CHAPTER XXII.
THE CAPTIVES.
It is well known that previous to the war of the Revolution the whole of the western portion of Pennsylvania was inhabited by different Indian tribes.

Of these, the Delawares were the friends of the whites, and, after the commencement of the great struggle, took part with the United States.

The Iroquois, on the contrary, were the friends and allies of the mother-country.
Very few white settlers had ventured beyond the Susquehanna.

The numerous roving bands of Shawanoes, Nanticokes, etc., although at times professing friendship with the Americans and acting in concert with the Delawares or Lenape as allies, at others suffered themselves to be seduced by their neighbors, the Iroquois, to show a most sanguinary spirit of hostility.
For this reason, the life of the inhabitants of the frontier was one of constant peril and alarm.

Many a scene of dismal barbarity was enacted, as the history of the times testifies, and even those who felt themselves in some measure protected by their immediate neighbors, the Delawares, never lost sight of the caution required by their exposed situation.
The vicinity of the military garrison at Pittsburg--or Fort Pitt, as it was then called--gave additional security to those who had pushed farther west, among the fertile valleys of the Alleghany and Monongahela.