This
result of the council by no means satisfied the women and boys, who had
anticipated rare sport in the roasting of a white man and a heretic. One
squaw assailed him with a knife and cut off one of his fingers; another
beat him with a pole. The Indians spent the night in dancing and
singing, compelling their prisoner to go round the ring with them. In
the morning one of their orators made a long speech to him, and formally
delivered him over to an old squaw, who took him to her wigwam and
treated him kindly. Two or three of the young women who were carried
away captive married Frenchmen in Canada and never returned. Instances
of this kind were by no means rare during the Indian wars. The simple
manners, gayety, and social habits of the French colonists among whom the
captives were dispersed seem to have been peculiarly fascinating to the
daughters of the grave and severe Puritans.
At the beginning of the present century, Judith Whiting was the solitary
survivor of all who witnessed the inroad of the French and Indians in
1708.
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