152 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



custom of the Indians to take with them children and 

 women when they are on the war path. When sur- 

 prised they were busy making sugar (from maple 

 sap) and gathering their spoiled corn. As Christian 

 Indians they gave themselves up to their supposed 

 friends, and they told them that a small store of wine 

 which was found among them was their communion 

 wine. They manifested the greatest pleasure when the 

 white Christians explained to them in reassurance that 

 for the safety of both parties they had come to take 

 them to Pittsburg. But after Williamson and his 

 party had further advised together what should in fact 

 be done with these peaceable, unarmed captives, men, 

 women, and children, the unanimous conclusion of the 

 white American Christians was that on the following 

 day without any exception they should all be put to 

 death. And immediately this judgment was an- 

 nounced to the captives, with the addition that since 

 they were Christian Indians they might in a Christian 

 manner prepare themselves, for on the morrow they 

 must die. This sudden message of death prostrated 

 them indeed but they went about patiently and spent 

 the night singing and praying. The next morning 

 they were taken to two houses chosen for the purpose, 

 (and still expressively called the slaughter-houses), 

 led bound two and two, first the men and then the 

 women and children, and without mercy were mur- 

 dered in cold blood and scalped. They met death with 

 extraordinary patience and resignation. After this 

 blood drenching, begun by Williamson, the two houses 

 were filled with the bodies of the slain, and the whole 

 was set on fire and destroyed. Their horses, blankets, 

 and other possessions, which they were allowed before- 



