Part 8 (1/2)
=108. The Indian Attack on Deerfield in the Ma.s.sachusetts Colony.=--One bitter cold night in February, 1704, the French and Indians attacked the town of Deerfield in the western part of Ma.s.sachusetts. For this purpose they had walked all the way from Canada on snowshoes. The people had been warned of their danger, but the watchmen fell asleep, and the villagers were awakened by the war-whoop of their savage foes. About fifty men, women, and children were killed, and nearly a hundred half-clad captives were marched off through the deep snows. Those who could not keep up were killed with the tomahawk.
The minister of the village, Rev. John Williams, his wife and six children, were among those captured and carried to Canada. The wife lagged behind and was killed. Strange to say, however, the minister and all his children, though they suffered all manner of hards.h.i.+ps, and were sold as captives, after a time reached home in safety. The good man lived to write an account of his adventures.
One little girl seven years old was treated kindly by her captors and was brought up as one of their tribe. She married an Indian chief and long afterwards visited her people in Deerfield. She wore the Indian dress and had come to love the wild life. Her former friends and neighbors begged her to stay with them, but ”she returned to the fires of her own wigwam, and to the love of her Mohawk children.”
=109. Hannah Dustin's Famous Adventure with the Indians.=--The story of Hannah Dustin, of Haverhill, Ma.s.s., has often been told. One day in 1697 the Indians attacked the village. Mr. Dustin saved all his family except his wife and her nurse, who were captured. They marched these women and an English boy many long days to their camp on an island far up the Merrimac River. As Mrs. Dustin's babe prevented her keeping up well on the journey, an Indian cruelly killed it.
The boy, who understood the Indian language, heard the savages tell of the horrible tortures they intended to inflict upon their captives. When Mrs. Dustin heard of this she laid her plans. She made the lad slyly learn from the Indians how to swing a tomahawk and where to strike.
One night, when the savages lay around the camp-fire sound asleep, the three captives arose softly, each killed with one blow the Indian nearest, then three more, and so on till ten were finished. One young boy and one squaw escaped. It was an awful thing for Mrs. Dustin to do, but the memory of her murdered child made her brave and strong. They seized an Indian canoe, and the three paddled swiftly down the river, and half dead with hunger and fatigue reached home. Their friends could hardly believe their eyes. The heroic woman brought home ten Indian scalps as proof of what she had done.
=110. How the Colonial Boys learned to shoot.=--We can now well understand that the settlement of a new country amid hostile Indians demanded from our colonial fathers eternal vigilance, and developed in them remarkable skill with firearms.
Even the colonial boy, we are told, as soon as he was big enough to level a musket, was given powder and ball to shoot squirrels. After a little practice he was required to bring in as many squirrels as he was given charges for the gun, under penalty of a severe lecture, or even of having his ”jacket tanned”!
At the age of twelve the boy became a block-house soldier, with a loophole a.s.signed him from which to shoot when the settlement was attacked by the Indians.
Growing older, he became a hunter of deer, bears, and other wild animals, and had at any moment, day or night, to be in readiness to pit his life against those of hostile Indians.
=111. Capture of Louisburg.=--During the third French and Indian war, which began when George Was.h.i.+ngton was a boy of fourteen and which lasted four years, the New England colonists determined to strike a hard blow against France. They fitted out an army of about four thousand fishermen and farmers, put their expedition under the command of General William Pepperell, and sailed from Boston to capture Louisburg on the island of Cape Breton.
With its walls of masonry thirty feet high this was the strongest fortress on the continent except Quebec, and was known as the ”Gibraltar of America.” It commanded the entrance to the Gulf and the mouth of the St. Lawrence. With the aid of a British fleet the colonists laid siege to the great fortress.
After a lively contest of about six weeks, Louisburg was taken (1745).
The colonial army returned to Boston and was received with shouts of joy. But at the close of the war Louisburg was restored to the French.
Great was the wrath of the colonists, who spoke of the day of surrender as ”a black day, to be forever blotted out of New England calendars.”
=112. The Struggle beyond the Alleghanies.=--For a long time the Alleghany Mountains served as a natural boundary between the English settlements in the East and the French trading-posts and forts in the West.
Meanwhile the English settlers were steadily pus.h.i.+ng westward over the mountains and beginning to trade with the Indians on the other side. The French merchants often met their hated rivals in the woods and quarreled with them. From the first, England claimed all this country as her own, and looked upon the building of French forts as an invasion of her territory. The French stirred up the Indians to drive the English away, and would not even allow them to make so much as a survey of land in the rich Ohio valley.
=113. Young George Was.h.i.+ngton selected for an Arduous Undertaking.=--This action of the French aroused the wrath of the prosperous Virginia colony and of its energetic governor. He decided to send a letter to the French commander warning him to leave the country. Governor Dinwiddie selected for this task a land surveyor only twenty-one years of age. His name was George Was.h.i.+ngton. He was even then known for his courage, his sound judgment, and his knowledge of the Indians.
It was a journey of more than a thousand miles there and back, through an unbroken wilderness. With seven companions young Was.h.i.+ngton set out on his perilous trip in the fall of 1753. They climbed mountains, swam streams, and threaded their way through mountain ravines, following Indian trails which no white man had ever seen before.
After many hards.h.i.+ps they reached the French posts. The French commander read the letter that Was.h.i.+ngton had brought from the governor of Virginia. He replied that he was there by command of his superior officers, and that he meant to drive every Englishman out of the Ohio valley! There was nothing for Was.h.i.+ngton to do but to start for home.
Winter had now set in and it was soon severely cold. The homeward journey became a serious matter. The pack-horses gave out. The brave young leader and his guide pressed ahead on foot. Often as they lay down at night their wet clothing froze fast upon them. They secured an Indian as a guide, but he proved a scamp. One evening at dusk he raised his gun and fired at Was.h.i.+ngton, but missed his aim. The guide seized the savage, flung him to the ground, and would have killed him, but Was.h.i.+ngton spared his life. After many hards.h.i.+ps and dangers the two men reached home in safety.
=114. The Beginning of the Final Struggle.=--The final struggle was now impending between England and France to determine which should control America. The contest began in earnest in Virginia. Was.h.i.+ngton had taken advantage of his perilous errand to the French commander to select a place for an English fort. It was at the point where the Alleghany and Monongahela rivers unite to form the Ohio. This is the spot where the city of Pittsburgh now stands. It was the main entrance to the valley of the Ohio. For many years it was called the ”Gateway of the West.” The English built a fort on this spot, but the French easily captured it and held it under the name of Fort Du Quesne.
=115. Braddock's Ill-Fated Expedition.=--Affairs now became so serious that General Braddock was sent out from England with two regiments of regulars. Early in the year 1755 he began his march through the Virginia forests to recapture the French stronghold. He selected Was.h.i.+ngton as a member of his staff. ”I want you,” said the British general, ”to take your Virginia riflemen and go with me and my veterans to drive the French from Ohio.” Was.h.i.+ngton consented. He joined Braddock's army with three companies of Virginia riflemen.
[Ill.u.s.tration: WAs.h.i.+NGTON ATTEMPTING TO RALLY BRADDOCK'S REGULARS.]
The English general and his regulars were brave, but they knew nothing about fighting Indians. Never did an army seem better prepared. They felt sure of victory. Soon they plunged into the forest. There were no roads there. After a hard march of four weeks they came within a few miles of the French fort. Was.h.i.+ngton warned the proud British general of his peril. ”The Indians,” said he, ”may attack us in yonder deep pa.s.s. Let me go ahead with my riflemen and skirmish for the savages.”
Braddock was an old soldier, and he thought he knew more than his young staff-officer who had learned from experience how to fight Indians. The general laughed at the well-meant advice. Next day, as they were marching through a deep ravine, suddenly came the yells of savages and the crack of rifles. The British veterans were eager to fight, but they could see no foe. The men were shot down like sheep.