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Subject: [Q-R] Excerpt Of History
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2004 21:16:42 EST
"The Devils Hole near Niagara Falls is the spot of one of the most famous
massacres in Colonial history, one of the most famous battle and disaster sites
in the US. With the French and Indian War the British had won control of the
Great Lakes water routes, and thus the rich North American fur trade. The
route from the western four Great Lakes to the Atlantic through the St. Lawrence
River featured one big portage along the way. The British had hired Native
Americans to be porters along the route around the Falls, but when the wagons were
found to be more efficient, they downsized up to two hundred Seneca. Touchy
situation. In Sept. 1763 came the Seneca version of a wildcat strike.
Twenty-five wagons and fifty English soldiers were virtually wiped out near the Devils
Hole by a single volley, fired from cover by a Seneca force of up to 500. With
knife, club, and tomahawk the Longhouse warriors swarmed the wounded, some of
whom leaped over the edge into the torrent to sure death. A drummer boy who
did this may have been saved by a drum strap that caught on a sloapside tree. A
too small rescue party from Fort Schlosser blundered into more of the same
medicine, and dozens of them were killed."
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