These few villages or trading-posts, which were defended by forts, were
scattered here and there at convenient places along the river courses, the
three strongest forts being at Vincennes, on the Wabash, at Kaskaskia, and
at Detroit.
Over all the rest of the wild territory roamed hostile Indian tribes,
hunting and fighting against one another as well as against the
frontiersmen.
Clark saw that if this region should be conquered the spreading prairies
could be opened up for settlement.
As the first step in carrying out his plan, he needed to secure aid from
Patrick Henry, the governor of Virginia. Early in October, 1777, he
started out on horseback from Harrodsburg, one of the Kentucky
settlements, to ride through the forests and over the mountains to
Williamsburg, then the capital of the State. So urgent was his haste that
he stopped on the way but a single day at his father's house, the home of
his childhood, and then pressed on to Williamsburg. It took a whole month
to make this journey of six hundred and twenty miles.
Patrick Henry at once fell in with Clark's plan. He arranged that the
government should furnish six thousand dollars. But as it was needful that
the utmost secrecy should be preserved, nothing was said about the matter
to the Virginia Assembly.
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