Long after the settlement on the Atlantic Coast of the Thirteen Colonies, the territory now included in the State of Ohio was part of a vast unknown region north and west of the Ohio River. It was roamed over by numerous tribes of Indians living in tents of bark or skins, whose residence was generally as transitory as that of the wandering tribes of Arabia. Many of these Indian tribes were composed of a few families under the domination of a chief who went out from his kindred as Abraham did, and planted his tents where fancy led him, and moved at his whim or with his game. Every one of the Indian tribes that had been driven by the white man from the east and the south chose his camping and hunting grounds in the region of the O-hi-o, often driving away a weaker tribe. Their contests with white men had given them some knowledge of fire-arms, and some of them had been marshaled under arms in the wars between the English and the French, but, as a rule, the Indians encountered by our race since the landing at Jamestown were all of the same type of wandering savages. The difference between these tribes can be accounted for by their location, whether on the seashore or in the forest or plain, and by the strength of the tribe, from the powerful Six Nations to the feeble band in possession of some chosen valley. Whatever may be said of the irrepressible conflicts between the white man and the Indians, waged often with savage and relentless cruelties on both sides, it may as truly be said that the same savage conflicts have been carried on between the different tribes of Indians, which often ended by the extermination of the weaker tribe, or the absorption of the feeble remnant with the stronger tribe. This was certainly the case with the Indian tribes of the northwest territory. Ohio was the battleground for destructive warfare between the Indian tribes long before the white man gained a foothold on its soil. In 1755, when the war with France commenced, the English settlements covered the Atlantic Coast, but did not extend across the Alleghany Mountains, though a few hardy pioneers may have wandered into the wilderness beyond. But French missionaries, inspired with religious zeal, had penetrated all the northwest territory, including the great lakes. In 1673 Marquette and Joliet, two of these missionaries, after years spent with the Indians on the shores of the lakes, winning their confidence by humility and care, followed the lines of the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers from the shores of Lake Michigan, and discovered the great river "with a joy that could not be expressed," and floated upon its waters to the mouth of the Arkansas.