They constructed their own governmental systems, on their own motion, without assistance or interference from the parent States, until the settlements were firmly established, and the work of civic organization well under way.
Help Rendered by National Government.
Of course some help was ultimately given by the parent States; and the indirect assistance rendered by the nation had been great.

The West could neither have been won nor held by the frontiersmen, save for the backing given by the Thirteen States.

England and Spain would have made short work of the men whose advance into the lands of their Indian allies they viewed with such jealous hatred, had they not also been forced to deal with the generals and soldiers of the Continental army, and the statesmen and diplomats of the Continental Congress.

But the real work was done by the settlers themselves.

The distinguishing feature in the exploration, settlement, and up-building of Kentucky and Tennessee was the individual initiative of the backwoodsmen.
The Northwest Won by the Nation as a Whole.
The direct reverse of this was true of the settlement of the country northwest of the Ohio.