Logan was never tempted by friend or foe to touch the fire-water to his lips, till after wrongs kindled revenge in his soul. [[241]]
He adopted few of the customs, and rejected all the vices of civilization. This dignity and politeness were Indian characteristics, and are found universally among his people.
But in an evil day the enemy found his way to the peaceful cabin in the forest, and darkness shrouded all the remainder of the good man’s life.
Had Logan remained farther north, and preserved his identity with the Six Nations, he would probably have been spared the woes which fell so thickly upon him. The Iroquois were still formidable, and neither armies nor individuals ventured to insult them without provocation. If it had been known that he was a Sachem, and one of the chief men of his tribe, he would have been left unmolested. But the sin would have been as great of desolating a home, the inmates of which were peaceful unoffending women and children.
A little company of military men were on their way to the west, and encamped in the vicinity of Logan’s cabin. Not by the authority of their captain, but unknown to him, two or three set off in the night to inflict any injury which might be in their power upon the Indians they had heard were near. The husband and father was absent, but they lured one brother into the forest, and murdered him in cold blood, and then returned to destroy another as cruelly, and then shot the mother and little ones, leaving all upon the floor weltering in blood. Logan returned to find his cabin tenanted only by the dead, and vengeance for the first time was kindled in his bosom, and burned like a raging flame in his soul. Now he became the white man’s foe, and incited every son of the forest to slay without mercy their common enemy. Thus commenced the long and frightful Indian war which filled the whole land with terror, and for ten years stained our historical [[242]]records with Indian atrocities, unparalleled in our colonial or national experience. The quiet peaceful homes of white men were invaded, and women and children either killed or carried away captive; but then it was not known why these outrages were committed. They were ascribed to Indian love of war, and carnage, and bloodshed; but wherever Indian cruelty may be traced, it will be found to have been preceded by acts more cruel and heartless on the part of white men
Stranger,—there are who think and write
The Indian’s soul untouched with light,
And that to him belongs the guilt
For all the blood his hand hath spilt!
Like mine, his friendly homes among,