There were marauding bans of both races that committed atrocities in the Ohio country. Many displaced indians from a mix of tribes (including Delawares) took on the name "mingo," a new tribe that settled in the upper ohio valley. They were a peaceful group, trying desperately to coexist with the whites on their doorstep, until a fellow named John Greathouse and his band of disgruntled settlers decided that extermination was their best bet to gain land and battle the Shawnee, who were fiercely contesting the incursion into their treatied lands north of the Ohio river. Mr. Greathouse himself hung the chief's pregnant wife and left her with the chief's unborn son dangling from her disembowed body, he also scalped the fetus. Of course, the mingo chief went crazy when he returned to find his village massacred and his family in that condition. He vowed to take 10 white lives for every one that the Greathouse band took that day, and he may have done just that, joining up with the Shawnee and vigorously campaigning against the whites. Greathouse was eventually captured by the authorities, being given credit for intensifying the hostilities in a previously tranquil area, and mobilizing a previously tranquil tribe. But he was allowed to leave the frontier with his brother rather than being tried for murder. If I had been a Mingo, I believe I'd have burned a few cabins myself. Such was the way of vengence and war.
