ABSTRACT
At the end of the Seven Years’ War native power in eastern North America, as measured by population and land, was still substantial. James Glen’s 1761 account (document 1) of South Carolina’s relations with Indian tribes in the southeast, particularly the Choctaws, Creeks, Chickasaws, and Cherokees is testimony to the strength and autonomy of those tribes. Glen’s report, nonetheless, presages future challenges confronting Native Americans. These challenges became acute at the end of the Seven Years’ War as numerous British American settlers pushed westward, encroaching on Indian lands. The grievances of the Paxton Boys (document 2) arising, in part, from anti-Indian animus resulted in violent conflict which the British found difficult to contain. When racial conflict occurred it was difficult to distinguish friend from foe—the Paxton Boys massacred peaceful Christian Indians who had been taken into protective custody. Similarly when Dunmore’s War (1774–75) broke out in the Ohio-Pennsylvania-Virginia borderland, settlers slaughtered the family of the Mingo war chief Tachnedorus (known to whites as Logan) despite the fact that Logan had been friendly to settlers (document 3).
