The citizen. (Frederick City, Md.) 1895-1923, 1908-11-20

break the French power in America
for all time and to make English ter
rltory OF the region between the Allie
ghanies and the Mississippi
AT that time the war between the
Colonies and the British Government
was still dozen years in the future.
The enthusiastically the Virgin
ians-at once planned to settle and
occupy the conquered region, which
was then known as the Ohio country.
companies were organized to go into
the new region and occupy it, settling
there with their families, clearing
away the forests, opening farms and
making homes for themselves in the
wilderness.
But these pioneers were COMPARE
lively few, and the difficulties they
encountered were very great. There
were no roads anywhere, no bridges
across creeks and no secure means of
communication except by way of the
rivers. In the main, therefore, they
settled upon the river banks, leaving
patton of the powerful Indian tribes,
who viewed all white settlement with
Jealousy and hatred.
Meanwhile south of the Ohio a con-
siderable number of adventurous Vir-
ginians and Carolinians had crossed
the mountains and made little settle
ments in what we now call Kentucky
and Tennessee. These included num-
Der of wandering hunters, like Daniel
Boone, Simon Kenton and George
Rogers Clark, whom the Indians
called the Long Knives" because
they always carried their hunting
knives in their belts.
Sometimes two or three families
settled near each other; sometimes
each family was far removed from
each other, and depended solely upon
its own members for the means of
subsistence and for defense against
the Indian foe.
This sparsely settled Kentucky
country constituted a county of Vir-
Ginia.
When the Revolutionary Wardrobe
out the thirteen colonies lay east of
the Alleghanies. They had no secure
hold upon the great rich region west
of the mountains and north of the
Ohio River. That was held by the
British, with headquarters at Detroit,
to which place a capable but very
nrilo1 apd upcorup,,1o,. 49,, Il
Hamilton was sent as British COM
mander of all that region, to hold it
securely.
There were number of French
towns and settlements in the region
north of the Ohio, and their inhabit-
ants had submitted themselves to the
British power in America. The
French settlers in this country were
always loyal to the dominant power,
whatever it might happen to be, their
sole concern being to preserve and
profit by their trade with the Indians.
For the rest, the region was occupied
by fierce tribes and confederacies of
Indians, who looked with jealous fear
upon the American advance across
the mountains.
During the revolutionary War
Hamilton availed himself of this In
dian jealousy and hatred as a means
of striking the Americans in the rear.
Disregarding all considerations of
civilization and humanity, he set his
agents to stir the Indians up to a saw
age warfare that should drive back
the settlements over the mountains. :"
Under inspiration of these agents,
who actually paid bounties to the In
dians for such American scalps as
they should bring in to the British
posts, the savages made war alike
upon men, women and children.
1t was then that George Rogers
Clark saw clearly what nobody else
had seen at all.
He saw that although the coionists
might hold their own against Indian
attacks during the war, and might
ultimately win in their struggle for
Independence, the possession of all
that northwestern country by the
British, who already held Canada on
the north, would shut the young re-
public in and forever forbid the pos
sibility Of it's natural expansion west
ward.
thought of imperial proportions
was born in the mind of George Rog-
ers Clark, the backwoodsman, who
was only twenty-five years old, and
who had lived from boyhood in the
wilderness. His thought was this:
why not conquer all that region
now, while its conquest is possible ?
Why not make it now and forever a
possession of the young republic to
which of right it ought to belong?"
Full of this idea Clark set out to
travel on foot from Kentucky to Vir-
ginia, in order to secure the men and
the means with which to accomplish
his great purpose. This journey was
made in the autumn of 1777.
But although George Rogers Clark
was always reckless of danger on his
own account, he was never reckless
of the results of his undertakings.
de understood fully that an enter
prise ending in failure was immeas-
urably worse than no enterprise at
all. He undertook nothing until he
had carefully studied the conditions
OF the problem and satisfied himself
of his ability to solve it,
Accordingly before setting out for
Virginia Clark sent two or three of
his friends among the young men of
Kentucky to find out and report to