Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 7).djvu/75

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EVOLUTION OF PORTAGES
71

of opinion, that this route ought to be totally abandoned, and that adopted, as the most economical, sure, and certain mode of supplying those important posts, at Grand Glaize and the Miami villages, and to facilitate an effective operation towards the Detroit and Sandusky, should that measure eventually be found necessary; add to this, that it would afford a much better chain for the general protection of the frontiers, which, with a block house at the landing place, on the Wabash, eight miles southwest of the post at the Miami villages, [southern end of the Maumee–Wabash portage path on Little River] would give us possession of all the portages between the heads of the navigable waters of the Gulfs of Mexico and St. Lawrence, and serve as a barrier between the different tribes of Indians. . ."[1] In the treaty of Greenville, signed by the confederated nations and the United States authorities, the reserved tracts indicate the line of policy previously suggested by General Wayne, and the following section emphasizes the strategic meaning of the portages of the

  1. Id., pp. 526–527.