settlements.

Let us not be too harsh in our judgment of these red Indians. At first, the white colonists from Europe were regarded by them as of supernatural origin, and hospitality, veneration, and confidence were displayed toward the new-comers. But the mortality of the Europeans was soon made painfully evident to them. When the early Spaniards, and afterward the English, kidnaped tribesmen for sale into slavery, or for use as captive guides, and even murdered them on slight provocation, distrust and hatred naturally succeeded to the sentiment of awe. Like many savage races, like the earlier Romans, the Indian looked upon the member of every tribe with which he had not made a formal peace as a public enemy; hence he felt justified in wreaking his vengeance on the race, whenever he failed to find individual offenders. He was exceptionally cruel, his mode of warfare was skulking, he could not easily be reached in the forest fastnesses which he alone knew well, and his strokes fell heaviest on women and children; so that whites came to fear and unspeakably to loathe the savage, and often added greatly to the bitterness of the struggle by retaliation in kind. The white borderers themselves were frequently brutal, reckless, lawless; and under such conditions, clashing was inevitable. But worse agents of discord than the agricultural colonists were the itinerants who traveled through the woods visiting the tribes, exchanging goods for furs; these often cheated and robbed the Indian, taught him the use of intoxicants, bullied and browbeat him, appropriated his women, and in general introduced serious demoralization into the native camps. The bulk of the whites doubtless intended to treat the Indian honorably; but the forest traders were beyond the pale of law, and news of the details of their transactions seldom reached the coast settlements.