midst of a great forest
dotted with terraces, cones, and other fantastic memorials of the
mound-builders, they erected a blockhouse and surrounded it with cabins.
For a touch of the classical, they called the fortification the Campus
Martius; to be strictly up to date, they named the town Marietta, after
Marie Antoinette, Queen of France. In July the little settlement was
honored by being made the residence of the newly arrived Governor of
the Territory, General Arthur St. Clair. Before the close of the year
Congress sold one million acres between the two Miamis to Judge Symmes
of New Jersey; and three little towns were at once laid out. To one of
them a pedantic schoolmaster gave the name L-os-anti-ville, "the town
opposite the mouth of the Licking." The name may have required too much
explanation; at all events, when, in 1790, the Governor transferred the
capital thither from Marietta, he rechristened the place Cincinnati, in
honor of the famous Revolutionary society to which he belonged.

Land speculators are confirmed optimists. But Putnam, Cutler, Symmes,
and their associates were correct in believing that the Ohio country was
at the threshold of a period of remarkable development. There was one
serious obstacle--the Indians. Repeated expeditions from Kentucky had
pushed most of the tribes northward to the headwaters of the Miami,
Scioto, and Wabash; and the Treaty of 1785 was supposed to keep them
there. But it was futile to expect such an arrangement to prove lasting
unless steadily backed up with force. In their squalid villages in the
swampy forests of northern Ohio and Indiana the redskins grew sullen
and vindictive. As they saw their favorite hunting-grounds slipping
from their grasp, those who had taken part in the cession repented their
generosity, while those who had no part in it pronounced it fraudulent
and refused to consider themselves bound by it. Swiftly the idea took
hold that the oncoming wave must be rolled back before it was too late.
"White man shall not plant corn north of the Ohio" became the rallying
cry.

Back of this rebelliousness lay a certain amount of British influence.
The Treaty of 1783 was signed in as kindly spirit as the circumstances
would permit, but its provisions were not carried out in a charitable
manner. On account of alleged shortcomings of the United States, the
British Government long refused to give up possession of eight or ten
fortified posts in the north and west. On