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France's defeat in the Seven Years' War created a power vacuum among its Indian allies that boiled into resentment when Britain refused to continue many French imperial practices, such as lavish gift giving. Adding a spark to the volatile situation, a religious movement swept through the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes calling for unity among Native American groups and urging their complete separation from whites. In April 1763, Ottawa leader Pontiac led a wave of attacks by Indians along the western frontier aimed at destroying white settlements and seizing captives. As part of the British response, Colonel Henry Bouquet and 1,500 troops were sent to relieve beleaguered Fort Pitt (Pittsburgh) and subdue hostile Indians in the Ohio Valley. In 1766, William Smith's "An Historical Account of the Expedition against the Ohio Indians" appeared, providing a narrative of Bouquet's expedition. The volume included this image, an engraving after Benjamin West. Bouquet insisted that in return for sparing their villages, Native Americans turn over all captured whites to him, a policy that resulted in considerable anguish for many involved. The combination of word and image in Smith's book makes clear that Native Americans treated captives well, often incorporating them into their own families. He wrote that: "Cruel and unmerciful as they are . . . [Indians] exercise virtues which Christians need not blush to imitate. No child is otherwise treated by the persons adopting it than the children of their own body." In a scene full of pathos, a white boy recoils from a British soldier, seeking refuge in the arms of his adopted Indian mother and father, probably the only parents the child remembers.
Image rights owned by the Virginia Historical Society. |
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