During Tecumseh's childhood the Indians north of the Ohio were in a state of unrest. They had been subdued by Bouquet, [footnote: See _The War Chief of the Ottawas_ in this Series.] but the leniency of that humane leader, in merely exacting that they should return their white prisoners and remain at peace, was looked on by the tribes as a mark of weakness; and, while no open war broke out, young warriors occasionally attacked traders and settlers. By the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, in 1768, the Six Nations had ceded to the whites the land between the Ohio and the Tennessee. But this was the common hunting-ground of all the tribes, and the Indians both south and north of the Ohio resented the action of the Six Nations and opposed the entrance of white settlers into this region. They were encouraged in their opposition by the action of the British government in proclaiming the territory west of the Alleghanies Indian country and forbidding settlers to enter it. But the hardy Virginians could not be kept out, and slowly but surely ever westward the smoke of their woodland huts ascended, and the forests of what are now Kentucky and Tennessee were falling beneath the axe of the frontiersmen. Resentful of the encroachments of the Virginians on their hunting-grounds, frequent war-parties of Shawnees, Delawares, Mohicans, Cherokees, and Mingoes crossed the Ohio and crept stealthily on some unguarded settlement, to slay and scalp the inhabitants and carry off their horses and cattle. The chiefs disclaimed responsibility for these raids, but in words which made the settlers in a sense responsible for them. It was we [they said] who so kindly received Europeans on their first arrival into our own country. We took them by the hand and bade them welcome, to sit down by our side and live with us as brothers; but how did they requite our kindness? They at first asked only for a little land on which to raise bread for their families and pasture their cattle, which we freely gave them. They saw the game in the woods which the Great Spirit had given us for our subsistence, and they wanted it too. They penetrated into the woods in quest of game, they discovered spots of land which they also wanted, and because we were loath to part with it, as we saw they already had more than they had need of, they took it from us by force and drove us to a great distance from our homes.