150 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



here were bidden take up their abode for the future. 

 Within a short space they had built for themselves a new 

 meeting-house and some sixty block-houses. Their 

 new dwelling-place was 100 miles from their former 

 settlements and a like distance from Detroit. The 

 chiefs and a few of the most regarded of the Indian 

 Brethren were summoned to Detroit by the English 

 Governor (Major Arent Schuyler de Peyster) who at 

 once set aside the charges brought against them and 

 told them that they were to remain at that place only 

 during the winter and, come spring, might go and 

 plant anywhere in the country they wished, but nearer 

 Pittsburg they could not go. As it turned out, this 

 forcible removal of the Moravian Indians from their 

 villages was undertaken with the consent of the Gov- 

 ernor at Detroit and was brought about in the first 

 instance through motives of philanthropy. This was 

 the reason why the destruction which menaced the 

 whole of these Indian communities befel only a part 

 of them. There were good reasons to fear that these 

 harmless Indians, delaying on the Muskingum after 

 their refusal to transfer themselves to Pittsburg, would 

 be exposed to great maltreatment at the hands of the 

 frontiersmen of the farther regions of the American 

 states, suspicious of them and embittered. The result 

 confirmed these apprehensions. 



In the spring of 1782 certain of the Moravian In- 

 dians asked permission to go to the Muskingum in 

 order to fetch back some of the grain which at the time 

 of their marching off they had left standing in the 

 fields. On the Sandusky they were in great want of 

 grain and every other necessity of life. Receiving per- 

 mission for the journey, a number of them set out ac- 



