The most effective weapon of la petite guerre was surprise; in the face of sudden enemy attack there was virtually no defence. This woodcut captures the sequence of the horrors of such raids: the burning of the settlement (1); the hacking down and scalping of victims (2, 4 and 5); the pleading for mercy (3); the burning at the stake (6) and the procession of wailing prisoners setting out on the long and terrible march to captivity. The illustration is from the Narrative of the Massacre by the Savages of the Wife and Children of Thomas Baldwin. A friend of the American woodsman Daniel Boone, Baldwin lost his wife and three children during an Indian raid on his cabin.
Courtesy: Edward E. Ayer Collection, The Newberry Library, Chicago
