Clark’s conquest of the Illinois, 1778.

Kentucky had been settled, chiefly through Boon’s instrumentality, in the year that saw the first fighting of the Revolution, and it had been held ever since, Boon still playing the greatest part in the defence.  Clark’s more far-seeing and ambitious soul now prompted him to try and use it as a base from which to conquer the vast region northwest of the Ohio.

    The Country beyond the Ohio.

The country beyond the Ohio was not, like Kentucky, a tenantless and debatable hunting-ground.  It was the seat of powerful and warlike Indian confederacies, and of clusters of ancient French hamlets which had been founded generations before the Kentucky pioneers were born; and it also contained posts that were garrisoned and held by the soldiers of the British king.  Virginia, and other colonies as well, made, it is true, vague claims to some of this territory. [Footnote:  Some of the numerous land speculation companies, which were so prominent about this time, both before and after the Revolution, made claims to vast tracts of territory in this region, having bought them for various trinkets from the Indian chiefs.  Such were the “Illinois Land Company” and “Wabash Land Company,” that, in 1773 and 1775, made purchases from the Kaskaskias and Piankeshaws.  The companies were composed of British, American, and Canadian merchants and traders, of London, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Quebec, etc.  Lord Dunmore was in the Wabash Company.  The agents of the companies, in after years, made repeated but unsuccessful efforts to get Congress to confirm their grants.  Although these various companies made much noise at the time, they introduced no new settlers into the land, and, in fact, did nothing of lasting effect; so that it is mere waste of time to allude to most of them.  See, however, the “History of Indiana,” by John B. Dillon (Indianapolis, 1859), pp. 102-109, etc.] But their titles were as unreal and shadowy as those acquired by the Spanish and Portuguese kings when the Pope, with empty munificence, divided between them the Eastern and the Western hemispheres.  For a century the French had held adverse possession; for a decade and a half the British, not the colonial authorities, had acted as their unchallenged heirs; to the Americans the country was as much a foreign land as was Canada.  It could only be acquired by force, and Clark’s teeming brain and bold heart had long been busy in planning its conquest.  He knew that the French villages, the only settlements in the land, were the seats of the British power, the head-quarters whence their commanders stirred up, armed, and guided the hostile Indians.  If these settled French districts were conquered, and the British posts that guarded them captured, the whole territory would thereby be won for the Federal Republic, and added to the heritage of its citizens; while the problem of checking and subduing the northwestern Indians would be greatly simplified, because the source of much of both their power and hostility would be cut off at the springs.  The friendship of the French was invaluable, for they had more influence than any other people with the Indians.