andusky Indians were largely Wyandots,
Shawnees, and Delawares, the latter being fellow-tribesmen of the
Christian Indians; and so they regarded the Moravians as traitors to the
cause of their kinsfolk, because they would not take up the hatchet
against the whites. As they could not goad them into declaring war, they
took malicious pleasure in trying to embroil them against their will,
and on returning from raids against the settlements often passed through
their towns solely to cast suspicion on them and to draw down the wrath
of the backwoodsmen on their heads. The British at Detroit feared lest
the Americans might use the Moravian villages as a basis from which to
attack the lake posts; they also coveted their men as allies; and so the
baser among their officers urged the Sandusky tribes to break up the
villages and drive off the missionaries. The other Indian tribes
likewise regarded them with angry contempt and hostility; the Iroquois
once sent word to the Chippewas and Ottawas that they gave them the
Christian Indians "to make broth of."

So Do the Americans.

The Americans became even more exasperated. The war parties that
plundered and destroyed their homes, killing their wives, children, and
friends with torments too appalling to mention, got shelter and
refreshment from the Moravians, [Footnote: Heckewelder's "Narrative of
the Mission of the United Brethren," Philadelphia, 1820, p. 166.]
--who, indeed, dared not refuse it. The backwoodsmen, roused to a mad
frenzy of rage by the awful nature of their wrongs, saw that the
Moravians rendered valuable help to their cruel and inveterate foes, and
refused to see that the help was given with the utmost reluctance.
Moreover, some of the young Christian Indians backslid, and joined their
savage brethren, accompanying them on their war parties and ravaging
with as much cruelty as any of their number. [Footnote: _Pennsylvania
Packet_ (Philadelphia, April 16, 1782); Heckewelder, 180; Loskiel's
"History of the Mission of the United Brethren" (London, 1794), P--172.
] Soon the frontiersmen began to clamor for the destruction of the
Moravian towns; yet for a little while they were restrained by the
Continental officers of the few border forts, who always treated these
harmless Indians with the utmost kindness.

They Blindly Court their Fate.

On either side were foes, who grew less governable day by day, and the
fate of the hapless and peaceful Moravians, if they