both the French and Indians.  Harmar never made much effort to conceal dislike of the borderers.  In one letter he alludes to a Delaware chief as “a manly old fellow, and much more of a gentleman than the generality of these frontier people.” [Footnote:  Do., Harmar to the Secretary of War, March 9, 1788.] Naturally, there was little love lost between the bitterly prejudiced old army officer, fixed and rigid in all his ideas, and the equally prejudiced backwoodsmen, whose ways of looking at almost all questions were antipodal to his.

The Creoles of the Illinois and Vincennes sent warm letters of welcome to Harmar.  The American settlers addressed him in an equally respectful but very different tone, for, they said, their hearts were filled with “anxiety, gloominess, and dismay.”  They explained the alarm they felt at the report that they were to be driven out of the country, and protested—­what was doubtless true—­that they had settled on the land in entire good faith, and with the assent of the French inhabitants.  The latter themselves bore testimony to the good faith, and good behavior of many of the settlers, and petitioned that these should not be molested, [Footnote:  Do., Address of American Inhabitants of Vincennes, August 4, 1787; Recommendation by French Inhabitants in Favor of American Inhabitants, August 2d; Letter of Le Chamy and others, Kaskaskia, August 25th; Letter of J. M. P. Le Gras, June 25th.] explaining that the French had been benefited by their industry, and had preserved a peaceable and friendly intercourse with them.  In the end, while the French villagers were left undisturbed in their ancient privileges, and while they were granted or were confirmed in the possession of the land immediately around them, the Americans and the French who chose to go outside the village grants were given merely the rights of other settlers.

The Continental officers exchanged courtesies with the Spanish commandants of the Creole villages on the west bank of the Mississippi, but kept a sharp eye on them, as these commandants endeavored to persuade all the French inhabitants to move west of the river by offering them free grants of land. [Footnote:  Hamtranck to Harmar, October 13, 1788.]

    The Real Founders of the Northwest.

But all these matters were really of small consequence.  The woes of the Creoles, the trials of the American squatters, the friction between the regular officers and the backwoodsmen, the jealousy felt by both for the Spaniards—­all these were of little real moment at this period of the history of the Northwest.  The vital point in its history was the passage by Congress of the Ordinance of 1787, and the doings of the various land companies under and in consequence of this ordinance.

    Individualism in the Southwest, Collectivism in the Northwest