THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY; OHIO.

1787-1790.
Individual Initiative of the Frontiersmen.
So far the work of the backwoodsmen in exploring, conquering, and holding the West had been work undertaken solely on individual initiative.

The nation as a whole had not directly shared in it.

The frontiersmen who chopped the first trails across the Alleghanies, who earliest wandered through the lonely western lands, and who first built stockaded hamlets on the banks of the Watauga, the Kentucky, and the Cumberland, acted each in consequence of his own restless eagerness for adventure and possible gain.

The nation neither encouraged them to undertake the enterprises on which they embarked, nor protected them for the first few years of uncertain foothold in the new-won country.