Indian
and British Depredations!
On this day week the family of a Mr.
Hutson, consisting of his wife and [illegible] hired man,
[illegible] [party of Indians] 5 miles above
[illegible] within the bounds of the Illinois
territory. This unhappy man had left his family on
the evening of the same day to go to a horse mill about
four miles distant, he returned at sunset and found his
house on fire, the roof of which had just fallen in - - in
the yard lay the body of the young man who lived with him,
most shockingly mangled. The fate of his wife and
children were not ascertained until the next day, when
their bones were found amongst the ashes of their
house. On the same day that the above murders were
perpetrated, the body of a Mr. Hinton, who had been
missing some days from the settlement on the Driftwood
Fork of White River was found - - he had been shot,
tomahawked and scalped, and his body thrown into the
river.
These events connected with others of a similar character
which have happened in the Illinois territory, leaves us
little room to hope that a war with most of the Indian
tribes north of the Wabash can be avoided, they require no
comment as far as they relate to the Indians. It
only remains that we should justify ourselves for
connecting the name of a civilized people with events so
horrible in their nature, that to those who saw them they
might freeze with horror. The murder of a mother and
four helpless innocents, the former (as it appeared from
the state of their remains) holding the youngest child in
her arms, and the others clinging to her for protection. -
- Great God! what a picture - - will the people of England
suffer their government to proceed in a course which
clamps such infamy upon their country? Or will they
not rather, if the proofs which we this day exhibit, to
show that the source of these atrocities can be traced to
their ministers, be ever circulated amongst them,
vindicate their national character, by depriving such
monsters of their authority. If there were no other
evidence that the British are the authors of our present
difficulties with the Indians, the single circumstance of
their having distributed to them a larger quantity of
goods and a much larger portion arms & ammunition
in the last season than at any former period, would be
amply sufficient. That this has been the case will
not be denied, as it is known to every person who was in
the Indian country, or who had any connection with them.
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