rought about that
problem; and it was only the slave-holders and the slave-traders who
were guilty on this last count. The worst foes, not only of humanity and
civilization, but especially of the white race in America, were those
white men who brought slaves from Africa, and who fostered the spread of
slavery in the States and territories of the American Republic.

CHAPTER II.

THE INDIAN WARS, 1784-1787.

Lull in the Border War.

After the close of the Revolution there was a short, uneasy lull in the
eternal border warfare between the white men and the red. The Indians
were for the moment daunted by a peace which left them without allies;
and the feeble Federal Government attempted for the first time to aid
and control the West by making treaties with the most powerful frontier
tribes. Congress raised a tiny regular army, and several companies were
sent to the upper Ohio to garrison two or three small forts which were
built upon its banks. Commissioners (one of whom was Clark himself) were
appointed to treat with both the northern and southern Indians. Councils
were held in various places. In 1785 and early in 1786 utterly fruitless
treaties were concluded with Shawnees, Wyandots, and Delawares at one or
other of the little forts. [Footnote: State Department MSS., No. 56, p.
333, Letter of G. Clark, Nov. 10, 1785; p. 337, Letter of G. Clark to R.
Butler, etc.; No. 16, p. 293; No. 32, p. 39.]

Treaty of Hopewell.

About the same time, in the late fall of 1785, another treaty somewhat
more noteworthy, but equally fruitless, was concluded with the Cherokees
at Hopewell, on Keowee, in South Carolina. In this treaty the
Commissioners promised altogether too much. They paid little heed to the
rights and needs of the settlers. Neither did they keep in mind the
powerlessness of the Federal Government to enforce against these
settlers what their treaty promised the Indians. The pioneers along the
upper Tennessee and the Cumberland had made various arrangements with
bands of the Cherokees, sometimes acting on their own initiative, and
sometimes on behalf of the State of North Carolina. Many of these
different agreements were entered into by the whites with honesty and
good faith, but were violated at will by the Indians. Others were
violated by the whites, or were repudiated by the Indians as well,
because of some real or fancied unfairness in the making. Under them
large quantities of land had been sold or