The History of North America (Volume 8) - new book

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II THE WEST Iff THE REVOLUTION The men of the western settlements were a liberty-lovsng people, and many of them had crossed the mountains that they might obtain greater freedom. They considered themselves capable of self-government, and their isolation did not prevent them from feeling a keen interest in the struggle of their fellow countrymen. The tax on tea did not concern them very much, because tea, other than the homemade article, was a rare luxury in the western clearings; but they felt the selfish and oppressive policy of the British government more keenly, if possible, than did their eastern neighbors. The Quebec Act of 1774, by which the boundaries of Quebec were extended to Mississippi River on the west and the Ohio on the south, was looked upon as an oppressive measure, because one of its objects was to deter the settlement of this part of the country. The terms of the act were such that the government of the Ohio country might, without question, be arbitrary, and it promised to be more favorable to Catholics than to Protestants. It was also believed that under the Quebec Act the settler going into this section,?out of which five great States grew later,?would find himself under a far worse government than that of the eastern colonies. The great majority of the western men, therefore, threw themselves heartily into the Revolution, on the American side. There were a few Tories among them, some perhaps favoring the king from conviction, but mostof them because they felt that in antagonism to the majority was to be found greater opportunity for plunder. These conscienceless Tories were the desperadoes and outlaws from the seaboard settlements, who had fled beyond the mountains and lived as outlaws or joined the Indians. Neither the British nor the Continenta...