ร

For more than a year after the massacre, Michilimackinac was occupied only by wood rangers and Indians; then, after the treaty, Capt. Howard was sent with troops to take possession.

CHAPTER IV.

NATIONAL POLICIES.

The Great French Scheme.-Soon after the discovery of the mouth of the Mississippi by La Salle, in 1682, the government of France began to encourage the policy of establishing a line of trading posts and missionary stations extending through the West from Canada to Louisiana, and this policy was maintained, with partial success, for about seventy-five years.

The river St. Joseph, of Lake Michigan, was called "the river Miamis "" in 1679, in which year La Salle built a small fort on its bank, near the lake shore. The principal station of the mission for the instruction of the Miamis was established on the borders of this river. The first French post within the territory of the Miamis was at the mouth of the river Miamis, on an eminence naturally fortified on two sides by the river, and on one side by a deep ditch made by a fall of water. It was of triangular form. The missionary, Hennepin, gives a good description of it, as he was one of the company who built it in 1679. Says he: "We felled the trees that were on the top of the hill, and having cleared the same from bushes for about two musket shot, we began to build a redoubt of eighty feet long and forty feet broad, with great square pieces of timber laid one upon another, and prepared a great number of stakes of about twenty-five feet long to drive into the ground, to make our fort more inaccessible on the river side. We employed the whole month of November about that work, which was very hard, though we had no other food but the bears' flesh our savage killed. These beasts are very common in that place, because of the great quantity of grapes they find there; but their flesh being too fat and luscious, our men began to be weary of it, and desired leave to go a-hunting to kill some wild goats. M. La Salle denied them that liberty, which caused some murmurs among them, and it was but unwillingly that they continued their work. This, together with the approach of Winter and the apprehension that M. La Salle had that his vessel (the Griffin) was lost, made him very melancholy, though he concealed it as much as he could. We made a cabin wherein we performed divine service every Sunday, and Father Gabriel and I, who preached alternately, took care to take such texts as were suitable to our present circumstances and fit to

discovery of the plot, which was consequently averted. Pontiac and his warriors afterward made many attacks upon the English, some of which were successful, but the Indians were finally defeated in the general war.

BRITISH POLICY.

In 1765 the total number of French families within the limits of the Northwestern Territory did not probably exceed 600. These were in settlements about Detroit, along the river Wabash and the neighborhood of Fort Chartres on the Mississippi. Of these families, about eighty or ninety resided at Post Vincennes, fourteen. at Fort Ouiatenon, on the Wabash, and nine or ten at the confluence of the St. Mary and St. Joseph rivers, together with a few on St. Clair lake and river.

The colonial policy of the British Government opposed any measures which might strengthen settlements in the interior of this country, lest they become selfsupporting and independent of the mother country; hence the early and rapid settlement of the Northwestern Territory was still further retarded by short-sighted selfishness of England. That fatal policy consisted mainly in holding the lands in the hands of the government and not allowing it to be subdivided and sold to settlers. But in spite of all her efforts in this direction, she constantly made just such efforts as provoked the American people to rebel, and to rebel successfully, which was within fifteen years after the perfect close of the French and Indian war.

AMERICAN POLICY.

Thomas Jefferson, the shrewd statesman and wise Governor of Virginia, saw from the first that actual occupation of Western lands was the only way to keep them out of the hands of foreigners and Indians. Therefore, directly after the conquest of Vincennes by Clark he engaged a scientific corps to proceed under an escort to the Mississippi, and ascertain by celestial observations the point on that river intersected by latitude 36 deg. 31 min., the southern limit of the State, and to measure its distance to the Ohio. To Gen. Clark was entrusted the conduct of the military operations in that quarter. He was instructed to select a strong position near that point and establish there a fort and garrison; thence to extend his conquest northward to the lakes, erecting forts at different points, which might serve as monuments of actual possession, besides affording protection to that portion of the country. Fort" Jefferson" was erected and garrisoned on the Mississippi a few miles above the southern limit.

The result of these operations was the addition to the chartered limits of Virginia, of that immense region known as the "Northwestern Territory." The simple fact that such and such forts were established by the Americans in this vast region convinced the British Commissioners that we had entitled ourselves to the land. But where are those "monuments" of our power now?

ORDINANCE OF 1787.

This ordinance has a marvelous and interesting history. Considerable controversy has been indulged in as to who is entitled to the credit for framing it. This belongs undoubtedly, to Nathan Dane; and to Rufus King and Timothy Pickering belong the credit for suggesting the proviso contained in it against slavery, and also for without aids to religion and knowledge, and for assuring forever the common use, charge, of the great national highways of the Mississippi, the St. Lawrence and To Thomas Jefferson is their tributaries to all the citizens of the United States. also due much credit, as some features of this ordinance were embraced in his ordinance of 1784. But the part taken by each in the long, laborious and eventful struggle which had so glorious a consummation in the ordinance, consecrating forever, by one imprescriptible and unchangeable monument, the very heart of our country to freedom, knowledge and union, will forever honor the names of those illustrious statesmen.

Jefferson had vainly tried to secure a system of government for the Northwestern Territory. He was an emancipationist and favored the exclusion of slavery from the Territory, but the South voted him down every time he proposed a measure of this nature. In 1787, as late as July 10, an organizing act without the antislavery clause was pending. This concession to the South was expected to carry it. Congress was in session in New York. On July 5, Rev. Manasseh Cutler of Massachusetts, came into New York to lobby on the Northwestern Territory. Events were ripe. The state of the Everything seemed to fall into his hands. public credit, the growing of Southern prejudice, the basis of his mission, his personal character, all combined to complete one of those sudden and marvelous revolutions of public sentiment that once in five or ten centuries are seen to sweep over a country like the breath of the Almighty.

Cutler was a graduate of Yale. He had studied and taken degrees in the three learned professions, medicine, law, and divinity. He had published a scientific examination of the plants of New England. As a scientist in America, his name stood second only to Franklin. He was a courtly gentleman of the old style, The Southern members said a man of commanding presence and inviting face. they had never seen such a gentleman in the North. He came, representing a Massachusetts company that desired to purchase a tract of land, now included in Government Ohio for the purpose of planting a colony. It was a speculation. money was worth eighteen cents on the dollar. This company had collected enough to purchase 1,500,000 acres of land. Other speculators in New York made Dr. Cutler their agent, which enabled him to represent a demand for 5,500,000 acres. As this would reduce the national debt, it presented a good opportunity to do something.

Massachusetts then owned the territory of Maine, which she was crowding on the market. She was opposed to opening the Northwestern region. This fired the zeal of Virginia. The South caught the inspiration, and all exalted Dr. Cutler. The entire South rallied around him. Massachusetts could not vote against him, because many of the constituents of her members were interested personally in the Western speculation. Thus Cutler making friends in the South, and doubtless using all the arts of the lobby, was enabled to command the situation. True to deeper convictions, he dictated one of the most compact and finished documents. of wise statesmenship that has ever adorned any human law book.

He borrowed from Jefferson the term "Articles of Compact," which preceding the federal constitution, rose into the most sacred character. He then followed very closely the constitution of Massachusetts, adopted three years before. Its most prominent points were :

1. The exclusion of slavery from the territory forever.

2. Provision for public schools, giving one township for a seminary and every section numbered 16 in each township; that is, one thirty-sixth of all the land for public schools.

3. A provision prohibiting the adoption of any constitution or the enactment of any law that should nullify pre-existing contracts. Be it forever remembered that this compact declared that "religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall always be encouraged." Dr. Cutler planted himself on this platform and would not yield. Giving his unqualified declaration that it was that or nothing, he took his horse and buggy and started for the constitutional convention at Philadelphia. On July 13, 1787, the bill was put upon its passage, and was unanimously adopted.

Thus the great States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin, a vast empire, were consecrated to freedom, intelligence and morality. Thus the great heart of the nation was prepared to save the union of States, for it was this act that was the salvation of the Republic and the destruction of slavery. Soon the South saw their great blunder and tried to have the compact repealed. In 1803 Congress referred it to a committee, of which John Randolph was chairman. He reported that this ordinance was a compact, and opposed repeal. Thus it stood, a rock in the way of the on-rushing sea of slavery.

The "Northwestern Territory" included, of course, what is now the State of Indiana, and October 5, 1787, Major General Arthur St. Clair was elected by Congress, Governor of this territory. Upon commencing the duties of his office he was instructed to ascertain the real temper of the Indians, and do all in his power to remove the causes for controversy between them and the United States, and to