distributed Proofreaders

PRESIDENTIAL EDITION
THE WINNING OF THE WEST
BY
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
VOLUME THREE
THE FOUNDING OF THE TRANS-ALLEGHANY COMMONWEALTHS
1784-1790
WITH MAP

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED, WITH HIS PERMISSION
TO
FRANCIS PARKMAN
TO WHOM AMERICANS WHO FEEL A PRIDE IN THE PIONEER HISTORY OF THEIR COUNTRY ARE SO GREATLY INDEBTED
PREFACE TO THIRD VOLUME.
The material used herein is that mentioned in the preface to the first volume, save that I have also drawn freely on the Draper Manuscripts, in the Library of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, at Madison. For the privilege of examining these valuable manuscripts I am indebted to the generous courtesy of the State Librarian, Mr. Reuben Gold Thwaites; I take this opportunity of extending to him my hearty thanks.
The period covered in this volume includes the seven years immediately succeeding the close of the Revolutionary War. It was during these seven years that the Constitution was adopted, and actually went into effect; an event if possible even more momentous for the West than the East. The time was one of vital importance to the whole nation; alike to the people of the inland frontier and to those of the seaboard. The course of events during these years determined whether we should become a mighty nation, or a mere snarl of weak and quarrelsome little commonwealths, with a history as bloody and meaningless as that of the Spanish-American states.
At the close of the Revolution the West was peopled by a few thousand settlers, knit by but the slenderest ties to the Federal Government. A remarkable inflow of population followed. The warfare with the Indians, and the quarrels with the British and Spaniards over boundary questions, reached no decided issue. But the rifle-bearing freemen who founded their little republics on the western waters gradually solved the question of combining personal liberty with national union. For years there was much wavering. There were violent separatist movements, and attempts to establish complete independence of the eastern States. There were corrupt conspiracies between some of the western leaders and various high Spanish officials, to bring about a disruption of the Confederation. The extraordinary little backwoods state of Franklin began and ended a career unique in our annals. But the current, though eddying and sluggish, set towards Union. By 1790 a firm government had been established west of the mountains, and the trans-Alleghany commonwealths had become parts of the Federal Union.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
SAGAMORE HILL, LONG ISLAND, _October_, 1894.
CONTENTS

CHAPTER
I. THE INRUSH OF SETTLERS, 1784-1787
II. THE INDIAN WARS, 1784-1787
III. THE NAVIGATION OF THE MISSISSIPPI; SEPARATIST MOVEMENTS AND SPANISH INTRIGUES, 1784-1788
IV. THE STATE OF FRANKLIN, 1784-1788
V. KENTUCKY'S STRUGGLE FOR STATEHOOD, 1784-1790
VI. THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY; OHIO, 1787-1790
VII. THE WAR IN THE NORTHWEST, 1787-1790
VIII. THE SOUTHWEST TERRITORY; TENNESSEE, 1788-1890
[Illustration: The Western Land Claims at the Close of the Revolution. Showing also the state of Franklin, Kentucky, and the Cumberland Settlements, or Miro District. _Source:_ Based on a map by G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London.]
THE WINNING OF THE WEST.

CHAPTER I
.
THE INRUSH OF SETTLERS, 1784-1787.
At the beginning of 1784 peace was a definite fact, and the United States had become one among the nations of the earth; a nation young and lusty in her youth, but as yet loosely knit, and formidable in promise rather than in actual capacity for performance.
The Western Frontier.
On the western frontier lay vast and fertile vacant spaces; for the Americans had barely passed the threshold of the continent predestined to be the inheritance of their children and children's children. For generations the great feature in the nation's history, next only to the preservation of its national life, was to be its westward growth; and its distinguishing work was to be the settlement of the immense wilderness which stretched across to the Pacific. But before the land could be settled it had to be won.
The valley of the Ohio already belonged to the Americans by right of conquest and of armed possession; it was held by rifle-bearing backwoods farmers, hard and tenacious men, who never lightly yielded what once they had grasped. North and south of the valley lay warlike and powerful Indian confederacies, now at last thoroughly alarmed and angered by the white advance; while behind