The Winning of the West, Volume Three

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

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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
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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