The imperial State of Virginia needed a public surveyor. This lad of seventeen years had already risen so high in the estimation of the community, that he was appointed to that responsible office. For three years he performed, with singular ability, the duties which thus devolved upon him. Great must have been the enjoyment which he found, in the field of labor thus opened before him. The scenes to which he was introduced must have been, at times, quite enchanting. The wonderful scenery presented to the eye in beautiful Virginia, the delicious climate, the grandeur of the star-bespangled sky, as witnessed from the midnight encampment, the majestic forests abounding in game, the placid lake, whose mirrored waters were covered with water-fowl of every variety of gorgeous plumage, the silent river, along which the Indian’s birch canoe glided almost as a meteor—all these infinitely diversified scenes must, at times, have entranced a young man in the vigor of youth and health, and buoyant with the spirit of high enterprise.
Lord Fairfax had become the firm friend of George Washington. The opulent English nobleman had reared for himself a large and architecturally beautiful mansion of stone, beyond the Blue Ridge, in one of the most sheltered, sunny, and lovely valleys of the Alleghanies. This beautiful world of ours can present no region more attractive than that in which Lord Fairfax constructed his transatlantic home.[6]
His opulence enabled him to live there in splendor quite baronial. Many illustrious families had emigrated to this State of wonderful beauty and inexhaustible capabilities. There was no colony, on this continent, which could present more cultivated and polished society than Virginia. Distinguished guests frequented the parlors of Lord Fairfax. Among them all, there were none more honored than George Washington. He was one of the handsomest and most dignified of men, and a gentleman by birth, by education, and by all his instincts.
The tide of emigration, pouring in a constant flood across the Atlantic, was now gradually forcing its way over the first range of the Alleghanies, into the fertile and delightful valleys beyond. Still farther west there were realms, much of which no white man’s foot had ever trod, and whose boundaries no one knew.
The French, who were prosperously established in Canada, and who, by their wise policy, had effectually won the confidence and affection of the natives, were better acquainted with this vast region than were the English; and they much more fully appreciated its wonderful capabilities. And still the English colonies, in population, exceeded those of the French ten to one.
Almost from the beginning, the relations of the English with the natives were hostile. And it can not be denied that the fault was with the English. The Indians were very desirous of friendly intercourse. It was an unspeakable advantage to them, and they highly prized it, to be able to exchange their furs for the kettles, hatchets, knives, guns, powder and shot of the English. With the bullet they could strike down the deer at three times the distance to which they could throw an arrow. The shrewd Indian, who had used flints only to cut with, could well appreciate the value of a hatchet and a knife.
Our Puritan fathers were very anxious to treat the Indians with brotherly kindness. And so were the governmental authorities generally in all the colonies. But there was no strength in the Christian principles of good men, or in the feeble powers which were established in the colonies, to pursue, arrest, and punish the desperadoes who, from the frontiers, penetrated the wilderness with sword and rifle, shot down the Indians, plundered the wigwams, and inflicted every outrage upon their wives and daughters. No candid man can read an account of these outrages without saying:
“Had I been an Indian I would have joined in any conspiracy, and would have strained every nerve, to exterminate such wretches from the land they were polluting.”
The untaught natives could draw no fine distinctions. When the Indian hunter returned to his wigwam, and found it plundered and in ashes, his eldest son dead and weltering in blood, and heard from his wife and daughters the story of their wrongs, he could make no distinction between the miscreants who had perpetrated the demoniac deed, and the Christian white men who deplored such atrocities and who implored God to interpose and prevent them. The poor Indian could only say:
“The white man has thus wronged me. Oh, thou Great Spirit, whenever I meet the white man, wilt thou help me to take vengeance.”