[stacey.23]

Fontaine, Peter. “Letters of the Rev. Peter Fontaine of Westover, Virginia”: p. 233-355. Maury, Ann. Memoirs of a Huguenot Family: Translated and compiled from the original autobiography of the Rev. James Fontaine, and other Family Manuscripts; Comprising an original Journal of Travels in Virginia, New York, Etc, in 1715 and 1716. New York. Geo. P. Putnam & Co. 1853. 512 pgs. <http://content.ancestry.com/iexec/?htx=BookList&dbid=15721&ti=0>

From a letter of Peter Fontaine’s addressed to “Dear Brother Moses” on March 30th, 1757, pages 349 – 351

…Now, to answer your first query – whether by our breach of treaties we have not justly exasperated the bordering nations of Indians against us, and drawn upon ourselves the barbarous usage we meet with from them and the French? To answer this fully would take up much time. I shall only hint at some things which we ought to have done, and which we did not do at our first settlement amongst them, and which we might have learnt long since from the practice of our enemies the French. I am persuaded we were not deficient in the observation of treaties, but as we got the land by concession, and not by conquest, we ought to have intermarried with them, which would have incorporated us with them effectually, and made of them stanch friends, and, which is of still more consequence, made many of them good Christians; but this our wise politicians at home put an effectual stop to at the beginning of our settlement here, for when they heard that John Rolfe had married Pocahontas, it was deliberated in Council, whether he had not committed high treason by so doing, that is, marrying an Indian Princess; and had not some troubles intervened which put a stop to the inquiry, the poor man might have been hanged up for doing the most just, the most natural, the most generous and polite action that ever was done this side of the water. This put an effectual stop to all intermarriages afterwards. Our Indian traders have indeed their squaws, alias whores, at the Indian towns where they trade, but leave their offspring like bulls or boards to be provided for at random by their mothers. As might be expected, some of these bastards have been the leading men or war-captains that have done us so much mischief. This ill-treatment was sufficient to create jealousy in the natural man’s breast, and made the Indians look upon us as false and deceitful friends, and cause all our endeavors to convert them to be ineffectual. But here methinks I can hear you observe, What! Englishmen intermarry with Indians? But I can convince you that they are guilty of much more heinous practices, more unjustifiable in the sight of God and man (if that, indeed, may be called a bad practice), for many base wretches amongst us take up with negro women, by which means the country swarms with mulatto bastards, and these mulattoes, if but three generations removed from the black father or mother, may by the indulgence of the laws of the country, intermarry with the white people, and actually do every day so marry. Now, if, instead of this abominable practice which hath polluted the blood of many amongst us, we had taken Indian wives in the first place, it would have made them some compensation for their lands. They are a free people, and the offspring would not be born in a state of slavery. We should become rightful heirs to their lands, and should not have smutted our blood, for the Indian children when born are as white as Spaniards or Portuguese, and were it not for the practice of going naked in the summer and besmearing themselves with bears’ grease, &c., they would continue white; and had we thought fit to make them our wives, they would readily have complied with our fashion of wearing clothes all the year round; and by doing justice to these poor benighted heathen, we should have introduced Christianity amongst them. Your own reflections upon these hints will be a sufficient answer to your first query. I shall only add that General Johnson’s success was owing, under God, to his fidelity to the Indians, and his generous conduct to his Indian wife, by whom he hath several hopeful sons, who are all war-captains, the bulwarks with him of the five nations, and loyal subjects to their mother country…

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