In proportion as the colonies of America, now the United
States, pushed their course of civilisation westward, in
the same degree did the numerous tribes of Indians, who
had hitherto dwelt more seaward, retire upon those of
their own countrymen, who, buried in vast and impenetrable
forests, had seldom yet seen the face of the European
stranger; so that, in the end, all the more central parts
of those stupendous wilds became doubly peopled. Hitherto,
however, that civilisation had not been carried beyond
the state of New York; and all those countries which
have, since the American revolution, been added to the
Union under the names of Kentucky, Ohio, Missouri,
Michigan, &c., were, at the period embraced by our story,
inhospitable and unproductive woods, subject only to the
dominion of the native, and as yet unshorn by the axe of
the cultivator. A few portions only of the opposite shores
of Michigan were occupied by emigrants from the Canadas,
who, finding no one to oppose or molest them, selected
the most fertile spots along the banks of the river; and
of the existence of these infant settlements, the English
colonists, who had never ventured so far, were not even
aware until after the conquest of Canada by the mother-
country. This particular district was the centre around
which the numerous warriors, who had been driven westward
by the colonists, had finally assembled; and rude villages
and encampments rose far and near for a circuit of many
miles around this infant settlement and fort of the
Canadians, to both of which they had given the name of
Detroit, after the river on whose elevated banks they
stood. Proceeding westward from this point, and along