The prisoners, however, who are not thus sacrificed are
adopted into their families in the place of the slain, and are
treated with the confidence and affection of relatives and
friends; nay, so hospitable and tender is their entertainment
that when the alternative is offered them they will often prefer
to remain with their adopted brethren rather than return to the
home and the friends of their youth.
The cruelty of the Indians towards their prisoners has been
heightened since the colonization of the whites. What was
formerly a compliance with policy and superstition has been
exasperated into a gratification of vengeance. They cannot but be
sensible that the white men are the usurpers of their ancient
dominion, the cause of their degradation, and the gradual
destroyers of their race. They go forth to battle smarting with
injuries and indignities which they have individually suffered,
and they are driven to madness and despair by the wide-spreading
desolation and the overwhelming ruin of European warfare. The
whites have too frequently set them an example of violence by
burning their villages and laying waste their slender means of
subsistence, and yet they wonder that savages do not show
moderation and magnanimity towards those who have left them
nothing but mere existence and wretchedness.
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