Before, during, and after the American Revolution, colonists pushed the western boundaries of the settlement frontier. In the process, they provoked numerous conflicts with native tribes and made land speculation one of the chief pursuits of enterprising, adventurous and, sometimes, unscrupulous men.
George Washington's career as a surveyor was a natural extension of his own land speculations. Benjamin Franklin spent a great deal of his time in London promoting land deals to the crown. Robert Morris, the financial whiz who managed Congressional accounts during the Revolutionary War, died in poverty because his own post-war land speculations lacked the genius of his governmental accounting.
