would of course put a stop to the Indian hostilities. [Footnote:
Tennessee Hist. Soc. MSS. Andrew Jackson to D. Smith, introducing the
Spanish agent, Captain Fargo, Feb. 13, 1789.]

Fear of Indians Strengthens the Federal Bond.

This dangerous loosening of the Federal tie shows that it would
certainly have given way entirely had the population at this time been
scattered over a wider territory. The obstinate and bloody warfare waged
by the Indians against the frontiersmen was in one way of great service
to the nation, for it kept back the frontier, and forced the settlements
to remain more or less compact and in touch with the country behind
them. If the red men had been as weak as, for instance, the
black-fellows of Australia, the settlers would have roamed hither and
thither without regard to them, and would have settled, each man
wherever he liked, across to the Pacific. Moreover the Indians formed
the bulwarks which defended the British and Spanish possessions from the
adventurers of the border; save for the shield thus offered by the
fighting tribes it would have been impossible to bar the frontiersmen
from the territory either to the north or to the south of the boundaries
of the United States.

Congress had tried hard to bring about peace with the southern Indians,
both by sending commissioners to them and by trying to persuade the
three southern States to enter into mutually beneficial treaties with
them. A successful effort was also made to detach the Chickasaws from
the others, and keep them friendly with the United States. Congress as
usual sympathized with the Indians against the intruding whites,
although it was plain that only by warfare could the red men be
permanently subdued. [Footnote: State Dep. MSS., No. 180, p. 66; No.