Braddock's axmen cut their road from the Potomac toward the forks of the
Ohio they were opening a channel through which the forces of
civilization should flow with ever increasing momentum and "carving a
cross on the wilderness rim" at the spot which is now the center of
industrial power of the American nation.

England trembled on the brink of her great conquest, fearful of the
effect of these far-stretching rivers upon her colonial system, timorous
in the presence of the fierce peoples who held the vast domain beyond
the Alleghanies. It seems clear, however, that the Proclamation of 1763,
forbidding settlement and the patenting of lands beyond the Alleghanies,
was not intended as a permanent creation of an Indian reservation out of
this Valley, but was rather a temporary arrangement in order that
British plans might mature and a system of gradual colonization be
devised. Already our greatest leaders, men like Washington and
Franklin, had been quick to see the importance of this new area for
enlarged activities of the American people. A sudden revelation that it
was the West, rather than the ocean, which was the real theater for the
creative energy of America came with the triumph over France. The Ohio
Company and the Loyal Land Company indicate the interest at the outbreak
of the war, while the Mississippi Company, headed by the Washingtons and
Lees, organized to occupy southern Illinois, Indiana, and western
Kentucky, mark the Virginia interest in the Mississippi Valley, and
Franklin's activity in promoting a colony in the Illinois country
illustrates the interest of the Philadelphians. Indeed, Franklin saw
clearly the possibilities of a settlement there as a means of breaking
up Spanish America. Writing to his son in 1767 he declared that a
"settlement should be made in the Illinois country . . . raising a
strength there which on occasions of a future war might easily be poured
down the Mississippi upon the lower country and into the Bay of Mexico
to be used against Cuba, the French Islands, or Mexico itself."[182:1]

The Mississippi Valley had been the despair of France in the matter of
governmental control. The coureurs de bois escaping from restraints of
law and order took their way through its extensive wilderness, exploring
and trading as they listed. Similarly, when the English colonists
crossed the Alleghanies they escaped from the control of mother colonies
as well as of the mother country. If the Mississip