fixed in the
treaty of Fort McIntosh, and the Six Nations ceded to the government all
lands west of the Pennsylvania line, but this time a valuable
consideration was given for the land, and the United States
"relinquished and quit claimed" to the tribes all claims to the
territory embraced within the Indian boundaries "to live and hunt upon,
and otherwise to occupy as they shall see fit." In other words, and as
Secretary of War Knox says, congress had appropriated a sum of money
solely for the purpose of extinguishing the Indian title, and for
obtaining regular conveyances from the Indians, and this was accordingly
accomplished. One who reads of this great triumph of right and justice,
and this humane and merciful treatment of a race of savages, is
certainly justified in feeling a profound respect and admiration for the
fathers of the republic.

CHAPTER IX

THE KENTUCKIANS

--_The first men to break through the mountain barriers to face the
British and the Indians._

While the government of the United States was thus shaping its policy
toward the Indian tribes, a new empire was building on the western
waters, that was to wield a more powerful influence in the development
of the western country, than all other forces combined. That empire was
Kentucky.

The waters of the Ohio "moving majestically along, noiseless as the foot
of time, and as resistless," sweep from the junction of the Monongahela
and Allegheny to the waters of the Mississippi, a distance of nine
hundred miles, enclosing in their upper courses the island of
Blannerhassett, below the mouth of the Little Kanawha, the island of
Zane, near Wheeling, and leaping in a descent of twenty-two feet in a
distance of two miles the Falls opposite the present city of Louisville.
The lofty eminences which crowned its banks, the giant forests of oak
and maple which everywhere approached its waters, the vines of the
frost-grape that wound their sinuous arms around the topmost branches of
its tallest trees, presented a spectacle that filled the soul of the
traveler with awe and wonder at every graceful turn of the river. In the
spring a wonderful transformation took place in the brown woods. There
suddenly appeared on every hand the opening flowers of the red-bud,
whose whole top appeared as one mass of red blossoms, interspersed with
the white and pale-yellow blossoms of the dog-wood, or cornus florida.
Thus there extended "in every direction, at the same t