The Story of American History Part 8

=108. The Indian Attack on Deerfield in the Ma.s.sachusetts Colony.=--One bitter cold night in February, 1704, the French and Indians attacked the town of Deerfield in the western part of Ma.s.sachusetts. For this purpose they had walked all the way from Canada on snowshoes. The people had been warned of their danger, but the watchmen fell asleep, and the villagers were awakened by the war-whoop of their savage foes. About fifty men, women, and children were killed, and nearly a hundred half-clad captives were marched off through the deep snows. Those who could not keep up were killed with the tomahawk.

The minister of the village, Rev. John Williams, his wife and six children, were among those captured and carried to Canada. The wife lagged behind and was killed. Strange to say, however, the minister and all his children, though they suffered all manner of hards.h.i.+ps, and were sold as captives, after a time reached home in safety. The good man lived to write an account of his adventures.

One little girl seven years old was treated kindly by her captors and was brought up as one of their tribe. She married an Indian chief and long afterwards visited her people in Deerfield. She wore the Indian dress and had come to love the wild life. Her former friends and neighbors begged her to stay with them, but "she returned to the fires of her own wigwam, and to the love of her Mohawk children."

=109. Hannah Dustin's Famous Adventure with the Indians.=--The story of Hannah Dustin, of Haverhill, Ma.s.s., has often been told. One day in 1697 the Indians attacked the village. Mr. Dustin saved all his family except his wife and her nurse, who were captured. They marched these women and an English boy many long days to their camp on an island far up the Merrimac River. As Mrs. Dustin's babe prevented her keeping up well on the journey, an Indian cruelly killed it.

The boy, who understood the Indian language, heard the savages tell of the horrible tortures they intended to inflict upon their captives. When Mrs. Dustin heard of this she laid her plans. She made the lad slyly learn from the Indians how to swing a tomahawk and where to strike.

One night, when the savages lay around the camp-fire sound asleep, the three captives arose softly, each killed with one blow the Indian nearest, then three more, and so on till ten were finished. One young boy and one squaw escaped. It was an awful thing for Mrs. Dustin to do, but the memory of her murdered child made her brave and strong. They seized an Indian canoe, and the three paddled swiftly down the river, and half dead with hunger and fatigue reached home. Their friends could hardly believe their eyes. The heroic woman brought home ten Indian scalps as proof of what she had done.

=110. How the Colonial Boys learned to shoot.=--We can now well understand that the settlement of a new country amid hostile Indians demanded from our colonial fathers eternal vigilance, and developed in them remarkable skill with firearms.

Even the colonial boy, we are told, as soon as he was big enough to level a musket, was given powder and ball to shoot squirrels. After a little practice he was required to bring in as many squirrels as he was given charges for the gun, under penalty of a severe lecture, or even of having his "jacket tanned"!

At the age of twelve the boy became a block-house soldier, with a loophole a.s.signed him from which to shoot when the settlement was attacked by the Indians.

Growing older, he became a hunter of deer, bears, and other wild animals, and had at any moment, day or night, to be in readiness to pit his life against those of hostile Indians.

=111. Capture of Louisburg.=--During the third French and Indian war, which began when George Was.h.i.+ngton was a boy of fourteen and which lasted four years, the New England colonists determined to strike a hard blow against France. They fitted out an army of about four thousand fishermen and farmers, put their expedition under the command of General William Pepperell, and sailed from Boston to capture Louisburg on the island of Cape Breton.

With its walls of masonry thirty feet high this was the strongest fortress on the continent except Quebec, and was known as the "Gibraltar of America." It commanded the entrance to the Gulf and the mouth of the St. Lawrence. With the aid of a British fleet the colonists laid siege to the great fortress.

After a lively contest of about six weeks, Louisburg was taken (1745).

The colonial army returned to Boston and was received with shouts of joy. But at the close of the war Louisburg was restored to the French.

Great was the wrath of the colonists, who spoke of the day of surrender as "a black day, to be forever blotted out of New England calendars."

=112. The Struggle beyond the Alleghanies.=--For a long time the Alleghany Mountains served as a natural boundary between the English settlements in the East and the French trading-posts and forts in the West.

Meanwhile the English settlers were steadily pus.h.i.+ng westward over the mountains and beginning to trade with the Indians on the other side. The French merchants often met their hated rivals in the woods and quarreled with them. From the first, England claimed all this country as her own, and looked upon the building of French forts as an invasion of her territory. The French stirred up the Indians to drive the English away, and would not even allow them to make so much as a survey of land in the rich Ohio valley.

=113. Young George Was.h.i.+ngton selected for an Arduous Undertaking.=--This action of the French aroused the wrath of the prosperous Virginia colony and of its energetic governor. He decided to send a letter to the French commander warning him to leave the country. Governor Dinwiddie selected for this task a land surveyor only twenty-one years of age. His name was George Was.h.i.+ngton. He was even then known for his courage, his sound judgment, and his knowledge of the Indians.

It was a journey of more than a thousand miles there and back, through an unbroken wilderness. With seven companions young Was.h.i.+ngton set out on his perilous trip in the fall of 1753. They climbed mountains, swam streams, and threaded their way through mountain ravines, following Indian trails which no white man had ever seen before.

After many hards.h.i.+ps they reached the French posts. The French commander read the letter that Was.h.i.+ngton had brought from the governor of Virginia. He replied that he was there by command of his superior officers, and that he meant to drive every Englishman out of the Ohio valley! There was nothing for Was.h.i.+ngton to do but to start for home.

Winter had now set in and it was soon severely cold. The homeward journey became a serious matter. The pack-horses gave out. The brave young leader and his guide pressed ahead on foot. Often as they lay down at night their wet clothing froze fast upon them. They secured an Indian as a guide, but he proved a scamp. One evening at dusk he raised his gun and fired at Was.h.i.+ngton, but missed his aim. The guide seized the savage, flung him to the ground, and would have killed him, but Was.h.i.+ngton spared his life. After many hards.h.i.+ps and dangers the two men reached home in safety.

=114. The Beginning of the Final Struggle.=--The final struggle was now impending between England and France to determine which should control America. The contest began in earnest in Virginia. Was.h.i.+ngton had taken advantage of his perilous errand to the French commander to select a place for an English fort. It was at the point where the Alleghany and Monongahela rivers unite to form the Ohio. This is the spot where the city of Pittsburgh now stands. It was the main entrance to the valley of the Ohio. For many years it was called the "Gateway of the West." The English built a fort on this spot, but the French easily captured it and held it under the name of Fort Du Quesne.

=115. Braddock's Ill-Fated Expedition.=--Affairs now became so serious that General Braddock was sent out from England with two regiments of regulars. Early in the year 1755 he began his march through the Virginia forests to recapture the French stronghold. He selected Was.h.i.+ngton as a member of his staff. "I want you," said the British general, "to take your Virginia riflemen and go with me and my veterans to drive the French from Ohio." Was.h.i.+ngton consented. He joined Braddock's army with three companies of Virginia riflemen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WAs.h.i.+NGTON ATTEMPTING TO RALLY BRADDOCK'S REGULARS.]

The English general and his regulars were brave, but they knew nothing about fighting Indians. Never did an army seem better prepared. They felt sure of victory. Soon they plunged into the forest. There were no roads there. After a hard march of four weeks they came within a few miles of the French fort. Was.h.i.+ngton warned the proud British general of his peril. "The Indians," said he, "may attack us in yonder deep pa.s.s. Let me go ahead with my riflemen and skirmish for the savages."

Braddock was an old soldier, and he thought he knew more than his young staff-officer who had learned from experience how to fight Indians. The general laughed at the well-meant advice. Next day, as they were marching through a deep ravine, suddenly came the yells of savages and the crack of rifles. The British veterans were eager to fight, but they could see no foe. The men were shot down like sheep.

The young Virginian and his riflemen leaped behind trees and rocks and fought the Indians in their own way. All was confusion. Braddock acted bravely. He had five horses killed under him. He did all that a valiant man in such a situation could do; but it was in vain.

=116. Was.h.i.+ngton saves Braddock's Army from Destruction.=--Was.h.i.+ngton and his Virginia rangers saved Braddock's army from destruction. The French and the Indians knew well the tall figure of Was.h.i.+ngton, who was in the thickest of the fight, and they kept firing at him. Two horses were shot under him. Four bullets pa.s.sed through his clothing, but he did not receive a scratch.

Many years afterwards an old Indian chief came to see Was.h.i.+ngton, and told him that he had fired from ambush on the dreadful day of Braddock's defeat, and both he and his young warriors had often aimed at him as he rode about delivering the general's orders; but as they could not hit him, they had concluded that he was under the protection of the Great Spirit and could not be slain in battle.

Braddock was at last hit. He sank to the ground mortally wounded. "What is to be done now?" he faintly asked. "We must retreat," replied Was.h.i.+ngton.

A retreat was ordered, and Was.h.i.+ngton and his riflemen defended the rear so well that what was left of the routed army at last reached a place of safety. More than seven hundred of them had fallen, including Braddock himself and three-fourths of his officers. What a penalty the proud British general paid for refusing to take good advice!

=117. The Virginians fight desperately for their Homes.=--The French were now left in full possession of all the region west of the Alleghanies.

The Indians took advantage of the situation to make fresh attacks upon the Virginia colonists.

The Virginians fought with desperation for their homes. Was.h.i.+ngton was put in command of the forces. He wrote that "the supplicating tears of the women and the moving pet.i.tions of the men melted him into deadly sorrow." Three years after the Braddock calamity, Was.h.i.+ngton again marched his men through the woods against Fort Du Quesne and recaptured it.

The capture of this stronghold was an important event to the colonists, for a highway which was never afterwards closed was then opened to the great West. The name of the fort was changed to Pittsburgh, in honor of England's ill.u.s.trious prime minister, William Pitt, who had planned the expedition.

It was just this experience in hard fighting against the French and Indians that providentially aided in fitting Was.h.i.+ngton to win success as commander-in-chief of the American forces in the fast approaching war of the Revolution.

=118. Quebec, the carefully guarded Stronghold.=--We must remember that there had been fighting for nearly two years in America before England really declared war against France in 1756. During this time the French had held the mastery, and the English had met with sad reverses. A new leader had now come into power in England, the great statesman, William Pitt.

The influence of this remarkable man changed the course of affairs as if by magic. He fully understood America's greatest needs. From this time the English were everywhere successful. Important forts were taken from the French, such as Niagara, Ticonderoga, and Crown Point.

There was only one great stronghold left to the French. This was Quebec on the St. Lawrence. It was not only one of the strongest fortresses in the world, but it was commanded by the Marquis de Montcalm, one of the ablest generals of his time.

=119. How Quebec was taken.=--A brave young officer, General Wolfe, was sent out from England to command the attack on Quebec. The outlook was enough to discourage any one, however experienced and skillful. The fort itself is on a high point of land overlooking the city. The English troops were on the river-bank, hundreds of feet below.

Every movement of the English was reported at once to the French. Wolfe was at first repulsed at every point. One day, as he was reconnoitering, he discovered a steep and narrow path which led up the precipitous bluff to a level spot known as the Plains of Abraham. He made up his mind to climb it with his men.

Soon afterwards the English troops were quietly rowed down the river, under the cover of darkness, to a little bay since known as Wolfe's Cove. As the young English general glided along in his boat, he quoted extracts from Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard." As he repeated the stanza beginning, "The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power," he said that he would rather have written that poem than take Quebec. The little pathway was reached. Wolfe leaped first on sh.o.r.e. Under his leaders.h.i.+p the English soldiers climbed the steep.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WOLFE'S MEN CLIMBING TO THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM.]

At sunrise on the morning of Sept. 13, 1759, the British army, five thousand strong, stood on the Plains of Abraham. Great was the amazement of the French general, for he thought it impossible for any one to scale the cliffs. Montcalm chose to come out of the fortress and fight the English on the open ground. This was a fatal mistake, for after a fierce struggle the French were defeated.

In the hour of victory Wolfe was fatally wounded. While dying he heard the cry, "They run! they run!" Rousing himself he asked, "Who run?" Upon being told it was the French he exclaimed: "Now G.o.d be praised; I will die in peace!" Montcalm was also fatally wounded. When told he could not live, the gallant Frenchman cried out, "So much the better; I shall not live to see the surrender of Quebec!"

The French retired within their fortifications, but in a few days Quebec was surrendered into the hands of the English. The fate of Canada was decided by the fall of this city.

=120. The End of the War and the Result.=--Although the victory at Quebec practically ended the French and Indian War, it was not until 1763 that peace was declared. By the treaty France gave up to England the whole of Canada, together with all the territory between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi, except the city of New Orleans. She retained a few barren islands near Newfoundland as a shelter for her fishermen. The vast region spreading westward from the Mississippi towards the Pacific, under the name Louisiana, together with the city of New Orleans, was made over to Spain.

CHAPTER IX.

EVERYDAY LIFE IN COLONIAL TIMES.

=121. Severe and Curious Punishments.=--In the early colonial times the laws were for the most part rigid and the punishments severe. Criminals were occasionally branded with a hot iron. If a man shot a fowl on Sunday, he was often publicly whipped. Small offenses were punished in a way which would not be tolerated in our times. A woman who had been complained of as a scold was placed in front of her house with a stick tied in her mouth. Sometimes a common scold was fastened to what was known as a "ducking stool" at one end of a seesaw plank, and ducked in a pond or river!