r historians.--R. G. T.

[270] CHAPTER XVI.

The treaty of peace between the United States and Great Britain, which
terminated so gloriously the war of the revolution, did not put a
period to Indian hostilities.[1] The aid which had been extended to
the savages, and which enabled them so successfully to gratify their
implacable resentment against the border country, being withdrawn,
they were less able to cope with the whites than they had been, and
were less a hindrance to the population and improvement of those
sections of country which had been the theatre of their many outrages.
In North Western Virginia, indeed, although the war continued to be
waged against its inhabitants, yet it assumed a different aspect. It
became a war rather of plunder, than of blood; and although in the
predatory incursions of the Indians, individuals some times fell a
sacrifice to savage passion; yet this was of such rare occurrence,
that the chronicles of those days are divested of much of the
interest, which attaches to a detail of Indian hostilities. For
several years, scarce an incident occurred worthy of being rescued
from oblivion.

In Kentucky it was far otherwise. The war continued to be prosecuted
there, with the wonted vigor of the savages.--The General Assembly
of Virginia having, at the close of the revolution, passed an act
for surveying the land set apart for her officers and soldiers, south
of Green river, the surveyors descended to the Ohio, to explore the
country and perform the duties assigned them. On their arrival they
found it occupied by the savages, and acts of hostilities immediately
[271] ensued. In December, 1783, the Legislature likewise passed an
act, appropriating the country between the Scioto and Miami rivers,
for the purpose of satisfying the claims of the officers and
soldiers, if the land previously allotted, in Kentucky, should prove
insufficient for that object. This led to a confederacy of the many
tribes of Indians, interested in those sections of country, and
produced such feelings and gave rise to such acts of hostility on
their part, as induced Benjamin Harrison the Governor of Virginia, in
November, 1784, to recommend the postponement of the surveys; and
in January, 1785, a proclamation was issued, by Patrick Henry,
(successor of Gov. Harrison) commanding the surveyors to desist and
leave the country. A treaty was soon after concluded, by which the
country on the Scioto, Miami, and Musk