murderers, not warriors.

In peace they were next to useless. There was a little colony of them in
our orchard one summer which I watched with much interest. The men never
did one stroke of honest work all the season long, except to trot on
errands when they felt like it, and occasionally salt and smoke fish
which they caught in the river.

But the wretched squaws--my word but _they_ worked enough for both! These
women, wrinkled, dirty, sore-eyed from the smoke in their miserable huts,
toiled on patiently, ceaselessly, making a great variety of wooden
utensils and things of deer-hide like snow-shoes, moccasins, and shirts,
which they bartered with the whites for milk and vegetables and rum. Even
the little girls among them had to gather berries and mandrake, and, in
the fall, the sumach blows which the Indians used for savoring their food.
And if these poor creatures obtained in their bartering too much bread and
milk and too little rum and tobacco, they were beaten by their men as no
white man would beat the meanest animal.

Doubtless much of my dislike for the Indian came from his ridiculous and
hateful assumption of superiority over the negro. To my mind, and to all
sensible minds I fancy, one simple, honest, devoted black was worth a
score of these conceited, childish brutes. I was so fond of my boy Tulp,
that, even as a little fellow, I deeply resented the slights and cuffs
which he used to receive at the hands of the savages who lounged about in
the sunshine in our vicinity. His father, mother, and brothers, who herded
together in a shanty at the edge of the clearing back of us, had their
faults, no doubt; but they would work when they were bid, and they were
grateful to those who fed and clothed and cared for them. These were
reasons for their being despised by the Indians--and they seemed also