By Frederic Austin Ogg A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond Volume 19 of the Chronicles of America Series ∴ Allen Johnson, Editor Assistant Editors Gerhard R. Lomer Charles W. Jefferys Abraham Lincoln Edition New Haven: Yale University Press Toronto: Glasgow, Brook & Co. London: Humphrey Milford Oxford University Press 1919 Copyright, 1919 by Yale University Press THE OLD NORTHWEST ∴...

Pontiac's Conspiracy The fall of Montreal, on September 8, 1760, while the plains about the city were still dotted with the white tents of the victorious English and colonial troops, was indeed an event of the deepest consequence to America and to the world. By the articles of capitulation which were signed by the Marquis de Vaudreuil, Governor of New France, Canada and all its dependencies westward to the Mississippi passed to the British Crown. Virtually ended was the long struggle for the dom

Benjamin Franklin , who was in London in 1760 as agent of the Pennsylvania Assembly, gave the British ministers some wholesome advice on the terms of the peace that should be made with France. The St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes regions, he said, must be retained by England at all costs. Moreover, the Mississippi Valley must be taken, in order to provide for the growing populations of the seaboard colonies suitable lands in the interior, and so keep them engaged in agriculture. Otherwise these

One of the grievances given prominence in the Declaration of Independence was that the English Crown had "abolished the free system of English laws in a neighbouring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same arbitrary rule into these colonies." The measure which was in the minds of the signers was the Quebec Act of 1774; and the feature to which they especially objected wa

Lieutenant-Governor Hamilton had many faults, but sloth was not one of them; and when he heard what had happened he promptly decided to regain the posts and take the upstart Kentucky conqueror captive. Emissaries were sent to the Wabash country to stir up the Indians, and for weeks the Detroit settlement resounded with preparations for the expedition. Boats were built or repaired, guns were cleaned, ammunition was collected in boxes, provisions were put up in kegs or bags, baubles for the Indian

" This federal republic," wrote the Spanish Count d'Aranda to his royal master in 1782, "is born a pigmy. A day will come when it will be a giant, even a colossus. Liberty of conscience, the facility for establishing a new population on immense lands, as well as the advantages of the new government, will draw thither farmers and artisans from all the nations." Aranda correctly weighed the value of the country's vast stretches of free and fertile land. The history of the United States has been la

While the fate of the Northwest still hung in the balance, emigration from the eastern States became the rage. "Every small farmer whose barren acres were covered with mortgages, whose debts pressed heavily upon him, or whose roving spirit gave him no peace, was eager to sell his homestead for what it would bring and begin life anew on the banks of the Muskingum or the Ohio." ¹ Land companies were then just as optimistic and persuasive as they are today, and the attractions of the western countr

Arrived on the lower Ohio, or one of its tributaries, the pioneer looked out upon a land of remarkable riches. It was not a Mexico or a Peru, with emblazoned palaces and glittering temples, nor yet a California, with gold-flecked sands. It was merely an unending stretch of wooded hills and grassy plains, bedecked with majestic forests and fructifying rivers and lakes. It had no treasures save for the man of courage, industry, and patience; but for such it held home, broad acres, liberty, and the

Wayne's victory in 1795, followed by the Treaty of Fort Greenville, gave the Northwest welcome relief from Indian warfare, and within four years the Territory was ready to be advanced to the second of the three grades of government provided for it in the Ordinance of 1787. A Legislature was set up at Cincinnati, and in due time it proceeded to the election of a delegate to Congress. Choice fell on a young man whose name was destined to a permanent place in the country's history. William Henry Ha

The spring of 1812 thus found the back country in a turmoil, and it was with a real sense of relief that the settlers became aware of the American declaration of war against Great Britain on the 18th of June. More than once Governor Harrison had asked for authority to raise an army with which to "scour" the Wabash territory. In the fear that such a step would drive the redskins into the arms of the British, the War Department had withheld its consent. Now that the ban was lifted, the people coul

The War of 1812 did much in America to stimulate national pride and to foster a sense of unity. None the less, the decade following the Peace of Ghent proved the beginning of a long era in which the point of view in politics, business, and social life was distinctly sectional. New England, the Middle States, the South, the West—all were bent upon getting the utmost advantages from their resources; all were viewing public questions in the light of their peculiar interests. In the days of Clay and

While the Ohio country—the lower half of the States of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois—was throwing off its frontier character, the remoter Northwest was still a wilderness frequented only by fur-traders and daring explorers. And that far Northwest by the sources of the Mississippi had been penetrated by few white men since the seventeenth century. The earliest white visitors to the upper Mississippi are not clearly known. They may have been Pierre Radisson and his brother-in-law, Ménard des Grossei

There is no general history of the Northwest covering the whole of the period dealt with in this book except Burke A. Hinsdale, The Old Northwest (1888). This is a volume of substantial scholarship, though it reflects but faintly the life and spirit of the people. The nearest approach to a moving narrative is James K. Hosmer, Short History of the Mississippi Valley (1901), which tells the story of the Middle West from the earliest explorations to the close of the nineteenth century, within a bri

On Page 21 , add period after possession in the sentence: The English people had, however, only the vaguest notion of the extent, appearance, and resources of their new possession . On Page 53 , and also Page 205 , war-whoop was hyphenated between two lines for spacing. The word was not used elsewhere in this book, but in other chronicles it is spelled with a hyphen. We retained the hyphen. On Page 101 , easy-going was hyphenated between two lines for spacing. On Page 30, easy-going occurred in