Stephens City star. (Stephens City, Va.) 1881-1883, 1883-06-30
INDIAN SCALPSs
Prices Paid for Them in Colonial Times
A Rig Premium on Dead Indians.

Prices Paid for Them In Colonial Times
A Big Premium Dead Indians.
The taking of scalps came to be a
recognized part of colonial warfare.
Hannah Dustin, who escaped from
Indian captivity in 1893, took ten
scalps with her own hand, and was
paid for them. Captain Church,
undertaking his expedition against
the eastern Indiats, in 17O5, after the
Deerfield massacfe, announced that ne
had not hitherto permitted the scalp
ing of Canada men," but should
thenceforth allowNit In 1872, when
the Massachusetts colony sent an expe-
dition against the village of praying
Indians" founded hy Fsther kasle,
they offered for each scalp bounty OF
els. afterward increased to elOO; and
this inhumanity was so far carried out
that the French priest himself was one
of the victims. Jeremiah Bumstead,
of Boston, made this entry in his alma
nae in the same year; "Aug. %, 70
Indian scalps brought to Boston, one
of which was Bombazen's Gan Indian
chiefly and one fryer Rallies" Two
wears after, the celebrated but inappro-
priately named Captain Lovewell, the
foremost Indian fighter of his region,
came upon ten Indians asleep round a
pond: he and his men killed and
scalped them all, and entered Dover,
New Hampshire, bearing the ten
scalps stretched on hoops and elevated
on poles. After receiving an ovation
in Dover they wehS oy water to Boston,
| and we're paid Thousand pounds for
their s,,alps. Yet LovewelPs party
was always accompanied by a chaplain
and had prayers every morning and
evening.
The most painful aspect of the
whole practice lies in the fact that il
was not confined to those actually en-
gagged in fighting, but that the colonia
authorities actually established a tariff
of prices for scalps, including ever
non-combatants-so much for mans
so much for woman's, so much for
child's. DR.. Ellis has lately pointet
out the striking circumstance tina
whereas William Penn declared tn
person of an Indian to be sacred nj
grandsos in 1864 offered s134 for tn
!. scalp Of an Indian mTr = 30 fo- that o
a boy under ten, and $50 for that OF
woman or girl. The habit doubles
began in the fury Of retaliation, an
was continued in order to conciliat
Indian allies; and when bounties wei
u offered to them, the white volunteer
I" naturally claimed a share. But thel
" is no doubt that Puritan theoloe
y helped the adoption of the practic
Il 1t was partly because the Indian wi
II held to be something worse than
~ beast that he was treated as being
l. least beast. The truth was that
!. was viewed as fiend, and there cou
+ not be much scruple about using inh
~ manities against a demon. Cottc
Mather calls Satan "the old Landlord
d of the American wilderness. and sa..
~ in his "Magnalia:" "These Parts we
$. then covered with ,N.saons of Bs
III barous Indians and Infidels, in who
the Prince of the Power
III the Air did work as Spirit; n
could it be expected that Natio
Ut of Wretches whose whole religit
IL was the most Explicit sort
'c- Devil-Worship should not be acted
the Devil to engage in some early al
'o bloody Action for the Extinction OF
u- Plantation so contrary to his lnteres
IN as that of New England now."
T. w. Higginso,a, IN Horper's.