Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/517

Rh one with that of England. But a new role was now to open. All the prestige and favor which British patronage and pay had won among the native tribes were likely now to swell the preponderance of power against the rebellious colonists. It became the latter to anticipate the threatened evil from this quarter. We were to have a contemptuous, arrogant, embittered, and vigorous enemy on our coasts, seeking also at various points to penetrate into the interior. Should we have likewise wily foes, murderous, prowling, savage allies with that enemy behind our borders, — apt for all stratagems, haunting the woods, burning our inner settlements, and inflaming rebellion with untold horrors? This element in the apprehensions and disasters of our Revolutionary conflict has been too often overlooked in our histories. To all of our people distant from the seaboard it was the aggravation of their severest dreads and sufferings. There have been many critical occasions in the earlier history of European nationalities on this continent when the savage tribes held something like what we call the balance of power, as a third party. It was of paramount importance, therefore, in the strifes of rivals and in our civil conflicts, to secure for either party their alliance or their neutrality. The English had sought this advantage against the French; and in turn the rebelling colonists sought it against the English. Our first Congress hoped for nothing more than the neutrality of the Indians, who could do us most harm. Knowing how dependent they had become on the English in the French war, Congress could hardly ask them to take up the hatchet against England. They therefore asked the Indians merely to look on the strife as a family quarrel, and to keep still in their lodges. While commissioners were working for this end, the wanton aggressions and murders perpetrated in 1774 by Colonel. Cresap's band, on the northwest border of Virginia, stirred the rage of the friendly chiefs Logan and Cornstork, and so alarmed their people as to make a grievous difficulty for our