William Preston wrote a letter to his brother-in-law John Brown on July 27, 1763 describing the difficult situation in Virginia due to attacks by Native Americans. Preston and 87 others had built a small fort for defense and were determined to make a stand with God's help. Most of the valleys along the Roanoke River and lands along the Mississippi River had been depopulated except for a few families who had also built forts for protection.

1. Interesting Quotes

2. Letter from William Preston to his brother-in-law, John Brown
July 27, 1763
• Our situation at present is very different from what it was when we had
the pleasure of your company. All the valleys of Roanoke river and the
waters of the Mississippi are depopulated, except Captain English and a
few families on New River who have built a fort, among them are Mr.
Thompson and his family. They intend to make a stand till some assistance
be sent them. Seventy five of the Bedford militia went out in order to
pursue the enemy, but I hear the officers and part of the men are gone
home, and the rest are gone to Reed Creek to help….James Davies and
two or three families that dare not venture to travel.
• I have built a little fort in which are eighty-seven persons, twenty of whom
bear arms. We are I a pretty good position for defense, and, with the aid
of God, are determined to make a stand.

3. From Childcraft…
The First Thanksgiving Day (1931)
And therefore, I, William Bradford (by the grace of God today,
And the franchise of this good people), Governor of Plymouth, say,
Through virtue of vested power – ye shall gather with one accord,
And hold, in the month of November, thanksgiving unto the Lord.
“He hath granted us peace and plenty, and the quiet we’ve sought so long;
He hath thwarted the wily savage, and kept him from wrack and wrong;
And unto our feast the Sachem shall be bidden, that he may know
We worship his own Great Spirit, who makes the harvests grow…
When Massasoit, the Sachem, sate down with his hundred braves,
And ate of the varied riches of gardens and woods and waves,
And looked on the granaried harvest – with a blow on his brawny chest,
He muttered, “The good Great Spirit loves his white children best.”

4. Childcraft (1931)
Hiawatha’s Childhood
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
By the shores of Gitchee Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Warer,
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.
Dark behind it rose the forest,
Rose the black and gloomy pine trees,
Rose the firs with cones upon them;
Bright before it beat the water,
Beat the clear and sunny water,
Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water.

5. American Frontiers
by Geoffrey H. Nobles
“Indians and Europeans seldom engaged in a simple, two-sided relationship.” In the
Pequot War, European meant both the Dutch and the English, two people who shared
similar cultural roots but who also showed intense hostility toward each other in their
rivalry for New World wealth.” (23-24)
“Men of wealth and influence, of whom George Washington was the most famous,
saw the frontier as a source of personal and national benefit – generally in that order.
They acquired huge holdings of land by grant or purchase, but usually not with the
intention of settling on the frontier themselves. Rather, they hoped to sell or rent the
land to sturdy, stable, hard-working, law-abiding farmers who would improve the land
(and the land values) and produce a marketable commodity.” (107)