Spread of English-Speaking Peoples 229 



ings, scalp the inmates, and drive off the horses. 12 

 Year by year the exasperation of the borderers grew 

 greater and the tale of the wrongs they had to 

 avenge longer. 13 Occasionally they took a brutal 

 and ill-judged vengeance, which usually fell on in- 

 nocent Indians, 14 and raised up new foes for the 

 whites. The savages grew continually more hos- 

 tile, and in the fall of 1773 their attacks became 

 so frequent that it was evident a general outbreak 

 was at hand; eleven people were murdered in the 

 county of Fincastle alone. 15 The Shawnees were 

 the leaders in all these outrages; but the outlaw 

 bands, such as the Mingos and Cherokees, were as 

 bad, and parties of Wyandots and Delawares, as 

 well as of the various Miami and Wabash tribes, 

 joined them. 



Thus the spring of 1774 opened with everything 

 ripe for an explosion. The Virginian borderers 

 were fearfully exasperated, and ready to take ven- 

 geance upon any Indians, whether peaceful or hos- 

 tile; while the Shawnees and Mingos, on their side> 



12 In the McAfee MSS., as already quoted, there is an 

 account of the Shawnee war party, whom the McAfees en- 

 countered in 1773 returning from a successful horse-stealing 

 expedition. 



13 "Am. Archives," IV, Vol. I, 872. Dunmore in his 

 speech enumerates 19 men, women, and children who had 

 been killed by the Indians in 1771, '72, and '73, and these 

 were but a small fraction of the whole. "This was before a 

 drop of Shawnee blood was shed." 



14 " Trans- Alleghany Pioneers," p. 262, gives an example 

 that happened in 1772. 



15 "Am. Archives," IV, Vol. I. Letter of Col. Wm. 

 Preston, Aug. 13, 1774. 



