for a
death-struggle by the memories of fearful wrongs. It is useless to argue
which race gave the first cause for retaliation; it had been give and take
between them for many years. Nor should our children's children, because
of any tendency toward ancestor-worship, be allowed to believe that the
whites were invincible and slaughtered more natives than they lost of
their own people.

There were white men as merciless and murderous as any Indians, and some
of these had a rare score of killings to their discredit. Yet in a
man-for-man account the Indians had all the best of it. Veterans of
Braddock's War insisted that the frontier lost fifty whites for each red
man killed. Bouquet and other leaders estimated the ratio in Pontiac's War
to have been ten to one in favor of the Indians.

This reduction proved that the settlers had learned something from the
lessons taught in the old French War. Our people on the border knew all
this and they were confident that in the struggle now upon them they would
bring the count down to one for one.[1] So let the youngsters of the new
day learn the truth; that is, that the backwoodsmen clung to their homes
although suffering most hideously.

Virginia understood she must sustain the full brunt of the war, inasmuch
as she comprised the disputed frontier. It was upon Virginia that the red
hatred centered. I never blamed the Indians for this hate for white cabins
and cleared forests and permanent settlements. Nor should our dislike of
the Indians incite sentimental people, ignorant of the red man's ways and
lacking sympathy with our ambitions, to denounce us as being solely
responsible for the brutal aspects such a struggle will always display.

It should also be remembered that the men of Pennsylvania were chiefly
concerned with trade. Their profits depended upon the natives remaining
undisturbed in their ancient homes. Like the French they would keep the
red man and his forests unchanged.

Naturally they disapproved of any migrations over the mountains; and they
were very disagreeable in expressing their dissatisfaction. We retorted,
overwarmly doubtless, by accusing our northern sister of trading guns and
powder to the Indians for horses stolen from Virginia. There was bad blood
between the two colonies; for history to gloss over the fact is to
perpetrate a lie. Fort Pitt, recently renamed Fort Dunmore by the
commandant, Doctor John Connolly, controlled the approach to the Ohio
cou