Nelson Family Juvenilia
Box 1 Folder 56
Nelson brothers fragments from a story about Forest Continent - n.d.

Chapter 3 The Blacks

Their Tribes and Customs

The Black race of Forest Continent lived in tribes all having seperate chiefs there was at this time of the early settlements fifty eight different tribes and as many as 20 thousand Black in all they had no firearms or any steel implements they only had stone and shell hatchets and knives a few of the races had a few had things made of copper and lead but most of them had stone and shell spear heads and such things

[Illustration of a spear from Julianos tribe]

When the settlers first came to Forest Continent the Blacks thought that they were some kind of spirits and treated them as iff they were their kings but they soon began to mistrust that they were not any thing of the kind and wanted to get rid of them. The settlers had not found any Indians for the reason that they were huddled around Big Wolf Lake and this was not discovered yet so the Blacks were the only troublesome race Juliano a cheaf of a tribe near Allenstown had proved very troublesome ever after the first settlers came
[Illustration of a hatchet]

And the people at Allenstown were in continual danger of being killed untill Ethan Allen put George Mayor Ayoung and enterprising young man like himself in charge of that colony who organized a part chased Julians to his strong hold where they defeated and killed him Allenstown had peace after that for about two years when all the tribes united and planned to send all the waites in one great massacre by this time there was about five thousand whites in Forest Continent and the tribes of Blacks were not the kind of fellows to attack the whites but openly they first build forts and blockades and then they got ready for the massacre their forts were built of logs and brush and usually covered over about an acre which was room enough for the whole tribe round this was usually a ditch filled with water each tribe had one of these and then they had barracks or blockades made of brush which were about eight feet high around their villages to prevent a surprise the whites finding them unfriendly mistrusted that the Blacks were planning a massacre and so instead of spending their time in hunting in the forests they built forts and block houses and organized parties [page breaks] of sharp shooters and Melita at Allenstown the most was done to protect the

[Illustration of a Black tribes strong hold]

Settlers for they well knew that the Black would first be struck there were there was six hundred settlers two hundred and fifty sixty of which were men and boys from the age five to ten years old there was 1 block house at one end of the town and another at the other ville [?] in the middle was a small stone fort containing the fifty Allenstown regulars at they were called commanded by General Mayor early in the morning May eights about 4 aclock 1672 the settlers heard the bell of their little church ringing furiously and a con was fired this was the signal of danger

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