Volume II Part 11 (1/2)
”In regard, moreover, to the countless acts of cruelty alleged to have been perpetrated by the savages, it must still be borne in mind that the Indians have had no writer to relate their own side of the story. The annals of man, probably, do not attest a more kindly reception of intruding foreigners than was given to the Pilgrims landing at Plymouth by the faithful Ma.s.sa.s.soit, and the tribes under his jurisdiction. Nor did the forest kings take up arms until they but too clearly saw that either their visitors or themselves must be driven from the soil which was their own--the fee of which was derived from the Great Spirit. And the nation is yet to be discovered that will not fight for their homes, the graves of their fathers, and their family altars. Cruel they were in the prosecution of their contests; but it would require the aggregate of a large number of predatory incursions and isolated burnings to balance the awful scene of conflagration and blood which at once extinguished the power of Sa.s.sacus, and the brave and indomitable Narragansets over whom he reigned. No! until it is forgotten that by some Christians in infant Ma.s.sachusetts it was held to be right to kill Indians, as the agents and familiars of Azazel; until the early records of even tolerant Connecticut, which disclose the fact that the Indians were seized by the Puritans, transported to the British West Indies, and sold as slaves, are lost; until the Amazon and La Plata shall have washed away the b.l.o.o.d.y history of the Spanish American conquest; and until the fact that Cortez stretched the unhappy Guatimozin naked upon a bed of burning coals (or General Sullivan's devastation of the Six Indian Nations) is proved to be a fiction, let not the American Indians be p.r.o.nounced the most cruel of men.”[101]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 91: Dr. Ramsay's History of the United States, Vol. II., Chap.
xix., p. 325.
”About four weeks after Colonel Zebulon Butler's return, some hundreds of Indians, a large body of Tories, and about fifty regulars, entered Cherry Valley, within the State of New York. They made an unsuccessful attempt on Fort Alden; but they killed and scalped thirty-two of the inhabitants, mostly women and children; and also Colonel Alden and ten soldiers.”--_Ib._, p. 325. Then, on the side of the continentals, ”Colonel G. Van Shaick, with fifty-five men, marched from Fort Schuyler to the Onondago settlements, and on the 19th of April, 1779, burnt the whole, consisting of about fifty houses, together with a large quant.i.ty of provisions. Horses and stock of every kind were killed. The arms and ammunition of the Indians were either destroyed or brought off, and their settlements were laid waste. Twelve Indians were killed and thirty-four made prisoners. This expedition was performed in less than six days, and without the loss of a man.”--_Ib._, pp. 326, 327.]
[Footnote 92: Dr. Andrews' History of the Late War, Vol. III., Chap.
xli., pp. 436-439.]
[Footnote 93: Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. X., Chap.
x., pp. 230, 231, 232.
Mr. Bancroft's tame account of ”the great expedition” against the Five Nations, limiting it to a chastis.e.m.e.nt of the Senecas, can only be accounted for from his contempt of General Sullivan, his desire to pa.s.s over as slightly as possible an expedition of destruction so disproportionate to the alleged cause of it, and against a whole rural and agricultural people for the alleged depredations of some of them.
There were, as might be expected, marauding parties along the borders on the part of both the Indians and Americans, but the former always seem to have suffered more, and the latter to have excelled the former in their own traditionary mode of savage warfare.
”Other expeditions,” says Mr. Holmes, ”besides this decisive one were conducted against the Indians in course of the year. In April, Colonel Van Shaick, with fifty-five men, marched from Fort Schuyler, and burnt the whole Onondago settlements, consisting of about fifty houses, with a large quant.i.ty of provisions, killed twelve Indians and made thirty-four prisoners, without the loss of a single man. In the month of August, Colonel Broadhead made a successful expedition against the Mingo, Munsey, and Seneca Indians.” (American Annals, Vol. II., p. 302.)]
[Footnote 94: Mr. Bancroft says that ”the British Rangers and men of the Six Nations (who constructed the defensive breastwork at Newton) _were in all about_ 800.” (History of the United States, Vol. X., Chap. x, p.
232.)
It was certainly no great feat of military courage and skill for 5,000 men, with the aid of artillery, to defeat and disperse 800 Indians and Tories, without artillery, and then ravage and devastate an undefended country.]
[Footnote 95: Hildreth's History of the United States, Vol. III., Chap.
x.x.xix., pp. 287-289.]
[Footnote 96: Dr. Ramsay's History of the United States, Vol. II., Chap.
xix., pp. 327-329.
We will select from the same historian, though the same facts may be found in other histories of the time, a few examples in addition to those already given of the terrible retribution which the Americans inflicted upon the Indians in retaliation for any incursions which they may have made into the white settlements.
”The Cherokee Indians made an incursion into Ninety-Six district, in South Carolina, ma.s.sacred some families and burned several houses.
General Pickens, in 1781, collected a party of the militia, and penetrated into their country. This he accomplished in fourteen days, at the head of 394 hors.e.m.e.n. In that short s.p.a.ce he burned thirteen towns and villages, killed upwards of forty Indians, and took a number of prisoners. Not one of his party was killed, and only two were wounded.
The Americans did not expend over two pounds of ammunition, and yet only three Indians escaped after having been once seen. * *
”Towards the end of the war, in 1782, there was a barbarous and unprovoked ma.s.sacre of some civilized Indians who had settled near the Muskingum. These, under the influence of some pious missionaries of the Moravian persuasion, had been formed into some degree of religious order. They abhorred war, and would take no part therein, giving for a reason that 'the Great Spirit did not make men to destroy men, but to love and a.s.sist each other.' From love of peace they advised those of their own colour, who were bent on war, to desist from it. They were also led from humanity to inform the white people of their danger, when they knew their settlements were about to be invaded. This provoked the hostile (American) Indians to such a degree, that they carried these quite away from Muskingum to a bank of the Sandusky Creek. They, finding corn dear and scarce in their new habitations, obtained liberty to come back in the fall of the same year to Muskingum, that they might collect the crops they had planted before their removal.
”While the white (American) people at and near the Monongahela heard that a number of Indians were at the Moravian towns on the Muskingum, they gave out that their intentions were hostile. Without any further enquiry, 160 of them crossed the Ohio, and put to death these harmless, inoffensive people, though they made no resistance. In conformity to their religious principles, these Moravians submitted to their hard fate, without attempting to destroy their murderers. Upwards of ninety of this pacific race were killed by men who, while they called themselves Christians, were more deserving of the name of savages than those whom they inhumanly murdered.” (Dr. Ramsay's History of the United States, Vol. II., Chap. xix., pp. 330-332.)
Mr. Hildreth gives the following account of the proceedings of the eighty or ninety men who murdered the peaceful Indians: ”Arrived at the middle Moravian village, they found a party of Christian Indians gathering corn. The Indians at another neighbouring village were sent for, and the whole were placed together in two houses. A council was then held to decide upon their fate. Williamson, their Commander, heretofore accused of too great lenity to the Indians, referred the matter to his men. Only sixteen voted for mercy; all the rest, professing a faith common on the frontier, that 'an Indian has no more soul than a buffalo,' were for murder. They rushed on their prey, scalping-knife in hand, and upwards of ninety Indians, men, women, and children, soon lay bleeding and gasping.” (History of the United States, Vol. III., Chap. lxv., p. 423.)
”Soon after this unprovoked ma.s.sacre, a party of Americans set out for Sandusky, to destroy the Indian towns in that part; but the Delawares, Wyandots, and other Indians opposed them. An engagement ensued, in which some of the white people were killed, and several were taken prisoners.
Among the latter were Colonel Crawford and his son-in-law. The colonel was sacrificed to the manes of those Indians who were ma.s.sacred in the Moravian towns. The other prisoners were put to death with the tomahawk.