It is extremely difficult to construct anything like a clear statement of Indian affiliations at this crisis. This territory west of the Alleghenies, nominally purchased from the Six Nations, was claimed by the Shawanese and Delawares who had since come into it, and also by many fugitives from the Six Nations, known generally as Mingoes, who had come to make their hunting grounds their home. Though the Delaware King was only a “Half-King” (because subject to the Council of the Six Nations) yet they claimed the land and had even resisted French encroachment. “Half-King” and his Delawares believed that the English only desired commercial intercourse and favored them as compared with the French who had already built forts in the West. The northern nations who were nearer the French soon surrendered to their blandishments; and soon the Delawares (called _Loups_ by the French) and the Shawanese were overcome by French allurements and were generally found about the French forts and forces. In the spring of the year Half-King had gone to Presque Isle and spoken firmly to Marin, declaring that the land was not theirs but the Indians’. Insofar as the English were more backward than the French in occupying the land the unprejudiced Delawares and Mingoes were inclined to further English plans. When, a few years later, it became clear that the English cared not a whit for the rights of the redmen, the latter hated and fought them as they never had the French. Washington was well fitted for handling this delicate matter of sharpening Indian hatred of the French and of keeping very still about English plans. Here at Loggstown unexpected information was received. Certain French deserters from the Mississippi gave the English envoy a description of French operations on that river between New Orleans and Illinois. The latter word “Illinois” was taken by Washington’s old Dutch interpreter to be the French words “_Isle Noire_,” and Washington speaks of Illinois as the “Black Islands” in his _Journal_. But this was not to be old van Braam’s only blunder in the role of interpreter!