TREATMENT OF THE PRISONERS AT SALMON FALLS IN 1690.
The following instances of cruelty, exercised towards the prisoners taken at Salmon falls, are mentioned by Dr. Mather. Robert Rogers, a corpulent man, being unable to carry the burden which the Indians imposed upon him, threw it in the path and went aside in the woods to conceal himself. They found him by his track, stripped, beat, and pricked him with their swords: then tied him to a tree and danced round him till they had kindled a fire. They gave him time to pray, and take leave of his fellow prisoners, who were placed round the fire to see his death. They pushed the fire toward him, and when he was almost stifled, took it away to give him time to breathe, and thus prolong his misery; they drowned his dying groans with their hideous singing and yelling, all the while dancing round the fire, cutting off pieces of his flesh and throwing them in his face. When he was dead they left his body broiling on the coals, in which state it was found by his friends and buried. Mehetabel Goodwin was taken with a child of five months old; when it cried they threatened to kill it, which made the mother go aside and sit for hours together in the snow to lull it to sleep; her master seeing that this hindered her from travelling, took the child, struck its head against a tree, and hung it on one of the branches; she would have buried it but he would not let her, telling her that if she came again that way she might have the pleasure of seeing it. She was carried to Canada, and after five years returned home. Mary Plaisted was taken out of her bed, having lain in but three weeks: they made her travel with them through the snow and “to ease her of her burden,“ as they said, struck the child’s head against a tree, and threw it into a river. An anecdote of another kind may relieve the reader after these tragical accounts. Thomas Toogood was pursued by three Indians and overtaken by one of them, who having enquired his name, was preparing strings to bind him, holding his gun under his arm, which Toogood seized and went backward, keeping the gun presented at him, and protesting that he would shoot him if he alarmed the others who had stopped on the opposite side of the hill. By this dexterity he escaped and got safe into Cocheco; while his adversary had no recompense in his power but to call after him by the name of Nogood.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] General Jackson.
[2] Published in the Mobile Com. Register, March, 1824.
[3] This speech is the most manly and dignified piece of Indian oratory that has ever met our eye. It even surpasses the admired speech of Caractacus, the Briton, when led captive to Rome;—and is, in no wise, inferior to that of Logan.
[4] This interesting fact of a young Indian Chief of the Pawnee nation, at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, who was on a visit to Washington in the winter of 1824, is extracted from a letter of the Rev. Richard Reece, to the editor of the London Wesleyan Methodist Magazine.
[5] In 1775 Shenandoh was present at a treaty made in Albany. At night he was excessively drunk; and in the morning, found himself in the street, stripped of all his ornaments, and every article of clothing. His pride revolted at his self-degradation, and he resolved never more to deliver himself over to the power of ‘strong water.’
[6] The Editor of the Indian Anecdotes, is not responsible for the sentiments, which any of the Anecdotes of this collection may seem to illustrate. And although he has carefully omitted such as would tend to corrupt, or exert an immoral influence on the character; he disclaims every political or religious partiality. The above has been introduced as an interesting specimen of Indian logic.
[7] The Mandan tribe is now entirely extinct.—Catlin.