[445] The outcries of the squaws, on such occasions, would put to shame an Irish death-howl. The writer was once attached to a large band of Indians, who, being on the march, arrived, a little after nightfall, at a spot where, not long before, a party of their young men had been killed by the enemy. The women instantly raised a most astounding clamor, some two hundred voices joining in a discord as wild and dismal as the shrieking of the damned in the Inferno; while some of the chief mourners gashed their bodies and limbs with knives, uttering meanwhile most piteous lamentations. A few days later, returning to the same encampment after darkness had closed in, a strange and startling effect was produced by the prolonged wailings of several women, who were pacing the neighboring hills, lamenting the death of a child, killed by the bite of a rattlesnake.
[446] This and what precedes is meant to apply only to tribes east of the Mississippi. Some of the western and south-western tribes treat prisoners merely as slaves, and habitually violate female captives.
[447] The captives among the Shawanoes of the Scioto had most of them been recently taken; and only a small part had gone through the ceremony of adoption. Hence it was that the warriors, in their desperation, formed the design of putting them to death, fearing that, in the attack which they meditated, the captives would naturally take part with their countrymen.
[448] Account of Bouquet’s Expedition, 29.
[449] Colden, after describing the Indian wars of 1699, 1700, concludes in the following words:—
“I shall finish this Part by observing that notwithstanding the French Commissioners took all the Pains possible to carry Home the French that were Prisoners with the Five Nations, and they had full Liberty from the Indians, few of them could be persuaded to return. It may be thought that this was occasioned from the Hardships they had endured in their own Country, under a tyrannical Government and a barren Soil. But this certainly was not the Reason, for the English had as much Difficulty to persuade the People that had been taken Prisoners by the French Indians to leave the Indian Manner of living, though no People enjoy more Liberty, and live in greater Plenty than the common Inhabitants of New York do. No Arguments, no Intreaties, nor Tears of their Friends and Relations, could persuade many of them to leave their new Indian Friends and Acquaintance. Several of them that were by the Caressings of their Relations persuaded to come Home, in a little Time grew tired of our Manner of living, and ran away to the Indians, and ended their Days with them. On the other Hand, Indian Children have been carefully educated among the English, clothed and taught; yet, I think, there is not one Instance that any of these, after they had Liberty to go among their own People, and were come to Age, would remain with the English, but returned to their own Nations, and became as fond of the Indian Manner of Life as those that knew nothing of a civilized Manner of living. What I now tell of Christian Prisoners among Indians relates not only to what happened at the Conclusion of this War, but has been found true on many other Occasions.”—Colden, 203.
[450] See Appendix, F.
[451] MS. Letter—Bouquet to Gage, 4 March, 1765.
[452] Ibid., 17 April, 1765.
[453] MS. Johnson Papers.