first, the British in America were far behind the French
in christianlike conduct towards the native races. The
colonial traders generally despised the Indians and
treated them as of commercial value only, as gatherers
of pelts, and held their lives in little more esteem than
the lives of the animals that yielded the pelts. The
missionary zeal of New England, compared with that of
New France, was exceedingly mild. Rum was a leading
article of trade. The Indians were often cheated out of
their furs; in some instances they were slain and their
packs stolen. Sir William Johnson described the British
traders as 'men of no zeal or capacity: men who even
sacrifice the credit of the nation to the basest purposes.'
There were exceptions, of course, in such men as Alexander
Henry and Johnson himself, who, besides being a wise
official and a successful military commander, was one of
the leading traders.

No sooner was New France vanquished than the British
began building new forts and blockhouses in the hinterland.
[Footnote: By the hinterland is meant, of course, the
regions beyond the zone of settlement; roughly, all west
of Montreal and the Alleghanies.] Since the French were
no longer to be reckoned with, why were these forts
needed? Evidently, the Indians thought, to keep the red
children in subjection and to deprive them of their
hunting-grounds! The gardens they saw in cultivation
about the forts were to them the forerunners of general
settlement. The French had been content with trade; the
British appropriated lands for farming, and the coming