Therefore to proceed: not contented with what these infernals had already done, they still continued their inordinate villainy, in making a general conflagration of the barn and stables, together with all the corn, horses, cows, and every thing on the place.

Thinking the young man’s belonging to [owned as chattel] this unhappy family would be of some service to them in carrying part of their hellish acquired plunder, they spared his life, and loaded him and myself with what they had here got, and again marched to the Blue Hills, where they stowed their goods as before; My fellow-sufferer could not long bear the cruel treatment which we were both obliged to suffer, and complaining bitterly to me of his being unable to proceed any farther, I endeavoured to console him as much as lay in my power, to bear up under his afflictions, and wait with patience till by the divine assistance we should be delivered out of their clutches: but all in vain, for he still continued his moans and tears, which one of the savages perceiving as we travelled en, instantly came up to us, and with his tomahawk gave him a blow on the head, which felled the unhappy youth to the ground, where they immediately scalped and left him.

The suddenness of this murder shocked me to that degree, that one was in a manner like a statue, being quite motionless, expecting my fate would soon be the same: however, recovering my distracted thoughts. I dissembled the uneasiness and anguish which I felt, as well as I could, from the barbarians: but still, such was the terror that I was under, that for some time I scarce knew the days of the week, or what I did; so that, at this period*, life indeed became a burden to me, and I regretted being saved from my first persecutors, the sailors.

[Better versed in the ways of the whites than Peter was in the ways of the Indians, his captors, having identified the youth as a slave, took him as such, expecting to make use of him as a porter—which could also serve as a trial to see if he might possibly be worthy of adoption—but his making noise on the trail necessitated his killing. The type of abuse endured as a slave—being harsh discipline with whips and paddles—was both instructive and sadistic in practice, with slave masters, soul drivers and overseers who did not receive the whimpering and howls of their charges being notoriously apt to continue beating the person until they were crippled or killed. There are numerous incidences in later slave narratives—and some earlier—in which whipping was used as a type of public spirit breaking ritual to insure obedience and serve as an example of docility. During such beatings, it was often the case that slaves who had the strength not to cry were killed outright for their “insolence.” The very whining behavior of whipped slaves that saved or extended the lives of children sold to plantation owners, could never be tolerated by a stealthy party of raiding warriors and was seen by free warriors as a sign of general lack of character.]