While these first rough explorations of the far West were taking place, the old West was steadily filling with population and becoming more and more a coherent portion of the Union.  In the treaties made from time to time with the Northwestern Indians, they ceded so much land that at last the entire northern bank of the Ohio was in the hands of the settlers.  But the Indians still held Northwestern Ohio and the northern portions of what are now Indiana and Illinois, so that the settlement at Detroit was quite isolated; as were the few little stockades, or groups of fur-traders’ huts, in what are now northern Illinois and Wisconsin.  The Southern Indians also surrendered much territory, in various treaties.  Georgia got control of much of the Indian land within her State limits.  All the country between Knoxville and Nashville became part of Tennessee, so that the eastern and middle portions of the State were no longer sundered by a jutting fragment of wilderness, infested by Indian war parties whenever there were hostilities with the savages.  The only Indian lands in Tennessee or Kentucky were those held by the Chickasaws, between the Tennessee and the Mississippi; and the Chickasaws were friendly to the Americans.

    Power of the West.

Year by year the West grew better able to defend itself if attacked, and more formidable in the event of its being necessary to undertake offensive warfare.  Kentucky and Tennessee had become populous States, no longer fearing Indian inroads; but able on the contrary to equip powerful armies for the aid of the settlers in the more scantily peopled regions north and south of them.  Ohio was also growing steadily; and in the territory of Indiana, including what is now Illinois, and the territory of Mississippi, including what is now northern Alabama, there were already many settlers.

    Dangers Threatening the West.

Nevertheless the shadow of desperate war hung over the West.  Neither the northern nor the southern Indians were yet subdued; sullen and angry they watched the growth of the whites, alert to seize a favorable moment to make one last appeal to arms before surrendering their hunting grounds.  Moreover in New Orleans and Detroit the Westerners possessed two outposts which it would be difficult to retain in the event of war with England, the only European nation that had power seriously to injure them.  These two outposts were sundered from the rest of the settled Western territory by vast regions tenanted only by warlike Indian tribes.  Detroit was most in danger from the Indians, the British being powerless against it unless in alliance with the formidable tribes that had so long battled against American supremacy.  Their superb navy gave the British the power to attack New Orleans at will.  The Westerners could rally to the aid of New Orleans much more easily than to the aid of Detroit; for the Mississippi offered a sure channel of communication, and New Orleans, unlike Detroit, possessed some capacity for self-defence; whereas the difficulties of transit through the Indian-haunted wilderness south of the Great Lakes were certain to cause endless dangers and delays if it became necessary for the Westerners either to reinforce or to recapture the little city which commanded the straits between Huron and Erie.