Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/521

Rh with savage foes who had so recently been in the pay and service of Britain against the French. The Provincial Congress of Massachusetts had exercised their forethought upon this matter before the opening of hostilities. A company of Stockbridge Indians had been engaged as minutemen, and were stationed at Watertown. It was known that we had sympathizers in Canada; and the Provincial Congress addressed a letter in April, 1775, to one of our missionaries among the Six Nations in Western New York, seeking that every effort should be used to engage the good feeling, and if possible the active help, of the tribes on our side, or, if that was impracticable, at least to secure their neutrality. British agents, however, had already the start of us in that scheme, and attained considerable success, so that even among the tribes from which we might have looked for aid, as well as from all other Indian tribes, the weight was against us during the whole war.

From the moment in which Washington took command of the American army and saw his work before him, among the perplexities which burdened his mind was this of the threatened part which the Indians would have in the strife. Well did he know the qualities of the Indians in carnage and battle, whether as allies or foes. He also put himself in correspondence with the same missionary, Mr. Kirkland, who had won great influence among the Oneidas, and who visited the camp at Cambridge, with a chief and others of the tribe, whom Washington treated with wise favor. The second Congress, in 1775, appointed that there should be three Indian Departments in its service, — Northern, Middle, and Southern, — with Commissioners for each; and sent an address to the Six Nations, in which they were told that ours was a family quarrel, that had no concern for them; that they were not asked to take up the hatchet against the King's troops, but only to be strictly neutral, keeping quiet at home. A treaty was made with some of them that effected nothing, for the sway over them of