THE NEW BRITISH POSSESSIONS (1763-1783)
PROVISIONS FOR DEFENCE, GOVERNMENT, AND THE FUR TRADE
Amherst's plan for defence.--While the Spaniards were occupying western
Louisiana the British were organizing the country ceded by France and
Spain east of the Mississippi, in Canada, and in the West Indies. In
1763 the Secretary of War asked General Amherst, commander-in-chief in
America, for a plan of defence of the British possessions. In response
he drew up a "Plan of Forts and Garrisons prepared for the security of
North America" which reveals England's outlook upon her newly acquired
territory. It provided for ten regiments of approximately seven hundred
and fifty men each. The stated purposes were: (1) to keep the king's new
subjects in Canada and Louisiana "in due subjection," (2) to keep the
old provinces "in a state of Constitutional Dependence upon Great
Britain," (3) to command the respect of the Indians, (4) to prevent
encroachments of the French or Spaniards, (5) and to protect the
colonies in case of war. The regiments were to be distributed in posts
along the St. Lawrence, about the Great Lakes, in the Illinois country,
along the lower Mississippi, and in Nova Scotia, South Carolina,
Georgia, and the Floridas.
Purposes regarding the West.--Regarding the interior posts the
particular aims expressed were to keep open the navigation of the St.
Lawrence and the Great Lakes, maintain communication between Canada and
the Gulf of Mexico, hold the western tribes in check, and guard against
French or Spanish intrusion. A post at St. Augustine was especially
desirable as a defence against Spain, and Pensacola and Mobile would
command the commerce of the Gulf as well as the tribes of the Alabama
Basin. The lower Mississippi posts were essential to control the
Chickasaws. A post at Crown Point was not only needed to maintain a
winter highway to Canada, but might also be useful to suppress
disaffection in the maritime colonies, "who already begin to entertain
some extraordinary Opinions, concerning their Relations to and
Dependence upon the Mother Country."
The Proclamation of 1763.--In October, 1763, the king issued a
proclamation creating, within the newly acquired territory, four
distinct provinces, Quebec, East Florida, West Florida, and Grenada, and
providing a form of government for them. Quebec comprised the Valley of
the St. Lawrence from the western end of Anticosti Island to the 45th
parallel and Lake Nipissing. Labrador, Anticosti, and the Magdalen
Islands were attached to Newfoundland. St. Johns, Cape Breton, and the
lesser adjacent islands were attached to Nova Scotia.
East Florida extended to Appalachicola River, and was bounded on the
north by St. Mary's River and a line from the head of that stream to the
junction of the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers. The district between St.
Mary's and Altamaha Rivers, formerly in dispute between Spain and
England, was attached to Georgia. West Florida was the district south of
latitude 310 and between the Appalachicola River and the Isle of
Orleans. The Island of Grenada, the Grenadines, St. Vincent's, and
Tobago were erected into the Government of Grenada.
Crown colonies created.--These new jurisdictions were made crown
colonies. For each a governor was to be appointed, with power to call
assemblies, "in such Manner and Form as is used and directed in the
Colonies and Provinces in America which are under our immediate
Government." Until such assemblies should meet, the governors, with
their executive councils, were empowered to erect courts, having appeals
to the privy council.
The Indian reservation.--For the time being all British possessions on
the continent not included in the foregoing jurisdictions, or within the
Territory of Hudson Bay, and all lands west or north of the streams
flowing into the Atlantic Ocean, were reserved as crown lands for the
use of the Indians. No colony might grant lands within this Indian
reservation, and settlers were requested to move out. The considerable
French settlements in the reserve were ignored.
Until 1755 the English government had managed its Indian affairs through
the different colonies, but the results were far from satisfactory. In
that year the government assumed political control over the Indians,
creating a southern and a northern department, and appointing a
superintendent for each. In 1761 the purchase of Indian lands was taken
out of the hands of the colonies.
[Illustration: The New British Possessions, 1763-1783.]
Regulation of Indian trade.--The acquisition of extensive territories in
1763 called for new trade regulations. The proclamation had created an
Indian reserve and opened trade to all duly licensed subjects. In the
following year Lord Hillsborough drew up a general plan for the
management of Indians and the fur trade. It safeguarded the rights of
the Hudson's Bay Company and provided for the continuation of the two
superintendents, with three deputies for the northern and two for the
southern district. In the North all trade must be conducted at regularly
established posts, and in the South at the Indian towns. All traders
must be licensed, must trade at schedule prices, and must have no
dealings with Indians except at the prescribed places. By 1768 the plan
had proved too expensive, and the management of the fur trade was
restored to the individual colonies.
THE OCCUPATION OF THE FLORIDAS
The West Florida posts.--On August 6, 1763, Colonel Prevost took
possession of Pensacola, which became the capital of West Florida.
Shortly afterwards Mobile was occupied by Major Robert Farmar. The
French troops there withdrew to New Orleans, as did some of the people,
but most of the latter remained. Fort Tombecbe, renamed Fort York, was
given a garrison of thirty men, for the express purpose of keeping the
Choctaws hostile to the Chickasaws, but was abandoned in 1768. The
French among the Choctaws moved across the Mississippi into Spanish
territory, but continued to trade with the tribe.
The boundary and the river forts.--In 1764 the northern boundary of West
Florida was moved north to 32 deg. 28' to take in the Natchez settlements,
and to make room for the land speculators who were seeking land grants
on the lower Mississippi. A garrison was placed at Natchez (Fort
Panmure). In connection with efforts to keep the Mississippi open and to
establish navigation through the Iberville River, Fort Bute was bunt
near the latter stream in 1766. These Mississippi posts were designed
also to prevent French and Spanish smuggling among the Choctaws. But
there was English smuggling likewise, and to stop it Spanish posts were
later built on the other bank of the river. In 1769 the troops of most
of the English posts were withdrawn to St. Augustine, but there was a
protest at once. Pensacola drew up a memorial, and immigrants recently
arrived at the Mississippi demanded protection. O'Reilly had just come
to New Orleans, and it was feared that he might have designs on West
Florida. In 1770, therefore, most of the troops were restored, and a new
garrison was established at Manchac.
Indian agents and fur magnates.--The possession of West Florida proved
an important asset to Great Britain in the control of the southwestern
Indians, especially during the Revolution. John Stuart, Superintendent
for the Southern Department, made his headquarters at Pensacola, but
Mobile was the real center of control for the whole Southwest. Subagents
convened at Mobile a great congress of all the tribes and effected an
alliance with them, and soon afterward the Indian lands about Mobile
were ceded to the English. The military authorities encouraged
inter-tribal dissensions, and the Creeks and Choctaws were frequently at
war, in which the Chickasaws sometimes joined. According to the general
system, the fur trade of the Southwest was opened to all traders having
a government license and a proper bond. The fur magnates at Mobile were
the house of Swanson and McGillivray, who by 1777 had a branch house at
Fort Bute, which conducted trade with the Illinois. At Pensacola Panton,
Leslie, and Company, the largest business house, became an important
factor in the trade and in the management of the tribes.
Politics and government.--West Florida was accorded a governor, council,
and assembly. Governor George Johnstone arrived at Pensacola in October,
1764, but the first assembly was not elected until 1766. Mobile,
Pensacola, and Campbell Town were electoral precincts at first, and
after 1778 Natchez and Manchac were represented. The brief political
experiences of the province were as interesting as those of the older
colonies in early days. The governor and assembly frequently quarreled.
In 1772 Governor Chester prorogued that body and for six years got along
without it. More harmful than these quarrels were the factional disputes
between the civil and military officials.
Development of West Florida.--When England took possession, Pensacola
consisted of some forty thatched huts and small barracks, all enclosed
within a palisade, but it was rebuilt, and practically dates from
British rule. Mobile remained largely French, and was reduced in size
by the emigration to New Orleans. British rule gave impetus to Mobile's
commerce, and by 1776 the port was paying L4000 a year to the London
custom house alone.
Immigration.--Efforts were made also to secure immigrants for West
Florida. In 1763 the Board of Trade put an advertisement regarding land
grants in the London Gazette, and in 1764 Governor Johnstone issued a
circular to attract settlers. In 1765 or 1766 a colony from North
Carolina went by sea and settled about Natchez and Baton Rouge.
Speculators obtained large grants of land about Natchez as early as
1767, among them being Daniel Clark, later a great figure at New
Orleans. Before the Revolution numerous settlers arrived from England,
the West Indies, and most of the mainland colonies, including New
England. Most of them settled on the Mississippi River between Manchac
and Natchez. In 1772 three hundred persons from Virginia and the
Carolinas are said to have been established on the lower Mississippi,
and three or four hundred families were expected that summer. As a
result, the Mississippi posts were repaired and civil government
established. In 1775 a considerable immigration from New England was led
by General Lyman. About the same time Colonel Putnam led a company from
New England to the Yazoo district. In 1777, according to the botanist
Bartram, more than half of the population of Mobile were people who had
come from the northern colonies and Great Britain.
During the Revolution West Florida was a refuge for Loyalists. In
November, 1776, Mathew Phelps led a colony of New Englanders to the
lower Mississippi. Highland soldiers defeated in North Carolina that
year took refuge in the province. Loyalists from Georgia and South
Carolina settled on the Tombigbee River and Mobile Bay, and others from
the same colonies settled on the Tensaws Bayou.
East Florida under British rule.--In East Florida, St. Augustine became
the capital and the chief military post. St. Marks on the Gulf was
occupied for military purposes and the posts of Matanzas, Picolata, and
Mosquito were also maintained for a time. The military of both East and
West Florida were under the general command at Pensacola. James Grant
was made first governor. In East Florida there was no assembly till
1781. Difficulties between military and civil authorities prevailed as
in West Florida.
At the time of the British occupation, St. Augustine was a small Spanish
town with adobe houses and narrow streets. Under British rule East
Florida prospered. Harbors were improved, and highways were constructed,
one being built from St. Mary's River to St. Augustine. In 1766 some
forty families went from the Bermudas to Mosquito Inlet to engage in
ship-building. In the following year Dr. Turnbull brought fifteen
hundred indentured colonists from the Mediterranean region and settled
them at New Smyrna. In 1776 the indentures were cancelled and the
settlers moved to St. Augustine, where their descendants still five.
During the Revolution East Florida, like West Florida, became a Mecca
for southern Loyalists.
MILITARY OCCUPATION OF THE ILLINOIS COUNTRY
Plans to occupy the Illinois country.--By the end of 1761 British troops
had taken possession of all the lake posts from Niagara to Green Bay,
besides Venango, Miamis, and Ouiatanon further south. In July, 1763,
orders were sent by the Governor of Louisiana for the evacuation of the
Illinois posts, and boats were prepared at Fort Pitt for sending four
hundred English troops to relieve the French garrisons. But the
conspiracy of Pontiac delayed the complete transfer of this region for
nearly three years.
The conspiracy of Pontiac.--Early in the war the tribes north of the
Ohio had ravaged the Virginia and Pennsylvania frontiers, but after 1758
they had been quiet, although they did not like the English. They feared
eviction from their lands, English traders had proved arrogant and
dishonest, and General Amherst was attempting a policy of economy in
presents, in spite of the criticism of the better informed Indian
agents. Pontiac, head chief of the Ottawas, organized a general revolt,
embracing the Algonquins, some of the tribes of the lower Mississippi,
and some of the Iroquois. By a simultaneous assault in May, 1763, all
but three northwestern posts--Detroit, Fort Pitt, and Niagara --fell
almost without a blow. At Presq'Isle, Le Boeuf, Venango, Mackinac,
Sandusky, St. Josephs, and Ouiatanon, there were massacres, and the
garrison fled from Green Bay.
Failure of the Loftus expedition.--It being impracticable now to send
troops to the Illinois country by way of the Ohio, this was attempted by
an expedition up the Mississippi Major Loftus was sent from Mobile with
three hundred and fifty men to occupy Fort Massac, Kaskaskia, and Fort
Chartres. In February, 1764, he left New Orleans, but when two hundred
and forty miles up the river, at Rocher a Davion, he was attacked by
Tunica Indians, whereupon he abandoned the expedition and returned to
Mobile.
Peace.--While Colonel Bradstreet reoccupied the Lakes, General Gage,
Amherst's successor, resorted to conciliation, and a series of peace
embassies were sent to the Illinois country from Mobile and from the
northern garrisons. The submission of the Ohio tribes, failure of hopes
for aid from New Orleans, and news of the transfer of western Louisiana
to Spain, led Pontiac to negotiate at Ouiatanon in 1765 with George
Croghan. At Detroit Croghan secured peace with all the western tribes.
Thomas Stirling then descended the Ohio with a detachment and in October
occupied Fort Chartres. "Thus, after nearly three years of fighting and
negotiating, British forces were in possession of the last of the French
posts in the West."
Establishment of government.--In accordance with the Treaty of Paris a
proclamation of General Gage guaranteed the inhabitants the free
exercise of the Catholic religion. Settlers were allowed to sell their
lands and emigrate, or to become British subjects on taking the oath of
allegiance. The inhabitants of Kaskaskia and other places asked and
received an extension of the time for decision to March, 1766. Many of
them emigrated to St. Louis and Ste. Genevieve, or to New Orleans. The
Proclamation of 1763 made no provision for civil government in the
Indian reserve, and local administration was left to the military
authorities and Indian agents. The French people were dissatisfied, and
many misunderstandings arose between them and the English settlers and
officers. By 1770 the complaint took the form of a demand for civil
government, which was provided in 1774 by the Quebec Act.
LAND SPECULATION AND PLANS FOR WESTERN COLONIES
Western schemes.--Before the French and Indian War grants had been made
by the British government of lands beyond the Alleghanies, and
settlement on the back lands had been favored as a means of opposing,
the French and of extending British trade. During the war the frontiers
of settlement were contracted, but, in anticipation of victory, new
grants were sought and new schemes proposed. Not only were lands
desired, but prominent men proposed new colonial governments west of the
mountains. Nearly all of the proposals involved territory in the Ohio
Valley. After the Albany Congress of 1754 Franklin urged the formation
of two barrier colonies in the West. In 1756 Thomas Pownall, ex-governor
of New Jersey, made a similar proposal. About the same time Samuel
Hazard of Philadelphia promoted the formation of a Presbyterian colony
to embrace most of the Ohio Valley and extending across the Mississippi.
In 1757 the Greenbrier Company secured 100,000 acres of land on the
western waters.
The victory over the French stimulated new speculative and colonizing
schemes for the West both in England and America. In June, 1763, the
Mississippi Company was formed, composed of prominent Virginians,
including Colonel George Washington and Richard Henry Lee. A memorial to
the king was drawn asking for 2,500,000 acres on both sides of the lower
Ohio, quit rent free for twelve years, and protection by royal forts, on
condition of settling two hundred families. Late in 1763 a pamphlet
published in Edinborough, Scotland, proposed a colony named Charlotiana,
to include the country between the Wabash, Ohio, Mississippi, and the
Great Lakes. About the same time Charles Lee proposed a colony on the
Illinois and another on the Ohio.
Effect of the Proclamation.--The Proclamation of 1763 closing the
Trans-Alleghany country to settlement seems to have checked for a time
the schemes for speculation. The Proclamation contained an implied
promise that the boundary would be revised, while it was well known that
influential politicians in England favored the opening of the West. New
schemes for western lands, therefore, were not long suppressed. In 1766
William Franklin, governor of New Jersey, launched a plan for two
colonies, one at Detroit, the other on the lower Ohio. Through the aid
of Benjamin Franklin, father of the governor, the Ohio country was
favored by the Board of Trade, but in 1768 the plan dropped from sight.
Meanwhile many other land companies were formed.
A policy of expansion adopted.--The policy of the ministry regarding the
West was vacillating, and more so, no doubt, because of the pressure of
conflicting interests. But in 1768 the ministry decided on a definite
plan for western settlement, the principle being that expansion should
be gradual and under control of imperial agents, who should purchase
land from the Indians as needed. Johnson and Stuart, Indian
superintendents, had already made tentative arrangements for revising
the proclamation line. In 1765 the Six Nations ceded their claims to
lands between the Ohio and the Tennessee. Stuart, by a series of
treaties, secured a line from the southern boundary of Virginia to the
St. Mary's River. Florida, thence along the tidewater line to the
Appalachicola River. West of that point the line was not completed, but
important cessions were made along the Mobile coast. In 1768 the former
lines were ratified, and Stuart, in two treaties with the Cherokees and
Creeks (October, November, 1768), secured the extension of the line to
the mouth of the Kanawha River on the north and to the Choctaw River on
the south. At Fort Stanwix in 1768 the Iroquois ratified essentially
their cession of 1765. The lines did not correspond, since the Iroquois
cession included Western Tennessee and Kentucky, which were not within
the other cessions. Meanwhile the southern line was modified by the
treaty of Lochaber by running it west along the southern boundary of
Virginia to the Holston River, thence direct to the mouth of the
Kanawha. The purpose of the change was to take in the recently formed
Watauga settlement.
Vandalia.--Having extinguished the Indian titles, it was now possible to
found a new colony back of Pennsylvania and Virginia, and such a project
was put on foot. Samuel Wharton of Philadelphia formed a company for the
purpose of purchasing part of the lands. The company included some of
the leading men in England and America, among them being Benjamin
Franklin and Thomas Walpole. Official aid was enlisted by including two
members of the ministry. In 1769 the purchase was made, and, in spite of
Lord Hillsborough's opposition, by 1775 the project of a new and
separate province named Vandalia had been approved by king and council.
The outbreak of the Revolution set the plan aside. Had it been carried
out it would have cut Virginia off from her back lands. The Quebec Act
of 1774 operated in the same direction, by attaching the Northwest to
Quebec. Virginia therefore resisted. Governor Dunmore opposed the
Vandalia colony, made grants of land both within and beyond it, and
joined a company which purchased Indian lands north of the Ohio.
TRANS-ALLEGHANY SETTLEMENT
Western settlements before 1763.--But it was the backwoodsmen, and not
the corporations, who opened the Trans-Alleghany country. Before the war
a few settlements had been made on the western waters, In 1748 Draper's
Meadows, on the Greenbrier, in West Virginia, were settled. Between 1750
and 1752 a settlement was made by the Ohio Company at Redstone on the
Monongahela. By 1758 several small settlements had been made on the
Holston, Watauga, and Cheat Rivers. But during the war these western
settlements were abandoned, and the frontier pushed eastward a hundred
miles or more.
The westward movement after the war.--The French and Indian War was
scarcely over when the westward movement began again, regardless of
proclamations or the deliberations of the Board of Trade. In 1760 Daniel
Boone, from the Yadkin in North Carolina, "cilled a bar" on the Watauga
River. Between 1761 and 1765 Wallen annually led hunters to the west. In
1765 Croghan surveyed the Ohio River, and the next year James Smith and
others explored the Tennessee. In 1767 Finley was in Kentucky, and
Stoner, Harrod, and Lindsay were at French Lick (the site of Nashville).
In 1767 and 1770 Boone was "prospecting" for Judge Richard Henderson, a
land speculator of North Carolina. At the same time Mansker led a party
down the Cumberland and on to Natchez. By this time others had wandered
far beyond the Mississippi and were causing the Spanish officials
anxiety.
The hunters, traders, and prospectors were followed by surveyors and
settlers. The chief participants in the movement were from the middle
region and the South: Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and North
Carolina. Prominent among the pioneers on the western waters were the
Scotch-Irish who had settled the back country of the older colonies and
stood waiting at the western passes.
The Appalachian barrier.--To reach the Mississippi Valley the
frontiersman was forced to pass the Appalachian barrier, extending from
Maine to Georgia. The easiest pass through it, by way of the Hudson and
Mohawk Rivers, was impeded by the Six Nations who stood between the
western frontier of settlement and the vacant lands beyond. Farther
south the barrier was traversed by a series of interlocking rivers,
flowing in opposite directions, whose valleys afforded trails. The
Susquehannah led to the Alleghany, the Potomac to the Monongahela, the
James and Roanoke to the Great Kanawha, the Great Pedee, the Yadkin, and
Catawba to the head waters of the Tennessee. A series of longitudinal
valleys on the eastern front of the southern Appalachians gave access
from Virginia and North Carolina to the upper Tennessee, from whose
valley an easy pass was found to Kentucky by way of Cumberland Gap.
The Indian barrier.--The Iroquois Confederacy, though friendly, was a
retarding force to the northern stream of emigration. The Algonquin
tribes north of the Ohio had been friendly with the French, and after
the French and Indian War they favored the French traders rather than
those from the seaboard colonies. At the southern end of the
Appalachians westward expansion was retarded by the strong confederacies
of the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws. The region between
the Ohio and the Tennessee was the "dark and bloody ground" between the
northern and southern tribes, but permanently inhabited by neither. It
was this region which was opened to settlement by the Indian cessions
between 1768 and 1770. The cessions were followed immediately by a
movement of settlers into the area.
_THE SETTLEMENT OF EASTERN TENNESSEE_
The North Carolina Regulators.--The movement across the mountains was
stimulated by a popular upheaval in the back country of North Carolina.
Shortly before 1740 the Scotch-Irish and German migration reached North
Carolina and by 1765 the lands along the headwaters of the Yadkin, Haw,
Neuse, Tar, Catawba, and Deep Rivers had been occupied. Many English and
Welsh also had settled in the same region. Between the Piedmont and the
coastal plain was a sparsely settled country of pine forests. "Cut off
... from the men of the east, the men of the 'back country' felt no more
sympathy for the former than they received from them." The coast country
controlled the legislature and the courts. The men of the West
complained that they were forced to pay excessive taxes, that the
sheriffs were dishonest, and fees extortionate. An additional grievance
was the scarcity of money. During 1765-1767 the frontiersmen began to
organize and from 1767 to 1771 the back country was in a state of
rebellion. Lawyers were seized and whipped, and the Hillsboro court was
broken up. In 1771 the Regulators were defeated by Governor Tryon's
troops in the battle of the Alamance and the rebellion soon subsided.
During those troubled years many had sought new homes in the western
valleys.
The Watauga settlement.--Permanent settlement was made in eastern
Tennessee in 1769. In that year a band of pioneers moved down the valley
from Virginia and settled on the Watauga River, a branch of the
Tennessee, thinking that they were still in Virginia. A short time
afterward they were joined by settlers from North Carolina, within whose
bounds the colony proved to be. Two able leaders soon emerged. James
Robertson, a backwoodsman and a "mighty hunter," went to Watauga in 1770
and took thither a colony of sixteen North Carolina families in 1771. A
year later arrived John Sevier, a Virginian of Huguenot extraction. Like
Robertson, he was an able Indian fighter and a leader of men.
The Watauga Association.--Finding themselves outside of Virginia and
beyond the reach and protection of the North Carolina administration,
the settlers, like the Pilgrim Fathers in a similar situation, reverted
to the social compact--familiar to Scotch-Irish Presbyterians and to
back-country North Carolinians who had "regulated" horse stealing--and
formed a government for themselves. In 1772 a convention of the settlers
created an independent government called the Watauga Association. It
had a written constitution, vesting the administration in an executive
committee of five, two of whom were Sevier and Robertson. This committee
exercised most of the powers of sovereignty, making treaties,
administering justice, granting lands, and making war on the Indians. In
1776 the Watauga Association, realizing the need of help, petitioned the
Council of North Carolina to extend its government over the new
settlements, and in 1777 they were organized as Washington County.
_THE BEGINNINGS OF KENTUCKY_
The surveyors and first settlers.--Settlement had also begun in what is
now Kentucky. Ahead of the settlers went the prospectors and surveyors,
who descended the Ohio and the Kanawha to select and survey lands. In
1770 and 1772 George Washington explored lands in what is now
northeastern Kentucky. In 1773 the McAfees led a party of surveyors down
the Ohio, crossed Kentucky, and returned over the Cumberland Mountains.
In the following year several parties of surveyors and land hunters were
sent by Virginia officials to lay out bounty lands for soldiers. Others
went without official sanction. One party was led by John Floyd from
Fincastle County, Virginia, who descended the Kanawha and Ohio to the
Falls, crossed Kentucky, and returned by Cumberland Gap. During his
expedition he surveyed lands for George Washington, Patrick Henry, and
others. Attempts at settlement had already been made. In 1773 Daniel
Boone led a colony from North Carolina toward Kentucky, but was driven
back by Indians. The next year Harrod, of Virginia, founded a settlement
in Kentucky called Harrodsburg, but it was broken up by Indians, whose
hostilities drove out all settlers and land hunters.
Indian ravages.--The border war which now occurred was the culmination
of a long series of troubles between the frontiersmen of Pennsylvania
and Virginia, and the Indians of the Ohio Valley. The Delawares had been
pushed over the Pennsylvania Mountains to the Muskingum and Tuscarawas
Rivers. Among them settled the Moravian missionaries, who formed them
into Christian towns and kept them peaceful when others were hostile.
The Shawanee had been pushed north to the Scioto River, whence they
marauded the Virginia border. Behind them were the hostile tribes who
had taken part in Pontiacs War. Through 1773 an Indian uprising was
threatening, and preparations were made in the westernmost settlements
of Virginia. Early in 1774 many settlers fled from the Holston and
Clinch Valleys. Minor outrages being committed along the Ohio, alarm,
spread, and in April there was a retreat across the Monongahela, which
was crossed by more than a thousand refugees in a single day.
Lord Dunmore's War.--Governor Dunmore now prepared for war, which, there
is some ground for thinking, he helped to bring on as a means of
strengthening Virginia's claims to the Northwest. To warn the surveyors
and settlers Colonel Preston, lieutenant-sheriff and surveyor of
Fincastle County, Virginia, sent Boone and Stoner through Kentucky. They
went as far as the Falls of the Ohio, and saved most of the men on the
frontier. The governor organized a campaign, himself leading the
Virginia regulars down the Ohio, while the frontier levies were led by
Colonel Andrew Lewis. They were to meet at the mouth of the Great
Kanawha. When Lewis reached that point he was attacked before the
arrival of Dunmore by the Indians under Chief Cornstalk, whom he
defeated. Thereupon the Indians sued for peace with Dunmore, who had
entered their country north of the Ohio. In the following October a
treaty was made at Fort Pitt which kept the northern Indians quiet
during the first two years of the Revolution and made it possible to
settle Kentucky.
Henderson and Transylvania.--Harrodsburg was now refounded by Virginians
(1775) who constituted the majority of the settlers. Henderson, the
North Carolina land speculator, formed a land company, called the
Transylvania Company. To improve his title in 1775 he made a treaty with
the Overhill Cherokees paying them L10,000 for their claims to lands
along and between the Cumberland and the Kentucky. Boone, with a party
of thirty men, was sent ahead to clear a road for Henderson's colony
from the Holston River to the Kentucky (1775). It became the famous
highway known as the Wilderness Road. Henderson followed with his
colony, founded Boonesborough, built a fort, and opened a land office,
naming his colony Transylvania. He attempted to set up in the
wilderness a modified proprietary regime. Having established his colony,
he called a convention; the delegates made laws which Henderson
approved, and a compact was formed between the delegates and proprietors
defining the irrespective rights. The proprietors retained control by
reserving to themselves the veto power.
Transylvania absorbed by Virginia.--Henderson's procedure was regarded
as illegal, and he was denounced by the governors of both Virginia and
North Carolina. When the Revolution broke out the proprietors sent a
delegate to the Continental Congress and appealed to that body for
protection, but, largely through Virginia's influence, the delegation
was rejected. The Virginia settlers in Kentucky, led by Harrod, opposed
Henderson's claim to lands, appealed to Virginia, and sent George Rogers
Clark to the assembly. Virginia asserted sovereignty over Kentucky, and
stormy times continued till 1777, when Kentucky with her present
boundaries was organized as Kentucky County, Virginia.
_THE UPPER OHIO AND MIDDLE TENNESSEE_
Westsylvania.--While Henderson was founding Transylvania another region
west of the mountains was being settled and was struggling for
independent statehood. Emigrants from Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia,
and other states had crossed the mountains and settled on the
tributaries of the upper Ohio in what are now western Pennsylvania, West
Virginia, and eastern Ohio. By the middle of 1776 there were said to be
25,000 families on the tributaries of the Ohio above the Scioto River.
But the land which they occupied was in dispute between Virginia and
Pennsylvania, and the Indiana and Vandalia Companies, and the settlers
took up the struggle, quarreling over land titles and jurisdiction. The
disorders prevented effective organization against the Indians. Shortly
after the Declaration of Independence the settlers memorialized
Congress, asking independent statehood as a "sister colony and
fourteenth province of the American confederacy," under the name of
Westsylvania, whose boundaries they described, but the request was not
granted.
The Cumberland settlement.--Robertson was the type of frontiersmen
desirous to be ever on the move. In 1779 he prospected at French Lick,
returned to Watauga, raised a colony, and in the fall led it forth. The
women and children were conducted by Donelson down the Tennessee and up
the Cumberland, while Robertson, guided by Mansker, led the men
overland. Nashborough, now Nashville, was founded at the Cumberland
Bend, and other stations were occupied along the river. In 1780 a
convention formed an "Association" much like that of Watauga, but after
three years of independence the district became Davidson County, North
Carolina.
THE PROVINCE OF QUEBEC
The French people.--At the time of the conquest the Canadian people
numbered about 65,000 living in the St. Lawrence Valley, with several
thousand scattered among the western posts. The settlers were in the
main a frugal, industrious, unlettered, religious people. They were of
two distinct classes, the gentry and the peasant tenants. After the war
there was a considerable emigration to France of the official, noble,
and commercial classes, leaving chiefly cultivators of the soil and fur
traders. By 1775 the population had grown to perhaps 90,000, chiefly
through natural increase of the French. By 1784 the population was
113,000.
The British settlers.--The conquest left in the province and attracted
to it later a small body of British settlers but by 1775 they did not
number more than five or six hundred. Most of them lived in the towns of
Quebec and Montreal, and engaged in business, especially in the fur
trade, many as agents for English houses, others being independent
merchants. When Hillsborough restored seignorial tenure, many of them
acquired seigniories, though they continued to live by trade.
Military rule.--British rule in Canada began with the capitulation of
Montreal in September, 1760. General Amherst was made governor-general,
with lieutenant-governors at Quebec, Montreal, and Three Rivers. From
that time to the enforcement of the Proclamation of 1763 Canada was
under military rule. But French law and customs were followed in the
main, and there was little discontent.
Civil government established.--Civil government was established in
August, 1764. The governor was assisted by an executive council composed
of the lieutenant-governor, chief justice, and eight citizens. The
government provided by the Proclamation of 1763 was unsuited to a
population almost wholly French, professing the Catholic religion, and
living under laws and customs of their own. The Proclamation provided
for an assembly, but none was held in Quebec because the French people
would not take the test oath, and the British settlers were too few in
numbers to warrant an assembly representing them alone. Uncertainty
existed regarding tithes and the future status of the Catholic Church.
The Proclamation contemplated the establishment of British law, but
practice was uncertain. The French inhabitants were not politically
ambitious, but the British were aggressive in their demands for an
assembly and the uniform establishment of English law.
The Quebec Act.--Under these circumstances a change of system was deemed
necessary. It was provided by the Quebec Act of 1774, the first
parliamentary legislation for Canada. The act maintained the privileges
of the Catholic clergy, tithes from Catholic subjects being continued.
French civil procedure was established, with some exceptions, but
English criminal procedure was enforced. Provision was made for an
appointive executive council with powers to make ordinances for the
province, but no provision was made for a provincial assembly.
Boundaries extended.--The population of the Illinois country was similar
to that of Quebec. The French _habitants_ there had been demanding civil
government, and it had been complained by the Montreal traders that the
prosperity of Canada had been impaired by cutting off the western posts.
Therefore the boundaries of Quebec were extended to include the region
between the Ohio River and the Upper Mississippi. By the Proclamation of
1763 Labrador east of River St. John's, Anticosti, and the Magdalens,
had been attached to Newfoundland. Labrador now began to develop
commerce with the interior and the North and with Newfoundland.
Opposition to the fishing admirals of Newfoundland caused these three
districts to be annexed to Quebec in 1774.
Not intended as a blow at liberty.--The Quebec Act was regarded in the
other colonies as a blow at popular liberties and as an encroachment
upon colonies whose chartered boundaries extended into the Northwest. It
was in fact an administrative act intended primarily as a means of
providing for the interests of the great body of the inhabitants, the
French. The attachment of the Ohio country to Quebec, however, checked
the natural spread of settlement from the seaboard colonies, and the
act, on the other hand, prevented the assimilation of the French people
by the English in Canada.
The Loyalists in Canada.--During the American Revolution a considerable
number of Loyalists crossed into Canada and settled at the border posts.
Many others joined the British army against the Americans. At the close
of the war some of the border counties of New York were almost
depopulated. In 1783 there were in the Montreal district seventeen
hundred Loyalists at seventeen posts, not counting enlisted men. Of
those who migrated after the revolution the greater number at first
settled in Nova Scotia. By the end of 1784 the number there exceeded
28,000 and caused the forming of the new province of New Brunswick. Over
three thousand went to Cape Breton Island, and three times that number
to the interior of Canada. Thirteen hundred settled at Kingston and
formed the nucleus of Upper Canada, which was separated from Lower
Canada in 1791. More important than this, the Revolution determined the
course of Canadian history. In order not to be absorbed by the United
States, Canada was forced into unswerving loyalty to the British Empire.
THE NORTHERN FUR TRADERS
Supervision of the fur trade.--The fur trade of Quebec under the new
regime was supervised according to the principles of the Proclamation of
1763. The most fundamental fact was that the French monopolistic system
was discontinued, except at certain "King's posts" in the lower St.
Lawrence Valley. The trade was open to any duly licensed subject,
superintendents were established at the posts, local courts were erected
in the interior, and settlement limited to the immediate neighborhood of
the posts in order not to drive away the fur bearing animals.
The French traders ruined.--The conquest had destroyed the French fur
trading organization. Under the mercantile system then in vogue,
supplies and markets had now to be sought in England. The French
merchants were ruined, and the entire trade of the Great Lake region was
thrown into the hands of the British traders. The French _coureurs de
bois_, however, remained in the country, and, in the employ of the
British, continued to be the backbone of the fur gathering business in
the interior.
The rush to the interior.--As early as 1761 British traders of Montreal
began to enter the field left vacant by the French. Pontiac's War caused
a suspension of their activities, and during it British traders were
plundered and murdered. By 1765, however, there was a new rush to the
interior, though it was 1771 before they could safely trade in the most
remote posts on the Saskatchewan. In the meantime the Indians had
learned to take their furs to the posts on Hudson Bay or down the
Mississippi.
Extent of operations.--The American Revolution destroyed the western fur
trade of the seaboard colonies and threw the commerce of the entire
Northwest into the hands of the Quebec and Montreal traders. By the
close of the war they were conducting operations on both sides of the
Great Lakes, in the Illinois country, beyond the upper Mississippi, on
the Winnipeg, Saskatchewan, Churchill, and Athabasca Rivers, to the
neighborhood of Great Slave Lake. They traded on the Assiniboine, and
may have reached the Missouri by that route.
Management of the trade.--During and after the Revolution the value of
the furs annually sent from Montreal and Quebec to London was probably
$1,000,000. The trade centered mainly in Montreal. In London great
mercantile establishments throve by the commerce. At Montreal other
great houses were founded. Detroit and Michillimackinac were interior
supply posts, where branch houses or lesser merchants conducted
business. Wintering partners and clerks went with the fleets of batteaux
into the far interior, but most of the common hands or _engages_ were
French and half-breed _coureurs de bois_, just as in the case of the
Spanish fur trade in Louisiana. The entire business was conducted on the
credit system.
The fur magnates.--Many of the fur magnates were Scotchmen. Among the
Montreal merchants of importance in this period were Alexander Henry,
Benjamin and Joseph Frobisher, James Finlay, and Peter Pond. Henry was
one of the earliest in the West. Finlay is said to have been among the
first on the Saskatchewan River. The Frobishers were leading traders on
the Saskatchewan and Churchill. Pond was probably the pioneer on the
Athabasca, having wintered there in 1778-1789.
The Northwest Company formed.--The free access of all licensed traders
to the interior resulted in reckless competition in regions remote from
the military posts. Acts of violence were committed and Indians were
involved in the contest. Besides the grave disadvantages of competition,
there were obvious advantages of combination. In 1779, therefore, nine
enterprises were consolidated for one year. The success caused the
arrangement to be repeated, and finally in 1783-1784 the Northwest
Company was organized and became permanent. This company soon
monopolized the larger part of the Montreal trade, and became the great
rival of the Hudson's Bay Company.
Advance of Hudson's Bay Company.--After the Peace of Utrecht the
Hudson's Bay Company had returned to an era of prosperity. Urged on by
French competition, by 1700 expeditions inland had been made by Kelsey
(1691) and Sanford, and Henley House had been built a hundred and fifty
miles inland from Fort Albany; and by 1720 other minor inland
expeditions had been made by Macklish and Stewart, but in the main the
Company had held to the shores of the Bay. Instead of sending employees
inland, as did the French, reliance was placed on furs brought by the
Indians to the posts, all of which were close to the Bay. The monopoly
enjoyed was a cause of jealousy among British merchants, and critics
arose, notably Arthur Dobbs, who charged that the Company had failed in
its obligation to seek the northwest passage and explore the interior.
Coerced by criticism, between 1719 and 1737 the Company made some
explorations, but little was accomplished.
Hearne's explorations.--After 1763 criticism of the Company was
reinforced by the rise of the Montreal trade, and new explorations
northwestward were undertaken. After two unsuccessful attempts in 1769
and 1770 to reach the Coppermine River overland, in December, 1770,
Samuel Hearne set out from Fort Prince of Wales to seek "a North-West
Passage, copper-mines, or any other thing that may be serviceable to the
British nation in general, or the Hudson's Bay Company in particular."
Going west, then north, on July 18, 1771, Hearne reached the mouth of
the Coppermine River near latitude 68 deg., where he took formal possession
of the Arctic Ocean for the Company. Returning by way of Lake Athabasca,
which he discovered and crossed, he reached his fort on June 30, 1772.
Rival posts in the interior.--Hearne's explorations were indicative of a
new policy. Coerced by the aggressive Montreal traders, the Company now
pushed into the interior in a struggle for the mastery. Side by side the
two, companies placed rival forts on all the important streams from the
Hudson Bay to the Rockies and from the Red River of the North to Great
Slave Lake.
READINGS
Alden, G.H., _New Governments west of the Alleghanies before 1780_;
Alvord, C.W., "Virginia and the West: An Interpretation," in _The
Mississippi Valley Historical Review_, III, 19-38; _The Critical Period,
1763-1765_; _The Mississippi Valley in British Politics_; Alvord, C.W.,
and Carter, C.E., editors, _The New Regime, 1765-1767_; Bassett, J.S.,
"The Regulators of North Carolina," in American Hist. Assoc., _Annual
Report, 1894_, pp. 141-212; Bourinot, J.G., _Canada under British Rule,
1760-1905_ (G.W. Wrong revision), chs. 2-3; Bryce, George, _The
Remarkable History of the Hudson's Bay Company_, chs. 8-13; Carter,
C.E., _Great Britain and the Illinois Country, 1763-1774_; "The
Beginnings of British West Florida," in _The Mississippi Valley
Historical Review_, IV, 314-341; Coffin, Victor, _The Quebec Act_;
Hamilton, P.J., Colonial Mobile, chs. 23-31; The Colonisation of the
South, chs. 20-21; Henderson, A., "Richard Henderson and the Occupation
of Kentucky, 1775," in _The Mississippi Valley Historical Review_, I,
341-363; Hinsdale, B.A., _The Old Northwest_, ch. 8; Howard, G.E.,
_Preliminaries of the Revolution, 1763-1775_, ch. 13; Roosevelt,
Theodore, _The Winning of the West_, I-II; Siebert, W.H., "The Loyalists
in West Florida and the Natchez District," in _The Mississippi Vauey
Historical Review_, II, 465-483; Stevens, W.E., "The Organization of the
British Fur Trade, 1760-1800," in _The Mississippi Valley Historical
Review_, III, 172-202; Thwaites, R.G., _Daniel Boone_; Thwaites, R.G.,
and Kellogg, L.P., editors, _Documentary History of Dunmore's War_,
1774, Introduction; Turner, F.J., "Western State-Making in the
Revolutionary Era," in _American Historical Review_, I, 70-87, 251-269;
Wallace, S., _The United Empire Loyalists_; Winsor, Justin, _The
Westward Movement_, 38-100; Wood, W., _The Father of British Canada_;
Davidson, G.C., _The North West Company_.
THE REVOLT OF THE ENGLISH COLONIES