THE FALL OF NEW FRANCE 1t7 
sions than “ King Philip’s War,” though the suffering 
and terror it inflicted were confined to what then 
seemed a distant, frontier. The time had gone by 
when the English colonies could suppose, even in a 
momentary fit of wild despondency, that their exist- 
ence was seriously threatened. The scene of Pontiac’s 
war, compared with Philip’s, marks the progress of the 
white men, and shows how far.the exposed frontier 
had been thrown westward. After the conquest of 
Canada the Indian disappears forever from the history 
of New England, and except in the remote forests of 
northern Maine hardly a vestige of his presence has 
been left there. The tribes which Pontiac aroused to 
bloodshed were the Algonquin tribes of the Upper 
Lakes, and of the Mississippi and Ohio valleys, with 
some of the Mobilians and the remnant of the Hurons; 
and out of the Iroquois league his crafty eloquence pre- 
vailed upon the most numerous tribe, the Senecas, who 
were less completely under English influence than their 
brethren east of the Genesee. 
The peace of 1763 between France and England had 
been signed but three short months when this new war 
unexpectedly broke out. Two years of savage butchery 
ensued, in the course of which nearly all the forest 
garrisons in the West were overcome and massa- 
cred, though the stronger places, such as Detroit 
and Fort Pitt, succeeded with some difficulty in 
holding out. The wild frontier of Pennsylvania 
became the scene of atrocities which beggar de- 
scription. Night after night the forest clearings 
were made hideous with the glare of blazing log 
cabins and the screams of murdered women and 
children. The traveller through the depths of the 
