34. _Do_. Collot calls them "un composé de traiteurs, d'aventuriers, de
coureurs de bois, rameurs, et de guerriers; ignorans, superstitieux et
entêtés, qu'aucunes fatigues, aucunes privations, aucunes dangers ne
peuvent arreter dans leurs enterprises, qu'ils mettent toujours fin; ils
n'ont conservé des vertus françaises que le courage."




CHAPTER III.

THE APPALACHIAN CONFEDERACIES, 1765-1775.

When we declared ourselves an independent nation there were on our
borders three groups of Indian peoples. The northernmost were the
Iroquois or Six Nations, who dwelt in New York, and stretched down
into Pennsylvania. They had been for two centuries the terror of every
other Indian tribe east of the Mississippi, as well as of the whites;
but their strength had already departed. They numbered only some ten
or twelve thousand all told, and though they played a bloody part in
the Revolutionary struggle, it was merely as subordinate allies of the
British. It did not lie in their power to strike a really decisive
blow. Their chastisement did not result in our gaining new territory;
nor would a failure to chastise them have affected the outcome of the
war nor the terms of peace. Their fate was bound up with that of the
king's cause in America and was decided wholly by events unconnected
with their own success or defeat.

The very reverse was the case with the Indians, tenfold more numerous,