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The Amerindians return captured children to Colonel Bouquet at the end of battle

Caption: The Amerindians return captured children to Colonel Bouquet at the end of battle

During 1864, Colonel Henry Bouquet insisted that in return for sparing their villages, Amerindians turn over all captured whites to him. This made for much suffering for some. Amerindians treated captive children well, often adopting them. A contemporary account of Bouquet's expedition recorded that: "cruel and unmerciful as they are . . . [Amerindians] exercise virtues which Christians need not blush to imitate. No child is otherwise treated by the persons adopting it than the children of their own body." In this engraving, a captive white boy recoils from a British soldier, seeking refuge in the arms of his adopted Indian mother and father, probably the only parents the child remembers.