Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/327

Rh groans, — that Papists, calling themselves Christians, should engage the tomahawks and firebrands against even heretics, who also, after a sort, were Christians. There was a region between Acadia and the Penobscot and Kennebec rivers which was always in controversy as a boundary between the European claimants, while the Indians insisted that they had never parted with its ownership. This region was the scene of desperate encounters, of pillagings, slaughter, and burnings; the English being the chief, though by no means the only, sufferers. Nor did the savages confine their warfare of ambushes and night surprises to that region, but they came alarmingly near to Boston. The Puritans were maddened by the suspicion, often assured by positive knowledge, that the French priests inspirited, indicated, and directed these assaults, and sometimes accompanied the war-parties of the savages. This complaint was hardly a consistent one, coming from those whose ministers were an equal power in military and civil as in religious affairs. The English also were wont to take chaplains on their expeditions. There is on record a graphic sketch of a vigorous conflict between a minister and a priest, on a spot of contested territory, to assume the spiritual charge of a band of heathen, already nominal disciples of the Roman Church. Indeed religion, in anything but name, keeps itself well out of this fearful strife. In the melancholy relation now to follow, the Roman priests stand charged with a most odious agency.

A tragic incident in the long struggle between the French and English, with their respective Indian allies, on our northern bounds, connects itself with the forcible removal, in 1755, of a people in Acadia, known as the “French Neutrals.” The theme has been wrought by the pen of genius, with all the richest charms of romance and tender sentiment, into the exquisite narrative and descriptive poem “Evangeline.” In the interests of