The earliest causes were the instigations of the
French and the rewards which they offered for English scalps. But
equally provocative of Indian rancor were the acts of sometimes
merely stupid, sometimes dishonest, officials; the worst of
these, Adair considered, was the cheapening of the trade through
the granting of general licenses.
"Formerly each trader had a license for two [Indian] towns....
At my first setting out among them, a number of traders...
journeyed through our various nations in different companies and
were generally men of worth; of course they would have a living
price for their goods, which they carried on horseback to the
remote Indian countries at very great expences.... [The
Indians] were kept under proper restraint, were easy in their
minds and peaceable on account of the plain, honest lessons daily
inculcated on them...but according to the present unwise
plan, two and even three Arablike peddlars sculk about in one of
those villages...who are generally the dregs and offscourings
of our climes...by inebriating the Indians with their
nominally prohibited and poisoning spirits, they purchase the
necessaries of life at four and five hundred per cent cheaper
than the orderly traders.... Instead of showing good examples
of moral conduct, beside the other part of life, they instruct
the unknowing and imitating savages in many diabolical lessons of
obscenity and blasphemy.
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