give
the Indians, as by attracting to themselves the French of our colony
who are in the habit of resorting to the woods."

Herein lay the gist of the whole matter: The legalized monopoly
granted to the great fur-trade companies of New France, with the
official corruption necessary to create and perpetuate that monopoly,
made the French trade an expensive business, consequently goods were
dear. On the other hand, the trade of the English was untrammeled, and
a lively competition lowered prices. The French cajoled the Indians,
and fraternized with them in their camps; whereas, the English
despised the savages, and made little attempt to disguise their
sentiments. The French, while claiming all the country west of the
Alleghanies, cared little for agricultural colonization; they would
keep the wilderness intact, for the fostering of wild animals, upon
the trade in whose furs depended the welfare of New France--and this,
too, was the policy of the savage. By English statesmen at home, our
continental interior was also chiefly prized for its forest trade,
which yielded rich returns for the merchant adventurers of London. The
policies of the English colonists and of their general government were
ever clashing. The latter looked upon the Indian trade as an entering
wedge; they thought of the West as a place for growth. Close upon
the heels of the path-breaking trader, went the cattle-raiser, and,
following him, the agricultural settler looking for cheap, fresh, and
broader lands. No edicts of the Board of Trade could repress these
backwoodsmen; savages could and did beat them back for a time, but
the annals of the border are lurid with the bloody struggle of the
borderers for a clearing in the Western forest. The greater part of
them were Scotch-Irish from Pennsylvania, Virginia, the Carolinas--a
hardy race, who knew not defeat. Steadily they pushed back the rampart
of savagery, and won the Ohio valley for civilization.

The Indian early recognized the land-grabbing temper of the English,
and felt that a struggle to the death was impending. The French
browbeat their savage allies, and, easily inflaming their passions,
kept the body of them almost continually at war with the English--the
Iroquois excepted, not because the latter were English-lovers, or
did not understand the aim of English colonization, but because the
earliest French had won their undying enmity. Amidst all this weary
strife, the Indian, a born trader who d