The boys' book of Indian battles and adventures, with anecdotes about them
History
The boys' book of Indian battles and adventures, with anecdotes about them
Indians of North America -- Anecdotes
It seems incredible, that they sometimes rescued their prisoners from
these tortures, adopted them, and treated them with the utmost lenity
and even kindness. At other times, ingenuity was exhausted to invent
tortures, and every renewed endurance of the victim seemed to stimulate
their vengeance to new discoveries of cruelty. Butler was one of these
ill-fated subjects. No way satisfied with what they had done, they
marched him from village to village, to give all a spectacle of his
sufferings. He ran the gauntlet thirteen times. He made various attempts
to escape; and in one instance would have effected it, had he not been
arrested by some savages who were accidentally returning to the village
from which he was escaping. It was finally determined to burn him at the
lower Sandusky, but an apparent accident changed his destiny.
In passing to the stake, the procession went by the cabin of Simon Girty,
who had just returned from an unsuccessful expedition to the frontiers
of Pennsylvania. The wretch burned with disappointment and revenge; and
hearing that there was a white man going to the torture, determined to
wreak his vengeance on him. He found the unfortunate Butler, threw him
to the ground, and began to beat him. Butler, who instantly recognized
in Girty a former companion of his youth, made himself known to him.
His savage heart relented. He raised him up, and promised to use his
influence to save him. Girty had a council called, and he moved the
savages to give Butler up to him. He took the unfortunate man home,
fed, and clothed him, and Butler began to recruit from his wounds
and torture. But the relenting of the savages in his favour was only
momentary. After five days, they repented of their relaxation in his
favour, reclaimed him, and marched him to Lower Sandusky to be burned,
according to their original purpose. By a surprising coincidence, he
there met the Indian agent from Detroit, who from motives of humanity,
exerted his influence with the savages for his release, and took him with
him to Detroit. Here he was paroled by the governor. He escaped, and by a
march of thirty days through the wilderness, reached Kentucky.
[Illustration]
INGENUITY IN TORTURE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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