eparated by hundreds of miles, were to be found. Detroit,
Michillimacinac, Vincennes, Kaskaskia and a few minor trading points,
told the whole tale. Kentucky could boast of a few thousands,
maintaining themselves by dauntless courage and nerves of steel against
British and Indians, but all north of the Ohio was practically an
unbroken wilderness, inhabited by the fiercest bands of savages then in
existence, with the possible exception of the Iroquois.

Over this territory, and to gain control of these tribes, England and
France had waged a long and bitter conflict, and the gage of battle had
been the monopoly of the fur trade. The welfare of the savages was
regarded but little; they were the pawns in the game. The great end to
be acquired was the disposal of their rich peltries. No country was more
easily accessible to the early voyageurs and French fur traders. It was
bounded on the north and northeast by the chain of the Great Lakes, on
the south by the Ohio, and on the west by the Mississippi. The heads of
the rivers and streams that flowed into these great watercourses and
lakes were connected by short portages, so that the Indian trapper or
hunter could carry his canoe for a few miles and pass from the waters
that led to Lake Michigan or Lake Erie, into the streams that fed the
Mississippi or the Ohio. The headwaters of the Muskingum and its
tributaries interlocked with those of the Cuyahoga; the headwaters of
the Scioto with those of the Sandusky; the headwaters of the Great Miami
with those of the Wabash and the St. Marys. In northern Indiana another
remarkable system of portages appeared. The canoes of the traders were
carried some eight or ten miles from the little Wabash to the Maumee,
placing the command of the whole Wabash country in the hands of the
Detroit merchants. The sources of the Tippecanoe were connected by
portages with the waters of the St. Joseph of Lake Michigan, and a like
connection existed between the waters of the Tippecanoe and the waters
of the Kankakee. These portages were, as General Harrison observes,
"much used by the Indians and sometimes by traders." LaSalle passed from
Lake Michigan to the waters of the St. Joseph, thence up that river to a
portage of three miles in what is now St. Joseph county, Indiana, thence
by said portage to the headwaters of the Kankakee, and down that river
to the Illinois. At the post of Chicago the traders crossed from Lake
Michigan by a very short portage