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Che George Rogers Clark 6xpedittoti

By OlaUace McCamant

/^^WHERE are few historical stud m ies so interesting^ as that of

^^ ^ the westward expansion of the ^^^ American Republic. When the Declaration of Independ- ence was proclaimed, the Allegheny Mountains were for practical purposes our western boundary. Western Penn- sylvania was the only region which contained any considerable population of Americans west of the Alleghenies. There were scattering settlements in the valley of the Holston, in what is now Southwestern Virginia, and in the valley of the Watauga, in what is now Northeastern Tennessee, and in 1775 Daniel Boone had led a small body of colonists into what is now the State of Kentucky. But the permanence of the Kentucky settlements was by no means assured on the fourth of July, 1776. The settlers were few in num- ber and they had settled on the ancient hunting grounds of hostile tribes of Indians, who from the beginning dis- puted their right to occupy the soil. It IS the object of this paper to study the means by which the permanence of these feeble settlements was assured and by which the great Northwest was won for that tide of American immigration which was to spread steadily westward until, with the occu- pation of Oregon, the domain of the republic had attained continental pro- portions.

On the outbreak of the Revcrfution- ary War, it became the policy of the British ministry to foment hostility to the Americans from the Indian tribes dwelling on the western fron- tiers of the colonies. The efforts of the British ministry in this regard were well known to the colonists when the Declaration of Independence was pro-

claimed. One of the counts of the indictment against George III in that instrument is as follows: **He has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions." In one of the supply bills offered in Parliament there appeared an item for the pur- chase of scalp knives — an item which laid the British ministry under severe strictures at the hands of the Whig de- baters.

It was not, however, until 1777 that the British policy in this regard bore its full fruition. At that time Colonel Henry Hamilton was British Lieuten- ant-Governor of the northwestern re- gion, with headquarters at Detroit. President Roosevelt describes Hamil- ton as "an ambitious, energetic, unscru- pulous man of bold character, who wielded great influence over the In- dians." It was alleged by the frontiers- men of that day that Hamilton paid the Indians a stated price for every Amer- ican scalp which they brought in to Detroit, and Senator Lodge accepts the statement of the frontiersmen as a historical fact. The frontiersmen call- ed him "Hair-buyer Hamilton." It is certain that Hamilton plied the In- dians with firewater and presents and used all the means in his power to let loose these merciless warriors on the scattered cabins of the frontiersmen all the way from Lake Erie southward.

In 1777, Hamilton had succeeded in uniting substantially all of the north- western tribes in alliance for the ex- termination of the pioneers, and the frontiers were harried with merciless severitv. The isolated cabins were at- tacked and destroyed, the inhabitants