[From this editor’s research it seems that the Indians described by Peter are a branch of the Delaware Nation, then living in Northwestern Pennsylvania on the wooded Allegheny Mantel. Relatives of these Delaware had also settled under Christian Missionaries in small bands where they were slaughtered by radicalized bands such as those who took Peter and also by vengeful Christian settlers, such as the slaughter at Gadenhutten, Pennsylvania in 1782 triggered by anger at Iroquois raiders allied with Britain.
Having been driven over 200 miles from their original homeland, those Delaware Indians who did not Christianize continued to work as guides and bodyguards for French, British and American commercial and military expeditions for another 100 years, being greatly feared by other tribes as far away as Seattle Washington.
Ethonographic studies based on accounts such as Peter’s are difficult and made frustrating by the fact that few generations of Eastern Woodlands Indians outside of the Iroquois Confederation maintained the same home as their grandparent’s territory in the face of the European Invasion. In the case of tribes such as the Delaware and Conestoga we do not even have peoples with indigenous names, but European names, with the tribes unknown or unspecified until after displacement by whites. Not a single intact tribe known to have been indigenous to Pennsylvania before European expansion beyond coastal settlements survived the intervening years between the first Virginia settlement in Roanoke in 1584, and the conclusion of the war of American independence in 1783. This was due largely to the actions of the Iroquois confederacy of five, and later six, tribes.
Note: the Mingoes were not a tribe, but a loose alliance of displaced tribal remnants from the east, who might also be candidates for Peter’s captors, though his description of their dress points to a Delaware people.]
-James LaFond, 12/13/15
In the morning, as soon as I awoke, I continued my journey towards the nearest cleared lands I had seen the day before, and about four o' clock in the afternoon arrived at the house of John Bell, an old acquaintance, where, knocking at the door, his wife, who opened it, seeing me in such a frightful condition, flew from me like lightning, screaming into the house. This alarmed the whole family, who immediately fled to their arms, and I was soon accosted by the master with his gun in his hand. But on my assuring him of my innocence as to any wicked intentions, and making myself known (for he before took me to be an Indian), he immediately caressed me, as did also his family, with a deal of friendship, at finding me alive; they having all been informed of my being murdered by the savages some months before.
No longer now able to support my fatigued and worn-out spirits, I fainted and fell to the ground. From which state having recovered me, and perceiving the weak and famished condition I then was in, they seen rave me some refreshment, but let me partake of it very sparingly, fearing the ill effects too much would have on me. They for two or three nights very affectionately supplied me with all necessaries, and carefully attended me until my spirits and limbs were pretty well recruited, and I thought myself able to ride, when I borrowed of these good people (whose kindness merits my most grateful return) a horse and some clothes, and set forward for my father-in-law's house in Chester County, about 140 miles from thence, where I arrived on the 4th day of January, 1755; but scarce one of the family could credit their eyes, believing, with the people I had lately left, that I had fallen a prey to the Indians.
Great was the joy and satisfaction wherewith I was received and embraced by the whole family; but oh, what was my anguish and trouble, when on enquiring for my dear wife, I found she had been dead near two months ! This fatal news, as every humane reader must imagine, greatly lessened the joy and rapture I otherwise should have felt at my deliverance from the dreadful state of captivity I had been in.
