From the close of the French and Indian war until 1779 the country northwest of the Ohio river was under British rule, the occupancy by that nation consisting of small military forces planted at Detroit, Vincennes, Kaskaskia and two or three other points along the Mississippi river. The invasion of this region and its conquest by George Rogers Clark makes one of the heroic and romantic chapters of American history. But for such a leader in the right place at the right tine there is little doubt that the vast territory in question, now comprising the five great States of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin, would not have been ceded at the treaty of Paris, following the revolutionary war. England wished to retain it as a "buffer" territory to separate her Canada possessions from those of the United States. In deciding the question, it was a case where "possession was nine points of the law." and we had possession.

When the American colonies were fighting desperately for independence and a national future, Kentucky, a province of Virginia, was the extreme western frontier. Between it and Canada, where the English were firmly entrenched, stretched the territory in question, a harboring place for savage allies of the enemy who repeatedly threatened and terrorized the Kentucky settlements.