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By Root 2286 0

among them, tho’ ransomed by their Friends, and treated with all imaginable tenderness to prevail with them to stay among the English, yet in a Short time they become disgusted with our manner of life, and the care and pains that are necessary to support it, and take the first good Opportunity of escaping again into the Woods, from whence there is no reclaiming them.”242 These descriptions are common. Cadwallader Colden wrote in 1747 of whites captured by Indians, “No Arguments, no Intreaties, nor Tears of their Friends and Relations, could persuade many of them to leave their new Indian Friends and Acquaintance[s]; several of them that were by the Caressings of their Relations persuaded to come Home, in a little time grew tired of our Manner of living, and run away again to the Indians, and ended their Days with them. On the other Hand, Indian Children have been carefully educated among the English, cloathed and taught, yet, I think, there is not one Instance that any of these, after they had Liberty to go among their own People, and were come to Age, would remain with the English, but returned to their own Nations, and became as fond of the Indian Manner of Life as those that knew nothing of a civilized Manner of living.”243 At prisoner exchanges, Indians would run joyously back to their families, while white captives had to be bound hand and foot to not run back to their captors.244

The civilized who chose to stay among the Indians did so because, according to historian James Axtell, summarizing the stories of whites who wrote about their lives among Indians, “they found Indian life to possess a strong sense of community, abundant love, and uncommon integrity—values that the European colonists also honored, if less successfully. But Indian life was attractive for other values—for social equality, mobility, adventure, and, as two adult converts acknowledged, ‘the most perfect freedom, the ease of living, [and] the absence of those cares and corroding solicitudes which so often prevail with us.’”245

Because Indian life was more enjoyable, pleasant, and non-abusive than life among the civilized, the conquistador Hernando de Soto had to place armed guards around his camps, not so much to keep Indians from attacking, but to keep European men and women from defecting to the Indians.246 Likewise, Pilgrim leaders made running away to join the Indians an offense punishable by death.247 Other colonial rulers did the same. When, to provide one example among many, in 1612 some young Europeans in Virginia “did runne away unto the Indyans,”248 the governor ordered them hunted down, tortured, and killed: “Some he apointed to be hanged Some burned Some to be broken upon wheles, others to be staked and some to be shott to deathe.”249 We can ask ourselves whether the governor was actually outraged and acting out his volatility, or whether he simply preferred that his subjects fear him, even if that meant they hate him. The reasoning was straightforward: “all theis extreme and crewell tortures he used and inflicted upon them to terrify the rests for Attempting the Lyke.”250

When even this failed to stem the flood of desertions—and who can blame the deserting colonists?—the civilized saw no option but to slaughter the Indians and thus eliminate the possibility of escape. (The aforementioned governor, for example, in another case of runaway white folks, sent his commander and some troops “to take Revendge upon the Paspeheans and Chiconamians [Chickahominies],” Indians unfortunate enough to live closest to the whites. This “Revendge” consisted of going to where the Indians lived, killing about fifteen of them, capturing their “quene” and her children, and making sure to “cutt downe their Corne growing about the Towne.” On the boat ride home, the soldiers of civilization “begin to murmur because the quene and her Children weare spared.” Not wanting to upset his soldiers, the commander threw the children overboard before “shoteinge owtt their Braynes in the water.” The Governor, displeased at the sparing of the “quene,” ordered her burned