trict," and Captain John Stuart for the "Southern." The districts were subdivided, with subordinate officials in each

DISPOSITION MADE OF CONQUESTS IN FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. (Northern boundary of West Florida was fixed in 1767.)

division to enforce a uniform code for the protection of the Indians against traders and speculators. Purchases of lands were to be made only by the superintendents.

Within a few years most features of this plan were abandoned because of the cost, but the rule of land purchases by the superintendents was retained. Two great tracts were acquired in 1768 and 1770. The first, bought from the Six Nations by Johnson in the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, extinguished their claim to all lands east and south of a line running irregularly from the upper Mohawk to the Allegheny River and thence down the Ohio to the mouth of the Tennessee. The second purchase, by Stuart from the southern tribes, secured the lands east of a line drawn from the upper Tennessee River to the mouth of the Great Kanawha. These two treaties opened central and southwestern Pennsylvania and the West Virginia area.

The

By the time the French and Indian War ended many plans for new settlements were under discussion. The entire coast was parceled out in provinces, and if there were to be any new colonies, they would of necessity lie in the interior. A favorite project was to erect a new province between the Mississippi and the Wabash. That triangle of territory contained the old French settlements, which would be seed-plots for future growth. scheme was favored by some of the army officers, who were concerned over the expense of transporting supplies from the coast for the garrisons which might be stationed in the old French posts, and thought that a portion of them might be raised by settlers. Others thought that interior colonies would yield new kinds of products which would make valuable additions to English commerce. Land speculators were more interested than any other class in the various schemes, but the distant Illinois country interested them less than the region just beyond the old settlements, which was more likely to be occupied promptly.

Out of the many plans which were discussed during the sixties one took very definite form, under the name of Vandalia. The promoters sought a grant from the Crown for a tract which coincided roughly with the cession obtained by Stuart, that is, West Virginia and eastern Kentucky. Franklin, in England, labored to secure favorable action, and Samuel Wharton, a Philadelphia Quaker, crossed the ocean for the purpose of lobbying with members of Parliament.

The question of new settlements brings out very well the

weakness of the ministries of that period as formers of policies. Frequent shifting of the political kaleidoscope made for vacillation and indecision, and prevented the pursuit of a consistent program. There were differences of opinion concerning the desirability of new colonies. While some of the ministers were favorably disposed, others believed that remote settlements would be of little value and hard to control. Lord Hillsborough, president of the Board of Trade, took this view, and held that the Proclamation of 1763 was intended to bar the whites from the transallegheny lands permanently. Lord Shelburne best represents the other position. He was a friend of Franklin, and of America, and decidedly liberal in his views.

Notwithstanding the fact, as Hillsborough urged, that the tract desired by the Vandalia Company lay within the charter bounds of Virginia, the ministry decided to make the grant, thus apparently setting Virginia's claim at nought, much as Charles I had done when he carved Maryland out of her unsettled domain and gave it to Lord Baltimore. The papers for the Colony of Vandalia were made out and were ready for delivery when the outbreak of the Revolution prevented.

While speculators were proposing and ministers debating schemes of settlement, the frontiersmen were paying scant heed to government plans or proclamations. In 1763 no settlements had yet been made west of the mountains, although some had reached westward-flowing waters in Virginia. The breaking down of the French barrier was the signal for overleaping the one interposed by nature. The densely wooded ridges of the Alleghanies lying in the path of the pioneers had hitherto diverted them southwestward along the valleys between the ranges, to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and the upland country of the Carolinas. Only the adventurous hunters and traders had followed the stream courses through the ranges, except here and there a squatter who had built a lonely cabin along the trails of the fur-seekers.

With peace came a rush through the passes. Southwestern Pennsylvania, western Maryland, the mountains of (West) Virginia, and northeastern Tennessee began to receive their inhabitants. By 1768 a cluster of "stations" dotted the branching waters of the upper Tennessee on both sides of the boundary

between Virginia and North Carolina. Hither in the early seventies came the Scotch-Irishman James Robertson from the Virginia frontier, and John Sevier, the Carolina Huguenot.

Opening out from the settled valleys of upper Tennessee into Kentucky was the great mountain gateway known as Cumberland Gap. Kentucky, included within Virginia's charter grant, was a no-man's land, unoccupied by native tribes but used by many as a hunting ground. Practically unknown to the English before the French and Indian War, it now became for them also a hunting ground. Its well-watered blue grass lands of wonderful richness formed a natural pasturage which with the numerous salt licks had ages ago attracted the mastodon and other extinct mammals as they now drew the deer and bison. Most famous of all the white hunters who visited this paradise in the sixties was Daniel Boone, whose Quaker parents had followed the stream of migration from Pennsylvania to the North Carolina Piedmont while Daniel was a youth. Trained from boyhood to handle gun and knife, and inured to the life of the wilderness, his name became the symbol of all that is characteristic of the hardy pioneer stock which was about to sweep into the Ohio Valley.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR CHAPTER VI

The works of Francis Parkman, under the general title of France and England in North America, give the classic account of French expansion in the New World, the rivalry with the English, and the final overthrow of French dominion. For literary excellence as well as sound scholarship these volumes have not been surpassed in historical writing in America. In Montcalm and Wolfe, which tells the story of the last French and Indian War, Parkman reaches his highest level.

Abbott, Expansion of Europe, II, gives the Old-World background of the Anglo-French rivalry in America. Mahan, Influence of Sea Power on History, 1660-1783, discusses international relations with especial reference to the decisive part played by Britain's navy.

Thwaites, France in America, is a convenient one-volume summary of the whole topic stated in the title. Fiske covers the subject in New France and New England. Recent and brief is Wrong, The Conquest of New France.

Several volumes of the Chronicles of Canada are of interest on this topic. Such are Colby, Founders of New France, and The Fighting Governor; and Munro, Seigneurs of Old Canada.

For Louisiana under the French, see Thwaites as above, Parkman, La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West, and Gayarré, History of Louisiana.

The Problem of the West. Parkman, The Conspiracy of Pontiac, tells the story of the Indian war of 1763. Carter, Great Britain and The Illinois Country, contains an excellent account of the projects of new colonies in the West after 1763. Alvord, The Mississippi Valley in British Politics, discusses the whole problem of the West from the point of view of the English government; he deals with the same theme more briefly in The Illinois Country. Roosevelt, Winning of the West, takes up the story of the actual movement of population after the Peace of Paris. Winsor, The Westward Movement, covers the same ground with less attention to the life and experiences of the pioneers and more to the formal political and diplomatic history. With these two writers may be compared Henderson, The Conquest of the Old Southwest, a more recent publication of popular character. Boone's story is well told in Thwaites, Daniel Boone, and Bruce, Daniel Boone and the Wilderness Road.