Ohio History Journal

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CLARK'S CONQUEST OF THE NORTHWEST

CLARK'S CONQUEST OF THE NORTHWEST.

 

BY E. O. RANDALL.

The French were the first to discover and explore the Ohio

and Mississippi Valleys. While the English were establishing

colonial settlements between the Alle-

ghany mountains and the Atlantic

coast, the French adventurers were

locating missionary stations, military

posts and trading centers on the Great

Lakes and the river ways of the North-

west. Such lodging places in the

western wilderness were Detroit, Vin-

cennes, Kaskaskia, Cahokia and others.

The English colonies in the east were

permanent and    progressive.  The

French lodgments in the west were

thriftless and deteriorative. The Eng-

lish race thrives in colonization. The

French stock is not adapted to trans-

plantation. By the middle of the

eighteenth century the English popu-

lation in the New England colonies

was a million and two hundred thousand, while the French in-

habitants of New    France numbered but eighy thousand.        For

a century and a half these rival races, the Latin and the Teuton,

had contended for the American possessions. That rivalry cul-

The material for this article was found mainly in "Clark's Letter

to Mason;" "Joseph Bowman's Journal;" "Clark's Memoir;" and the un-

published manuscript of "Clark's Illinois Campaign," written by Consul

Wilshire Butterfield. The writer has also freely availed himself of "The

Conquest of the Northwest" by William H. English, and "The Winning

of the West," by Theodore Roosevelt. The Butterfield manuscript is a

most valuable and accurate account of the Illinois Campaign. It is now

the property of the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society,

which expects to publish the same at no distant day.-E. O. R.

67