Not theirs the desire to save natives from perdition; rather to annihilate them speedily as useless relics of a bygone time.
They are savages among savages; quite as interesting and delightful in their way as the older occupants of the soil.

It became in reality the conflict of the old and the new, and then was set the standard by which the native tribes have ever since been measured and dealt with.
The inevitable was simply coming to pass: one more act in the world-play of continental subjugation to the European.

The United States, born in privation and blood, were growing into a nation eager for expansion, and by 1815 they had already ventured beyond the Mississippi, having purchased from France all territory north of Red River, the Arkansas, and the 42nd parallel, as far as the unsettled British boundary and the disputed region of Oregon.

Naturally, then, Americans wanted to know what was to be found in this vast tract unknown to them, and when a few bold spirits pushed out to the great mountains it was discovered that fur-bearing animals existed in multitude.

In the trapping of these and the trading in their pelts a huge industry sprang up.