316 THE GREAT NORTH-WEST 



Apart from traditions, which may or may not be 

 erroneous, it is certain that there Avere CathoUc Missions 

 in this neighbourhood at a very early period in the 

 history of the country, and that many murders of priests 

 and converts took place, sometimes by hostile Indians, 

 who seem to have been instigated to commit the crimes 

 by whites, and sometimes by the Europeans themselves. 

 All through the northern countries bordermg the Great 

 Lakes and alons: the Canadian frontier, the loss of life 

 among the early w^hite settlers was simply appallmg, 

 amounting in Maine, it is on record, to five or six per 

 cent, of the total population. Often when no Indians 

 were thought to be near, and the settlers were quietly 

 going, unarmed, about their business, villages and 

 isolated settlements were suddenly attacked, and every 

 soul, man, woman, and child, butchered and scalped. 

 Occasionally women were made prisoners of, but as a 

 rule the Red Men seem to have had little inclination 

 for the society of European women. There are but very 

 few instances of their having been kept for squaws or 

 wives; there are even fewer instances of children being 

 taken into captivity. Men were sometimes taken away to 

 be afterw^ards put to death with exquisite torture, but the 

 rule was to slay all at the moment of attack. 



That the Red Man when on the war-path is a brutal 

 savage is a fact that cannot be gainsaid, but I have my 

 own opinion about the amount of provocation he received. 

 I have not been able to discover that he ever commenced 

 hostilities without provocation, though there is no doubt 

 that his reprisals were often visited on innocent victims. 

 I am sorry to add that there is also no doubt his attacks 

 were often instigated by both French and English, one 

 against the other. On the whole, the French got on 

 much better with the Red Man than any other Em'opean 

 settlers. This seems to have been the result of careful 

 policy ; and it is also most certam that those founders of 

 English settlements who behaved justly to the Indians 



