282 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



Their wars are fierce and barbarous ; and on this 

 ground, among others, it is sought on the one hand to 

 excuse the general bitterness against them, on the 

 other to disseminate and maintain it, the true reason 

 being only envy and greed of the lands still in their 

 possession. Their unmanly and dastardly way of mak- 

 ing war is fulminated against in America, but as 

 against European foes, (as is well enough known from 

 the history of the last war), every Indian device was 

 allowed and made use of. It is called inhuman if the 

 Indians, without discrimination, murder the able-bodied 

 man, his wife, innocent children and still more inno- 

 cent cattle ; but a similar vengeance is practiced against 

 the families of Indians ; their dwellings are burned and 

 their lands devastated ; so that by Christian example 

 the horrors of their wars are justified. All the faith- 

 lessness, cunning, deception and treachery, suspicion 

 and ardor of vengeance which are pictured in high 

 colors as the marks of the Indian character, will cer- 

 tainly appear in milder light to every unprejudiced 

 person if there is taken into the account all the 

 wrong which they on their side have suffered, all the 

 blood which has been shed among them, all that liberty 

 and ease which they have lost through the European 

 colonists, all the territory from which they have been 

 driven, and the consuming maladies which have been 

 introduced among them. They hold carefully the re- 

 membrance of all the oppressions and deception, of all 

 the numberless instances of trickery practiced against 

 them and blood shed by the Europeans among them, 

 treasuring it up as a warning for their descendants 

 who may thereby demand vengeance for past en- 

 croachments and be on their guard against future. 



