Note 1270 — Chapter VIII

Accustomed as the inhabitants of the Northern colonies had been to coöperating with Indians in the several wars with the French, the proposition to make use of their services did not excite the universal feeling of horror which would be aroused by the same proposition to-day. On the contrary, it was regarded as a natural and inevitable condition attached to the war that the natives should be engaged upon the one side or the other; and rumors of the friendly disposition of this tribe, and of the number of warriors which that tribe would furnish to the cause, found their way into the journals of that day. It was evident that Indian auxiliaries would be of greater military value to the English than to the Americans. The English army would be practically an army of invasion. There were no English homes exposed to destruction. The use of savages by the Americans would not keep out of the field a single Englishman for the protection of the scalps of his family. Nevertheless, it was felt by the colonists that all the tribes that could be secured would be an advantage gained. Such evidently was the opinion of the men composing the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts Bay, who first met the question, and, even before the battle of Lexington, solved it by employing some of the Stockbridge Indians as minute-men. The records of that body go far towards justifying the statement made by Gen. Gage at Boston (June 12, 1775), that the "rebels" were "bringing as many Indians down here as they could collect."