of peace they were filled with voyageurs and traders, explorers and missionaries, passing to and fro. Trading houses, forts, chapels, villages, cities grew up here. They were often the boundaries of empire, at least when the white man dictated the boundary. Indians were not accustomed to employ rivers as boundary lines, and, as we turn the pages of history, it is the sign of a significant innovation when Indians are found agreeing to rivers as boundary lines—a trifle, which, nevertheless, shows new influence gaining over the land. The great old-time significance of portages is nowhere shown more effectively than in the passage of the great Ordinance of 1787, which reads:
"The navigable waters leading into the Mississippi and St. Lawrence, and the carrying places between the same, shall be common highways, and forever free, as well to the inhabitants of the said territory as to the citizens of the United States, and those of any other states that may be admitted into the confederacy, without any tax, impost, or duty therefore."[1]
- ↑ Ordinance of 1787, Article iv.
