When the Moravians removed beyond the Ohio, they settled on the banks of the Muskingum, made clearings in the forest, and built themselves little towns, which they christened by such quaint names as Salem and Gnadenhutten; names that were pathetic symbols of the peace which the harmless and sadly submissive wanderers so vainly sought.  Here, in the forest, they worked and toiled, surrounded their clean, neatly kept villages with orchards and grain-fields, bred horses and cattle, and tried to do wrong to no man; all of each community meeting every day to worship and praise their Creator.  But the missionaries who had done so much for them had also done one thing which more than offset it all:  for they had taught them not to defend themselves, and had thus exposed the poor beings who trusted their teaching to certain destruction.  No greater wrong can ever be done than to put a good man at the mercy of a bad, while telling him not to defend himself or his fellows; in no way can the success of evil be made surer and quicker; but the wrong was peculiarly great when at such a time and in such a place the defenceless Indians were thrust between the anvil of their savage red brethren and the hammer of the lawless and brutal white borderers.  The awful harvest which the poor converts reaped had in reality been sown for them by their own friends and would-be benefactors.

So the Moravians, seeking to deal honestly with Indians and whites alike, but in return suspected and despised by both, worked patiently year in and year out, as they dwelt in their lonely homes, meekly awaiting the stroke of the terrible doom which hung over them.

1.  See papers by Stephen D. Peet, on the northwestern tribes, read before the state Archaeological Society of Ohio, 1878.

2.  Barton, xxv.

3.  General W. H. Harrison, “Aborigines of the Ohio Valley.”  Old “Tippecanoe” was the best possible authority for their courage.

4.  “Remarkable Occurrences in the Life and Travels of Col.  James Smith,” etc., written by himself, Lexington, Ky., 1799.  Smith is our best contemporary authority on Indian warfare; he lived with them for several years, and fought them in many campaigns.  Besides several editions of the above, he also published in 1812, at Paris, Ky., a “Treatise” on Indian warfare, which holds much the same matter.

5.  See Parkman’s “Oregon Trail.”  In 1884 I myself met two Delawares hunting alone, just north of the Black Hills.  They were returning from a trip to the Rocky Mountains.  I could not but admire their strong, manly forms, and the disdainful resolution with which they had hunted and travelled for so many hundred miles, in defiance of the white frontiersmen and of the wild native tribes as well.  I think they were in more danger from the latter than the former, but they seemed perfectly confident of their ability to hold their own against both.

6.  See Barton, the Madison MSS., Schoolcraft, Thos.  Hutchins (who accompanied Bouquet), Smythe, Pike, various reports of the U. S. Indian Commissioners, etc, etc.