ment could act, every one of them would have been
destroyed. The plan of the Secretary of War was to build a chain of
forts from Cincinnati to Lake Michigan, and late in 1791 St. Clair set
off to begin the work. But the Indians surprised him on a branch of the
Wabash River, and inflicted on him one of the most dreadful defeats in
our history. Public opinion now forced him to resign his command, which
was given to Anthony Wayne, who, after two years of careful
preparation, crushed the Indian power at the falls of the Maumee River
in northwestern Ohio. The next year, 1795, a treaty was made at
Greenville, by which the Indians gave up all claim to the soil south and
east of a boundary line drawn from what is now Cleveland southwest to
the Ohio River.

%277. Kentucky and Vermont become States.%--These Indian wars almost
stopped emigration to the country north of the Ohio, though not into
Kentucky or Tennessee. For several years past the people of the District
of Kentucky had been desirous to come into the Union, but had been
unable to make terms with Virginia, to which Kentucky belonged. At last
consent was obtained and the application made to Congress. But the
Kentuckians were slave owners, were identified with Southern and Western
interests, and cared little for the commercial interests of the East,
and as this influence could be strongly felt in the Senate, where each
state had two votes, it was decided to offset those of Kentucky by
admitting the Eastern state of Vermont.

What is now Vermont was once the property of New Hampshire, was settled
by people from New England under town rights granted by the governor of
New Hampshire, and was called "New Hampshire Grants." In 1764, however,
the governor of New York obtained a royal order giving New York
jurisdiction over the Grants on the ground that in 1664 the possessions
of the Duke of York extended to the Connecticut River. Then began a
controversy which was still raging bitterly when the Revolution opened,
and the Green Mountain Boys asked recognition as a state and admission
into the Congress, a request which the other states were afraid to grant
lest by so doing they should offend New York. Thereupon the people chose
delegates to a convention (in 1777), which issued a declaration of
independence, declared "New Connecticut, alias Vermont," a state, and
made a constitution. In this shape matters stood in 1791, when as an
offset to Kentucky Vermont was admitted into the