The women and children were divided among the victorious hordes, and adopted or enslaved. To the men no quarter was given. "Our Indians amused themselves," writes Dubuisson, "with shooting four or five of them every day." Here, however, another surprise awaited the conquerors and abridged their recreation, for about a hundred of these intrepid warriors contrived to make their escape, and among them was the great war-chief Pemoussa. The Outagamies were crippled, but not disabled, for but a part of the tribe was involved in this bloody affair. The rest were wrought to fury by the fate of their kinsmen, and for many years they remained thorns in the sides of the French. There is a disposition to assume that events like that just recounted were a consequence of the contact of white men with red; but the primitive Indian was quite able to enact such tragedies without the help of Europeans. Before French or English influence had been felt in the interior of the continent, a great part of North America was the frequent witness of scenes still more lurid in coloring, and on a larger scale of horror. In the first half of the seventeenth century the whole country, from Lake Superior to the Tennessee, and from the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, was ravaged by wars of extermination, in which tribes, large and powerful by Indian standards, perished, dwindled into feeble remnants, or were absorbed by other tribes and vanished from sight. French pioneers were sometimes involved in the carnage, but neither they nor other Europeans were answerable for it.[286] FOOTNOTES: [279] See Chapter I. [280] _Memoir on the Indians between Lake Erie and the Mississippi_, in _N. Y. Col. Docs._, ix. 885. [281] _Memoir on the Indians between Lake Erie and the Mississippi._ [282] This paper is printed, not very accurately, in the _Collection de Documents relatifs a la Nouvelle France_, i. 623 (Quebec, 1883). [283] "Cri horrible, dont la terre trembla."--_Dubuisson a Vaudreuil, 15 Juin, 1712._ This is the official report of the affair. [284] According to the paper ascribed to Lery it was only the eighth. [285] The paper ascribed to Lery says that they surrendered on a promise from Vincennes that their lives should be spared, but that the promise availed nothing. [286] _Dubuisson a Vaudreuil, 15 Juin, 1712._ This is Dubuisson's report to the governor, which soon after the event he sent to Montreal by the hands of Vincennes. He says that the great fatigue through which he has just passed prevents him from giving every detail, and he refers Vaudreuil to the bearer for further information. The report is, however, long and circumstantial. _Etat de ce que M. Dubuisson a depense pour le service du Roy pour s'attirer les Nations et les mettre dans ses interets afin de resister aux Outagamis et aux Mascoutins qui etaient payes des Anglais pour detruire le poste du Fort de Ponchartrain du Detroit, 14 Octobre, 1712._ Dubuisson reckons his outlay at 2,901 livres.