Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/525

Rh were then left as tribes still of much consequence or strength within State bounds. Through all these negotiations down to the very latest, we encountered obstacles and perplexities entailed upon us by the previous relations and measures of England towards the savages. These considerations are fairly to be taken into account in comparing the Indian policy of the two Governments, in view of the circumstances presented to each of them.

In 1779 General Sullivan, with a force of four thousand continentals, went to chastise the Indians of the Six Nations under the lead of the Chief Brant, Sir John Johnson, and other Tories, as hostile British allies. Sullivan was successful in dealing a severe blow, and destroying the Indian settlements. The instructions given to Sullivan by Washington for the conduct of this expedition are so severe and imperative in their terms, coming from so humane and righteous-hearted a chief, as to prove how his spirit had been stirred by the sharp exigencies of the struggle. These Six Nations, with meagre exceptions, goaded on to inhuman excesses even for warfare by their British instigators, were to be dealt with in a way to curb them from any further mischief. Sullivan was to listen to no appeal from them, to make no terms with them, to accept no profession or act of submission or surrender, till he had completely destroyed their towns and devastated their growing crops, so as to reduce them to a state of utter destitution, with no means of recuperation for the immediate future. The General carried out his instructions to the letter. Only he failed of one of the objects which Washington desired to realize; namely, obtaining possession, as prisoners, of the Johnsons, Butlers, and Brant, the main instigators of the savages.

Another large abatement which truth requires us to make from the claim of Great Britain to a more politic and humane dealing with the Indians, is because of the ungrateful and heartless manner in which she abandoned the tribes that had suffered from alliance with her at the close of our