miles east by north of Cincinnati; in 1880, eight
miles west by south of that city; in 1890, twenty miles east of
Columbus, Ind., west by south of Greensburg. It has never since been so
far north as in 1790, and it has described a total westward movement of
four hundred and fifty-seven miles.

The land system of the United States was at first a bad one, in tended
to secure immediate revenue from the sale of immense pieces at auction,
on long credit, at very few points, the land to find its way into the
hands of actual settlers only through mercenary speculators. The honest
pioneer was therefore at the mercy of these land-sharks, greedy and
unpatriotic in the extreme.

The western movement aroused the Indians, of whom there were, in 1790,
from 20,000 to 40,000 north of the Ohio. The idea of amalgamating or
even civilizing these people had long been practically given up.
Settlers agreed in denouncing them as treacherous, intractable,
bloodthirsty, and faithless. So incessant and terrific were their
onslaughts, the Ohio Valley had come to be known as "the dark and bloody
ground." The British, still occupying the western posts, used their
influence to keep up and intensify Indian hostility to the United States
settlers and Government.

In September, 1790, Governor St. Clair sent Harmar against the Indians
on the Miami and Maumee. He had about fifteen hundred men, two-thirds of
them militia. The expedition was ill-managed from the first, and, after
advancing as far as the present Fort Wayne, came back with great loss to
itself, having exasperated rather than injured the red men. Harmar,
chagrined, soon resigned.

The Indians south of the Ohio were perhaps twice as numerous as those
north, and partly civilized. The Chickasaws and Choctaws, nearest the
Mississippi, gave little trouble. Not so the Cherokees and Creeks, whose
seats were nearer the whites. The Creeks claimed parts of Tennessee,
Georgia, and the Carolinas, justified herein by acts of the Continental
Congress. However, the whites invaded this territory, provoking a fierce
war, wherein the Cherokees allied themselves with the Creeks of Alabama
and Georgia. This brave tribe had border troubles of its own with
Georgia. These various hordes of savages, having the Florida Spaniards
to back them with counsel, arms, and ammunition, were a formidable foe,
which might have annihilated Georgia but for aid from the general
Government. McGillivray, the half-breed chief of