CHAPTER X

THE CONSPIRACY OF PONTIAC

On the thirteenth day of September, 1760, five days after the surrender of Montreal, Major Robert Rogers, the most energetic Indian fighter of the time, set out from Montreal with two hundred of his “Rangers,” whose exploits in war had made his name famous, for the lakes. He was to take possession of Detroit and the other lake forts for England. Reaching Niagara on the first day of October, they crossed by portage to the site of the modern Buffalo and skirted the southern shore of Lake Erie, encamping nightly on its margin and taking every precaution by day to keep the boats from losing sight of one another on the rough, stormy waters. One night on the Cuyahoga River, near where the present city of Cleveland now stands, a party of Indians entered the camp and announced themselves to be ambassadors from Pontiac, “the king and lord of that country,” who requested them to halt until he himself should arrive. In a few hours the great sachem stalked into camp. He was of medium height, with an active, muscular figure, and a stern face. His first words were an imperious demand as to Major Rogers’ business. “How dare you,” said he, “enter my country without my leave?” “I do not come with any design against you or your people,” replied Rogers, “but to remove out of your country the French, who have been an obstacle in our way to mutual peace and commerce.” The Indian who greeted Rogers so haughtily was the principal chief of the Ottawa and Ojibway tribes, a man to whom all the nations of the Illinois country deferred and whose name was held in respect even by the distant Algonquins of the St. Lawrence. Rogers told him of his present mission, taking occasion to dwell on the total defeat of the French in Canada, and gave him several belts of wampum in token of his friendly intent. These Pontiac accepted with dignity, but without any sign of unbending. He announced that he stood in the path the English travelled in until the next morning, and proffered a string of wampum to intimate that they must not march farther without his leave. He inquired whether the party was in need of anything he or his warriors could supply, and then withdrew.

The English kept a double force on guard all night, but in the morning Pontiac came with his attendant chiefs and declared that he had made peace with Rogers and his detachment, and that they might therefore pass through his country unmolested and expel the French garrison from Detroit. He was inclined, he said, to live peaceably with the English while they used him as he deserved, but if they treated him with neglect, he should shut up the way and exclude them from his domains. The pipe of peace was passed around the council fire and smoked by officers and chiefs alike.

As Rogers and his men proceeded on their way, they found the march made easy by the powerful influence of Pontiac, who dissuaded a war-party of Detroit Indians from attacking them, furnished guides and welcome supplies of venison, turkeys, and parched corn. He even sent word ahead to the Indians within the limits of the fort that he was a friend of the English, making it impossible for the French commander to get any help from them. In the rôle of guide, counsellor, and patronizing friend of the newly arrived strangers, this remarkable savage comes for the first time into prominence in history. Three years later he was to make of what would have been without his leadership a series of spasmodic and scattering raids a formidable and sustained Indian uprising of the most serious kind.

Rogers took Detroit, sent the French commander and his garrison down to Niagara, disarmed the Canadian militia, and received the oath of allegiance from all the inhabitants; and in a few hours Detroit was, in name at least, an English town. Within a year all the posts on the lakes came into English possession; but the English were far from gaining the hearty support of either the French-Canadian inhabitants,--who were naturally not pleased at this change of hands,--or even of the Indian tribes, who liked the French.

The French had always had unusual success in dealing with the Indians. They were friendly with them, tolerant of their presence, and generous with their gifts, without any insulting show of patronage. The previous reputation of the English was bad among the Indians. They resented their austere manners, their steady seizure of forest lands for agriculture, and their ill-concealed contempt for the red man. This bad name had been somewhat obscured in these recent years by the excellent prices paid by the English for furs, and their lavish gifts to gain Indian support; but it was now confirmed at every post along the whole frontier.

When the two rival nations were using the Indians as allies, both had treated them with respect and endeavored to gain their friendship. Now the Indians began to realize that this friendship was no longer considered valuable, but that the English were insolently seizing more and more of their domain with the apparent intention of driving them out. Their chiefs were no longer treated with respect as they hung about the white men’s forts. Owing to a sudden policy of retrenchment the gifts, too, were cut down or withheld altogether, until the savages really suffered from want of supplies which the wise Frenchmen had seen the necessity of providing for them. The customary amount of powder was denied them, and the Indians feared lest their independence was threatened. The English fur trade was in lawless hands, and the traders abused and outraged the Indians while they cheated them out of their lawful dues. The discontent of the natives was encouraged and fostered by the French traders and settlers, who told their sullen audiences incredible tales of the further evil purposes of the English, and spread far and wide a rumor that the armies of the French were even now advancing up the St. Lawrence and Mississippi rivers to drive out these pretenders.

Suddenly, in May, 1763, the Indians uprose. With characteristic secrecy and stealth the tribes had exchanged wampum belts, spreading the summons to war and signifying in return acquiescence in the plan, with hardly a suspicion on the part of their indifferent English neighbors. Occasionally in the last month a story was brought in that roused the anxiety of those who were wise in the ways of the Indians, but these were laughed to scorn. Looking backward, one marvels both at the secrecy with which the uprising was planned, and at the serene confidence of the scanty garrisons stationed at these isolated and dangerous outposts. From contemporary accounts it appears that at Presque Isle there were twenty-seven men; at Michilimackinac thirty-five men with their officers; at the foot of Lake Michigan, on the St. Joseph’s River, fifteen, and at Fort Miami ten, while the other posts were held by mere handfuls of soldiers; Detroit was the only station that was suitably manned.

In their dealings with white men, the Indians had never before been banded together under a single leader. The tribes were restless and jealous of one another, but Pontiac restrained and humored them. He made his plans so well, and they were carried out so secretly and energetically, that within ten weeks of the time when the first blow was struck, not a single post remained in British hands west of Niagara, save only the fort of Detroit, where he himself conducted the siege in person.

The garrison at Detroit was commanded by Major Gladwin, a young British officer, who had taken an active part in the war with the French, and had been at Detroit for nearly a year. He had eight officers and one hundred and twenty men in his command; and besides the Canadian residents, whose white cottages lined either bank of the river, there were about forty fur traders at the settlement. The original stockade had been several times enlarged since Cadillac’s day, once recently during the three years of English occupation. It contained about a hundred small houses, a well-built group of barracks, a council house, and a church. Three rows of pickets, twenty-five feet high, with large gateways surmounted by blockhouses for observation and defence, had taken the place of the original twelve-foot fence. Within each gateway, which was closed at sunset, was a small wicket, through which one person could enter at a time. This was kept open until nine o’clock. The fort was protected by three small cannon, one carrying three-pound balls, the other two six-pounders; but these guns were badly mounted and better calculated to terrify the Indians than to render much actual assistance. Far more effective were the two small vessels, the _Beaver_ and the _Gladwin_, which lay anchored in the stream.

At a council on the 27th of April, 1763, Pontiac inflamed the minds of his hearers by reporting a vision vouchsafed to him by the Great Spirit, who asked him why the Indians suffered these English,--“these dogs dressed in red,”--to dwell among them. The first step of his plan, as he unfolded it to his warriors, was to spy out the land. On May-day, 1760, forty men of the Ottawa tribe, purporting to have returned from their winter hunting-grounds, went to the fort and asked permission to dance the calumet dance before the English officers. They were admitted, and while thirty of them danced, the remaining ten strolled about and noted every detail of the defence, all retiring at the close without rousing any suspicion in the minds of their hosts.

Four days later one of the leading French settlers brought in word that his wife, while purchasing supplies in the Ottawa village, had found the warriors filing off the ends of their gun-barrels so as to make them only about a yard long, probably with some treacherous intent of concealing them more easily. The next day Major Gladwin was informed of the plot for the destruction of his garrison on the morrow. Two stories are told of the source of this information,--one that an Indian girl to whom he had been kind made it known to him, and another that a friendly young warrior told him. We would like to believe the former, which tells of the reluctance of the beautiful girl to depart after she had done her errand of delivering a pair of embroidered moccasins ordered by Major Gladwin, and of her confession to him, when he pressed her for the reason of her sad manner, that danger threatened him and his men. Gladwin hardly believed the story, but made all preparations to thwart the plans of Pontiac if occasion offered.

The next morning the guards in the blockhouse saw Pontiac and sixty men land from their canoes and walk in Indian file up the river road towards the gateway of the stockade. They were admitted and escorted to the council chamber, where Major Gladwin and his principal officers were awaiting them. It is said that even the iron composure of Pontiac was shaken and that he gave a momentary start when he saw drawn up on either side of the gateway and standing about in watchful groups in the streets the armed soldiers of the garrison. The officers, too, were in full uniform with their swords at their sides and a brace of pistols in their belts. Before he was seated Pontiac asked, “Why do I see so many of my father’s young men standing in the street with their guns?” “To keep them in good discipline and exercise them,” replied Major Gladwin, through his interpreter.

When the Indians were seated on the skins prepared for them, Pontiac began his address. Holding in his hand the wampum belt which had been agreed upon as the signal for attack, he spoke of the friendship of the Indians for the English. Once, it is said, he raised it as if to give the signal, but Gladwin signed with his hand and the soldiers without the open door made a clattering with their arms. Pontiac trembled and gave the belt in the usual way instead of in the manner agreed upon in the council.

Gladwin replied that the Indians should have the friendship of the English just so long as they kept the peace, but not one moment longer. Some writers say that he drew aside the blanket of the chief nearest to him and showed hidden in its folds a shortened gun. At any rate, the English found out that every chief was armed, and knew that they had narrowly escaped a frightful massacre. The Indians were awed by the sharp rebuke of Gladwin into departing quietly. For two days they attempted to parley with the English and gain admittance by deceit; but Gladwin was firm that not more than sixty might enter the fort at one time, and on the 9th of May Pontiac threw aside his mask of pretended friendship. Hostilities were begun by the Indians murdering an old English sergeant who lived on a neighboring island.

The Indians moved their camp to the same side of the river as the fort, establishing themselves just above the line of the French houses. One more attempt was made for peace, when two brave English officers, Captain Campbell and Lieutenant McDougall, insisted upon risking their lives in the Indian camp to see if they could persuade the savages to desist from war. Both were detained by the Indians in spite of the previous promises of Pontiac. Lieutenant McDougall later made his escape, but Captain Campbell was murdered by the natives in an outburst of anger. The blockade of Detroit was begun, and many months were to pass before a white man could venture in daylight to step outside the little wicket or to show his head at a port-hole or window without fear of Indian bullets. For weeks every one from Major Gladwin down to the lowest soldier was on the watch night and day, no man lying down to sleep except in his clothes and with his gun beside him. The garrison began to suffer for food and would have been forced to withdraw from the fort and escape down the lake, had not a few friendly Canadians smuggled in supplies. The Indians, too, whose method of warfare is that of sudden attack rather than of protracted siege, had not sufficient food, but began to make raids on the Canadian families, who, though taking no part in the struggle, were in general indifferent to the English. At a time like this the remarkable gifts of Pontiac came out. With a foresight and method most unusual in a savage he established a base of supplies, undertook a systematic levy on those who had provisions, and gave out a regular amount each day to every Indian.

On the 29th of May, after the blockade had been going on for three weeks, the long-expected boats from Niagara, which had been summoned by Major Gladwin in the first days of the siege, were seen rounding the wooded point below the fort, the red flag of England flying at their sterns. All was rejoicing within the fort until, as the boats came nearer, the English saw that they were occupied and guided by Indians. Three Englishmen who escaped to the fort brought a mournful tale of a night attack and seizure of the boats at the mouth of the Detroit River, and also of the destruction of Sandusky and Presque Isle. This was the first of many reports that were to come during that month of similar successful attacks, until the little garrison at Detroit was the only one left on the upper lakes. The remaining Englishmen of the rescuing party were massacred that night in the Indian camp.

Towards the end of June Pontiac sent another summons to surrender, saying that nine hundred Indians from the north were on their way to join him. Major Gladwin refused to consider terms till Captain Campbell and Lieutenant McDougall were returned to him, and once more hostilities were resumed. On the 30th of June the _Gladwin_, which about the middle of May had eluded the Indians and slipped down the river to Niagara, succeeded in making her way up the river and landing at the fort a force of fifty men, together with much-needed provisions and ammunition. She brought the news that peace had been formally concluded between England and France. While many of the French-Canadians refused to admit the truth of this report and continued to romance to the Indians about large French armies that were approaching, forty settlers accepted their new position as English subjects and took service under Gladwin. Through them the English officers were kept even better informed of what went on without the fort than before, but always throughout the blockade there seem to have been daily reports from some source of what happened in the Indian camp, as well as frequent sorties from the fort.

During the month of July the efforts of the Indians were directed particularly against the two armed vessels, which had not only afforded defence to the fort and brought men and supplies, but had begun to make trips up the river to a point opposite the Indian camp, from which they could pour shot into the wigwams. One night the attention of the watchful sentries was attracted by a mass of flames shooting up into the sky in the general direction of the Indian camp. Their first thought was that the village was on fire, but the mass of flame seemed to be moving and to come nearer. A huge fire-float, made of four bateaux[2] filled with fagots, birch bark, and tar, appeared on the water, drifting down to set fire to the schooners anchored opposite the fort. The vessels were anchored by two cables, and as the blazing raft approached, they slipped one cable and swung to the other side of the river while the raft floated harmlessly by, lighting up the fort and the dark shores till it burned itself down to the water’s edge.

[2] _Bateau_, the French word for boat, usually applied to a flat-bottomed boat with pointed ends.

The next event of the blockade came at the end of that month. On the 29th of July the garrison heard firing down the river. They waited anxiously, wondering what new disaster was to fall upon them, for similar sounds had often been followed by the arrival of a single survivor from some abandoned fort with a tale of Indian butchery. Half an hour later the sentries called to their officers to come quickly, for the whole surface of the water was covered with boats. In breathless suspense the weary garrison waited to see if the story of two months before was to be repeated and dusky forms were to appear crouching in captured English vessels; but they were reassured by the salute of an English gun. In an hour two hundred and sixty men had landed at the little wharf and been welcomed with cheers and shouts. Captain Dalyell had been sent from Niagara with companies from two regiments and with twenty of Rogers’ Rangers, commanded by Major Rogers himself, to put an end to the siege.

The newcomers were eager to sally forth and meet the Indians. Gladwin, who had been made wary by long months of experience with Pontiac, strenuously opposed Dalyell’s plan of a night attack, and only gave his consent when the latter threatened to leave Detroit unless some such bold stroke was permitted. About two o’clock in the morning, on the thirty-first day of July, two hundred and fifty men marched in three detachments up the bank of the river, past the French cottages, to a little stream a mile and a half above the fort. Treacherous Canadians, who had in some way learned of the plan, had warned the Indians, and as the advance guard passed across the bridge which spanned the stream, the Indians dashed down from the heights above and poured volleys of musketry into the English ranks. The soldiers recoiled for a moment; then they pushed on over the bridge, but the savages vanished yelling into the darkness beyond. For a time the English pressed on, shot at from every side; but flesh and blood could not stand against this invisible enemy. The remaining troops endeavored to retreat in orderly fashion, but were soon under heavy fire again from a rear ambuscade of Indians. Major Rogers gained entrance to a house on the road and from its windows commanded the road with his guns and covered the retreat. The two bateaux which had followed the party up the river were loaded with the dead and wounded. Slowly the English made their way back under constant fire, and by eight o’clock the survivors gained the shelter of the fort. Of the two hundred and fifty who had gone out six hours before, one hundred and fifty-nine had been killed or wounded, and Captain Dalyell himself had lost his life. The victory of Bloody Run, as the stream was ever afterwards called, restored the confidence of Pontiac and brought many accessions to his side; but in spite of this disaster Major Gladwin, with his reënforced garrison of over two hundred able-bodied men, was confident of ultimate success.

The schooner _Gladwin_ made her way again to Niagara and returned early in September with a welcome load of forty-seven barrels of flour and one hundred barrels of pork, but with a tale of Indian attack and the loss of six of her crew of twelve. Other attempts from Niagara to relieve the garrison were unsuccessful, but Pontiac received in October a heavy blow in a letter from the French commander at Fort Chartres in the Illinois country, saying that not only could he offer Pontiac no help but he was now at peace with the English and wished the Indians to follow his example. This message had its effect. Pontiac had had great hopes of French assistance. With these hopes dashed he knew he could not hold out much longer; already his warriors were wearying of the attack and deserting him. He sent a letter to Gladwin asking for peace and agreeing to forget the “bad things that had happened,” if the Englishman would do the same. Gladwin replied that he would grant a truce while he sent Pontiac’s message to his general, who alone had power to grant pardon.

As it was then late in the season, it was deemed best to leave matters in this condition until spring, as it held the Indians in a wholesome state of uncertainty. Within a few days the encampments in the vicinity of Detroit were abandoned. After a confinement of five long months the inhabitants of the town could venture outside the stockade without dread of Indian bullets.

A report was sent to General Amherst, the commander of the British army, and during the winter plans were made to relieve Detroit and bring peace to the lake region. A military expedition was to be sent in the spring to force the tribes into submission; and in the meantime Sir William Johnson, the superintendent of Indian affairs, despatched messages to all the tribes, warning them of the coming expedition and urging those who were ready to make peace to come, while there was yet time, to a grand council fire at Niagara.

From the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi, from Lake Superior and eastern New York, the friendly tribes came up in July to Niagara. When Johnson stepped ashore from the boat which brought him from Oswego, he saw dotting the fields the wigwams of more than a thousand Indians, and in a few days the number was doubled. Councils were held at which the representatives of the tribes promised their friendship to the English, agreed to restore the forts, to cede lands, and in so far as their own nations were concerned to guarantee safe navigation on the lakes. This convention was the most remarkable assemblage of Indians that had ever gathered on the shores of the Great Lakes.

While the council was in progress Colonel Bradstreet arrived at Niagara with his troops, and when it was over he proceeded up Lake Erie to Detroit, for Pontiac and his tribes had not come to the conference, and Detroit was still in danger. During the winter the Indians had left the town in peace, but in the spring warriors had returned to encamp on the strait and had made occasional attacks. In August, 1764, fifteen months from the time when Pontiac and his sixty chiefs sat in Gladwin’s council chamber, the English army under General Bradstreet came to relieve the weary garrison. Pontiac sent a message of defiance to the English chief, but he sent it from the safe distance of a village on the Maumee River, forty or fifty miles away, in what is now the state of Ohio.

Fresh troops were put in place of the worn-out veterans of the siege; such Indians as remained in the vicinity came in and offered their allegiance to the English; and Gladwin, weary of fighting the Indians, started down Lake Erie on his way to England. Now that his defence of Detroit was honorably ended, he was glad to resign his commission. Lesser posts had fallen, but Detroit had been saved, and with it the upper lakes.

Pontiac spent the next two years among the western tribes of the Illinois region. In the summer of 1766 he went to Oswego, and as official representative of the tribes of the West offered to Sir William Johnson his friendship and theirs. His conspiracy had failed and he returned sadly to his home in the Illinois villages. For two years little is known of him, but in April, 1769, his name became once more the watchword of bloodshed and slaughter. From tribe to tribe runners carried the news that he had been murdered in an Indian village, and the nations rose in their wrath to avenge the death of their great chieftain. The Illinois nation, to which the assassin belonged, was almost wiped out, and internal feuds sprang up between the tribes till all the Indians of the southern lake region were involved, and the death of Pontiac was avenged among his people by a period of universal tribal war.

_Chronology of the Ending of French Rule_

1759. Capture of Quebec and Niagara.

1760. Capture of Montreal and surrender of Canada.

Taking possession of Detroit.

1763. Pontiac’s attack, and the fall of the other posts of the western lakes.

Treaty of Peace.

1764. Sir William Johnson’s conference at Niagara.

Bradstreet’s expedition up Lake Erie, and the close of the blockade of Detroit.