The Continental officers exchanged courtesies with the Spanish
commandants of the Creole villages on the west bank of the Mississippi,
but kept a sharp eye on them, as these commandants endeavored to
persuade all the French inhabitants to move west of the river by
offering them free grants of land. [Footnote: Hamtranck to Harmar,
October 13, 1788.]
The Real Founders of the Northwest.
But all these matters were really of small consequence. The woes of the
Creoles, the trials of the American squatters, the friction between the
regular officers and the backwoodsmen, the jealousy felt by both for the
Spaniards--all these were of little real moment at this period of the
history of the Northwest. The vital point in its history was the passage
by Congress of the Ordinance of 1787, and the doings of the various land
companies under and in consequence of this ordinance.
Individualism in the Southwest, Collectivism in the Northwest
The wide gap between the ways in which the Northwest and the Southwest
were settled is made plain by such a statement. In the Northwest, it was
the action of Congress, the action of the representatives of the nation
acting as a whole, which was all-important.
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