xorable economic conditions, apparently
beyond present control, render nugatory any attempts to better the
financial condition of the underpaid majority.

Mingo Junction--"Mingo Bottom" of old--was an interesting locality
in frontier days. On this fertile river beach was long one of the
strongest of the Mingo villages. During the last week of May, 1782,
Crawford's little army rendezvoused here, en route to Sandusky, a
hundred and fifty miles distant, and intent on the destruction of the
Wyandot towns. But the Indians had not been surprised, and the army
was driven back with slaughter, reaching Mingo the middle of
June, bereft of its commander. Crawford, who was a warm friend of
Washington, suffered almost unprecedented torture at the stake, his
fate sending a thrill of horror through all the Western 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 na