INDIAN SQUAWS. 223 



white adherents, both among the British and the French. 

 Many of these " coureurs des bois, " as they were called 

 among the latter, were to all intents and purposes, Indians. 

 In a recent work, compiled from the most authentic 

 sources, the following passage occurs respecting white 

 captives made during the French regime in Canada: 

 "It was supposed for a long while," says one of the officers 

 of the colony, "that to civilize the savages it was necessary 

 to bring them in contact with the French. We have every 

 reason to recognise the fact that we were mistaken. Those 

 who have come in contact with us, have not become French ; 

 while the French who frequent the wilds have become 

 savages." * 



Exactly as in the British cases already noticed, when 

 demands for the surrender of captives were able to be 

 enforced, the French found that " prisoners held by the 

 Indians often concealed themselves rather than return 

 to civilized life, when their surrender was provided for 

 by a treaty of peace." f 



It is therefore clear that in their home life the 

 Indians were not so barbarous as has been generally 

 believed. Many whites who had married among them 

 were sincerely attached to their red wives and half- 

 breed families. Then again there are innumerable in- 

 stances of devotion shown by Indian women to their 

 white lovers ; in many cases they have faced the bitter 

 enmity of their own people for their fidelity to the 

 interests of their pale-faced partners, and in some instances 

 even death itself, rather than betray -those they loved. 

 A few of these Indian girls, chosen from the different 

 neighbouring tribes living about a fort or frontier 



* Narrative and Critical History of America, by Justin Winsor, 

 Librarian of the Harvard University, 1889, Vol. v, p. 4. 

 j Ibid., Vol. v, p. 4. 



