Hollow Horn Bear
As we have seen, it was a part of Pontiac's plan that each tribe should attack the fort or English settlement nearest to them. For this reason, and because it was the largest and best fortified place, he took personal command at the siege of Detroit.
This settlement was founded by La Motte Cadillac in 1701, and contained at this time, according to Major Rogers, about twenty-five hundred people. The center of the settlement was the fortified town or fort, which stood on the western margin of the river, and contained about a hundred houses, compactly built, and surrounded by a palisade twenty-five feet high, with a bastion at each corner, and block-houses over the gates.
The garrison of the fort consisted of one hundred and twenty English soldiers, under the command of Major Gladwyn. There were also forty fur traders, and the ordinary Canadian inhabitants of the place, who could not be trusted in case of an Indian outbreak.
Two small armed schooners, the Beaver and the Gladwyn, lay anchored in the river, while the ordnance of the fort consisted of two six-pounders, one three-pounder and three mortars; all of an indifferent quality. The settlement outside the fort, stretching about eight miles along both sides of the Detroit river, consisted of the dwellings of Canadians, and three Indian villages, the Ottawas and Wyandots, on the east, and the Pottawatomies on the west side of the stream.
"Such was Detroit—a place whose defences could have opposed no resistance to a civilized enemy; and yet situated as it was at a strategic point on the bank of a broad navigable river far removed from the hope of speedy succor, it could only rely, in the terrible struggle that awaited it, upon its own slight strength and feeble resources," as Parkman well says.
On the afternoon of May 5 a Canadian woman, the wife of St. Aubin, one of the prominent settlers, crossed the river to the Ottawa village to buy some maple sugar and venison. She was surprised at finding several warriors engaged in filing off their gun-barrels, so as to reduce them, stock and all to the length of about a yard. Such a weapon could easily be hid under a blanket. That night the woman mentioned the circumstance to a neighbor, the village blacksmith. "Oh," said he, "that explains it." "Explains what?" "The reason why so many Indians have lately wanted to borrow my files and saws."
It is not known whether this circumstance reached the ears of the commander; if so, it received no attention at his hands. But, in the hour of impending doom, the love of an Indian maiden interposed to save the garrison from butchery.
In the Pottawatomie village, it is said, there lived an Ojibway girl, who could boast a larger share of beauty than is common to the wigwam. She had attracted the eye of Gladwyn, who had taken great interest in her, and as she was very bright, had given her some instruction. While she, on her part, had become much attached to the handsome young officer. On the afternoon of May 6, Catharine—for so the officers called her—came to the fort and repaired to Gladwyn's quarters, bringing with her a pair of elk skin moccasins, ornamented with beads and porcupine work, which he had requested her to make. But this time the girl's eyes no longer sparkled with pleasure and excitement. Her face was anxious, and her look furtive. She said little and soon left the room; but the sentinel at the door saw her still lingering at the street corner, though the hour for closing the gates was nearly come.
At length she attracted the attention of Gladwyn himself. The major at once saw that the girl knew something which she feared yet longed to tell. Calling her to him, he sought to win her secret, but it was not for a long while, and under solemn promises that she should not be betrayed, but ratherprotected,should it become necessary, that the dusky sweetheart spoke. "To-morrow," she said, "Pontiac will come to the fort with sixty of his chiefs, and demand a council. Each will be armed with a gun cut short, and hidden under his blanket. When all are assembled in the council-house, and after he has delivered his speech, he will offer a peace belt of wampum, holding it in a reversed position. This will be the signal of attack. The chiefs will spring up and fire upon the officers, and the Indians in the street will fall upon the garrison. Every Englishman will be killed, but not the scalp of a single Frenchman will be touched."
Gladwyn believed the maid, and the words of warning spoken, she went back to her people. The guards that night were doubled. At times the watchers on the walls heard unwonted sounds, borne to them on the night wind from the distant Indian villages. They were the steady beat of the Indian drum and the shrill choruses of the war-dance.
The next day, about ten o'clock, the great war chief, with his treacherous followers, reached the fort, and the gateway was thrown open to admit them. All were wrapped to the throat in colored blankets, their faces smeared with paint, and their heads adorned with nodding plumes. For the most part, they were tall, strong men, and all had a gait and bearing of peculiar stateliness. The leader started as he saw the soldiers drawn up in line, and heard the ominous tap of the drum. Arriving at the council-house they saw Gladwyn, with several of his officers, in readiness to receive them, and the observant chiefs did not fail to notice that every Englishman wore a sword at his side and a pair of pistols in his belt, and the conspirators eyed each other with uneasy glances.
"Why," demanded Pontiac, "do I see so many of my father's young men standing in the street with their guns?" Gladwyn replied through his interpreter, La Butte, that he had ordered the soldiers under arms for the sake of exercise and discipline. Pontiac saw at once that the plot was discovered. He did not lose control of himself, however, but made the customary speech, though the signal for attack was not given. After a short and uneasy sitting he and his chiefs withdrew with marked discomfiture and apprehension.
Gladwyn has been censured for not detaining the chiefs as hostages for the good conduct of their followers. "Perhaps," as Parkman says, "the commandant feared lest should he arrest the chiefs when gathered at a public council and guiltless as yet of open violence, the act might be interpreted as cowardly and dishonorable. He was ignorant, moreover, of the true nature or extent of the plot."
Balked in his treachery, the great chief withdrew to his village, enraged and mortified, yet still resolved to persevere. That Gladwyn had suffered him to escape, was to his mind ample proof either of cowardice or ignorance. The latter supposition seeming the more probable, he determined to visit the fort once more and convince the English, if possible, that their suspicions against him were unfounded.
Accordingly, on the following morning he repaired to the fort, with three of his chiefs, bearing in his hand the sacred calumet, or pipe of peace, the bowl carved in stone, and the stem adorned with feathers. Offering it to Gladwyn, he addressed him and his officers as follows: "My fathers, evil birds have sung lies in your ear. We that stand before you are friends of the English. We love them as our brothers, and, to prove our love, we have come this day to smoke the pipe of peace." At his departure, he gave the pipe to Major Campbell, second in command, as a further pledge of his sincerity.
That afternoon, the better to cover his designs, Pontiac called the young men of all the tribes to a game of ball, which took place in a neighboring field, with great noise and shouting. At nightfall the garrison was startled by a burst of loud, shrill yells. The drums beat to arms and the troops were ordered to their posts; but the alarm was caused only by the victors in the ball game announcing their success by these discordant outcries. Meanwhile Pontiac spent the afternoon consulting with his chiefs how to compass the ruin of the English.
The next day, about eleven o'clock, the common behind the fort was again thronged with Indians; Pontiac, advancing from among the multitude, approached the gate, only to find it closed and barred against him. He shouted to the sentinels, and demanded why he was refused admittance. Gladwyn himself replied that the great chief might enter, if he chose, but the crowd he had brought with him must remain outside. Pontiac rejoined that he wished all his warriors to enjoy the fragrance of the friendly calumet. But Gladwyn was inexorable, and replied that he would have none of his rabble in the fort. Instantly the savage threw off the mask of deceit he had worn so long, and, casting one look of unspeakable rage and hate at the fort, he turned abruptly from the gate and strode toward his followers, who lay in great numbers flat on the ground beyond reach of gunshot. At his approach, they all leaped up and ran off "yelping," in the language of an eye witness, "like so many devils." They rushed to the house of an old English Woman and her family, beat down the doors and tomahawked the inmates. Another party jumped into their canoes, and paddled with all speed to the Isle of Cochon, where dwelt an Englishman named Fisher, formerly a sergeant of the regulars. Him they also killed and scalped.
That night, while the garrison watched with sleepless apprehension, the entire Ottawa village was removed to the west side of the river. "We will be near them," said Pontiac. The position taken by the Indians was just above the mouth of Parent's creek.
During the night a Canadian, named Desnoyers, came down the river in a canoe, and landing at the water gate, informed the garrison that two English officers, Sir Robert Davers and Captain Robertson, had been murdered on Lake St. Clair, and that Pontiac had been reinforced by the whole war strength of the Ojibways. If the Indians had prior to this, as it is claimed, a force of from six hundred to two thousand, these accessions would make them quite formidable.
Every Englishman in the fort, whether trader or soldier, was now ordered under arms. No man lay down to sleep, and the commander walked the ramparts all night. Not till the blush of dawn tinged the eastern sky did the fierce savages, yelling with infernal power, come bounding naked to the assault.
The soldiers looked from their loopholes, thinking to see their assailants gathering for a rush against the feeble barrier. But in this they were agreeably disappointed. For though their clamors filled the air, and their guns blazed thick and hot, while the bullets pelted the fort with leaden hail, yet very few were visible. Some were sheltered behind barns and fences, some skulked among bushes, others lay flat in hollows of the ground while those who could find no shelter were leaping about with the agility of monkeys, to render it impossible for the marksmen at the fort to hit them. Each had filled his mouth with bullets, for the convenience of loading, and each was charging and firing without suspending these swift movements for a moment.
At the end of six hours the assailants grew weary and withdrew. It was found that only five men had been wounded in the fort, while the cautious enemy had sustained but trifling loss.
Gladwyn, believing the affair ended, dispatched La Butte, a neutral interpreter, accompanied by two old Canadians, Chapeton and Godefroy, to open negotiations. Many other Canadian inhabitants took this opportunity of leaving the place.
Pontiac received the three ambassadors politely, and heard their offers of peace with seeming acquiescence. He, however, stepped aside to talk the matter over with the other chiefs, after which Pontiac declared that, out of their earnest desire for a lasting treaty, they wished to hold council with their English fathers themselves, and they were especially desirous that Major Campbell, the veteran officer, second in command at the fort, should visit their camp.
When the word reached Campbell he prepared at once to go, in spite of Gladwyn's fears of treachery. He felt, he said, no fear of the Indians, with whom he had always been on the most friendly terms. Gladwyn, with some hesitation, gave a reluctant consent. Campbell left the fort accompanied by Lieutenant McDougal, and attended by La Butte and several other Canadians. A Canadian met them and warned the two British officers they were entering the lion's den, but the brave men refused to turn back.
As they entered the Indian camp a howling multitude of women and children surrounded them, armed with clubs, sticks and stones. But Pontiac, with a word and a gesture, quelled the mob, and conducted them to the council-house, where they were surrounded by sinister faces. Campbell made his speech. It was heard in perfect silence, and no reply was made. For a full hour the unfortunate officers saw before them the same concourse of dark faces bending an unwavering gaze upon them. At last Campbell rose to go. Pontiac made an imperious gesture for him to resume his seat. "My father," said he, "will sleep to-night in the lodges of his red children." The gray-haired soldier and his companion were captives.
Many of the Indians were eager to kill the captives on the spot; but Pontiac protected them from injury and insult, and conducted them to the house of M. Meloche, near Parent's creek, where good quarters were assigned them, and as much liberty allowed as was consistent with safe custody. The peril of their situation was diminished by the circumstance that two Indians had been detained at the fort as prisoners, for some slight offense, a few days prior to this, and it is quite possible Pontiac designed to effect an exchange.
Late the same night La Butte returned with anxious face to the fort. Some of the officers suspected him, no doubt unjustly, with a share in the treachery. Feeling the suspicion, he spent the remainder of the night in the narrow street, gloomy and silent.
Thatcher informs us concerning these two prisoners that McDougal effected his escape, "but Major Campbell was tomahawked by an infuriated savage named Wasson, in revenge for the death of a relative. One account says 'they boiled his heart and ate it, and made a pouch of the skin of his arms!' The brutal assassin fled to Saginaw, apprehensive of the vengeance of Pontiac; and it is but justice to the memory of that chieftain to say that he was indignant at the atrocious act and used every possible exertion to apprehend the murderer. Doubtless had he been captured the chief would have inflicted the death penalty."
It is said that the wily chieftain found out in some manner that the Ojibway maiden, Catharine, disclosed the plot to Gladwyn, and ordered four Indians to take her and bring her before him. The order was promptly obeyed, according to the diary of a Canadian who was contemporary, and having arrived at the Pottawatomie village, they seized Catharine "and obliged her to march before them, uttering cries of joy in the manner they do when they hold a victim in their clutches on whom they are going to exercise their cruelty; they made her enter the fort, and took her before the commandant (Gladwyn), as if to confront her with him, and asked him if it was not from her he had learned their design; but they were no better satisfied than if they had kept themselves quiet. They obtained from that officer bread and beer for themselves and for her. They then led her to their chief (Pontiac) in the village."
It will be remembered that before the girl imparted her secret, which was destined to save the lives of all in the fort, Gladwyn solemnly promised that she should not be betrayed, but rather protected should it become necessary. And now the exigency has arisen; Catharine and her captors are in the fort. But when did a white man ever keep his sacred word to an Indian? Gladwyn did not betray her, it is true, for he made no answer to the questions asked him. But he afforded her only such protection in this, her hour of peril, "as the wolf shows to the lamb, or the kite to the dove." He gave beer to the four Indians, who were already angry, to enrage them still more, and also supplied Catharine with beer, which may have been the starting point of her ruin, as we shall see.
But he did not lift a finger to save or protect the one to whom he probably owed his life, but permitted her to be dragged from the fort into the presence of the enraged Pontiac, who, according to another Canadian tradition, seized a bat or racket used by the Indians in their ballgame, and flogged her until life was almost extinct. An old Indian told Henry Conner, formerly United States interpreter at Detroit, that Catharine survived her terrible punishment and lived for many years; but having contracted intemperate habits, she fell, when intoxicated, into a kettle of boiling maple sap, and was so severely scalded that she died in consequence.
Major Campbell
Pontiac proceeded to redistribute his forces. One band hid in ambush along the river below the fort. Others surrounded the fort on the land side. The garrison had only three weeks' provisions, and the Indians determined that this scanty store should not be replenished. Every house in Detroit was searched for grease, tallow, or whatever would serve for food, and all the provisions were placed in a public storehouse.
The Indians, with their usual improvidence, had neglected to provide against the exigency of a siege, thinking to have taken Detroit at a single stroke. The Canadian settlers were ruthlessly despoiled of their stores, and the food thus obtained was wasted with characteristic recklessness. Aggravated beyond endurance they complained to Pontiac. He heard them, and made the following characteristic reply:
"I do not doubt, my brothers, that this war is very troublesome to you, for our warriors are continually passing and repassing through your settlement. I am sorry for it. Do not think I approve of the damage that is done by them; and as a proof of this, remember the war with the Foxes and the part which I took in it. It is now seventeen years since the Ojibways of Michillimackinac, combined with the Sacs and Foxes, came down to destroy you. Who then defended you? Was it not I and my young men? Mickinac, great chief of all these nations, said in council that he would carry to his village the head of your commandant—that he would eat his heart and drink his blood. Did I not take your part? Did I not go to his camp, and say to him, that if he wished to kill the French he must first kill me and my warriors? Did I not assist you in routing them and driving them away? And now you think I would turn my arms against you! No, my brothers; I am the same French Pontiac who assisted you seventeen years ago. I am a Frenchman, and I wish to die a Frenchman; and now I repeat to you that you and I are one—that it is for both our interests that I should be avenged. Let me alone. I do not ask you for aid, for it is not in your power to give it. I only ask provisions for myself and men. Yet, if you are inclined to assist me, I shall not refuse you. It would please me, and you yourselves would be sooner rid of your troubles; for I promise you, that as soon as the English are driven out, we will go back to our villages, and there await the arrival of our French father. You have heard what I have to say; remain at peace, and I will watch that no harm shall be done to you, either by my men or by the other Indians."
Pontiac promptly took measures for bringing the disorders complained of to a close, while at the same time he provided sustenance for his warriors, a veritable commissary department, "and, in doing this, he displayed," as Parkman says, "a policy and forecast scarcely paralleled in the history of his race." He first forbade the commission of farther outrages, on the penalty of condign punishment. He next visited in turn the families of the Canadians, and, inspecting the property belonging to them, he assigned to each the share of provisions which it must furnish for the support of the Indians. The contributions thus levied were all collected at the house of Meloche, near Parent's creek, whence they were regularly issued to the Indians of the different camps.
Knowing that the character and habits of an Indian would render him incapable of being a judicious commissary, Pontiac availed himself of Canadian help, employing one Quilleriez and several others to discharge, under his eye, the duties of this office. But he did another thing which revealed his genius for command, and proved him to be an Indian Napoleon. Anxious to avoid offending the Canadians, yet unable to make compensation for the provisions he had levied, Pontiac issuedpromissory notes,drawn upon birch-bark, and signed with the figure of an otter, the totem to which he belonged. Under this was drawn the representation of the particular article for which the bill was valid—as a gun, a bag of corn, a deer, a hog, or a beef. These bills passed current among the Canadians and Indians of the period, and were faithfully redeemed after the war. As Goodrich says, "The 'Pontiac treasury notes,' we believe, were never below par. Repudiation was unknown under savage rule in Michigan and Canada. Let the barbarian chief enjoy the full applause due to his financial honor. His modern successors might find something in his example worthy of imitation."
Not one of the Ottawa tribe dared to infringe the command he had given, that the property of the Canadians should be respected. They would not so much as cross the cultivated fields but followed the beaten paths; in such awe did they stand of his displeasure. A few young Wyandots, however, still committed nightly depredations on the hog-pen of Baby, an old friend of Pontiac. The Canadian complained of the theft to Pontiac, and desired his protection. The great chief hastened to the assistance of his friend, and, arriving about nightfall at the house, walked to and fro among the barns and enclosures. At a late hour he saw the dark forms of hog thieves stealing through the gloom. "Go back to your village, you Wyandot dogs," he shouted; "if you tread again on this man's land, you shall die." They slunk away abashed; and from that time forward Baby's property was safe. Pontiac could claim no legitimate authority over the Wyandots, but his powerful spirit forced respect and obedience from all who approached him.
One night at an early period of the siege, Pontiac entered the house of Baby, and seating himself by the fire, looked for some time steadily at the embers. At length, raising his head, he said he had heard that the English had offered the Canadian a bushel of silver for the scalp of his friend. Baby declared that the story was false, and assured him that he would never betray him. Pontiac studied his features keenly for a moment and replied: "My brother has spoken the truth, and I will show him that I believe him." So saying, he wrapped his blanket around him, and "lay like a warrior taking his rest," in peaceful slumber until morning.
Some time after this our old friend Rogers, of Rogers' Rangers, arrived at Detroit with a detachment of troops, and the next day sent a bottle of brandy by a friendly Indian, as a present to Pontiac. The other chiefs urged him not to drink it for fear of poison. Pontiac heard them through, and boldly replied "It is not possible that this man, who knows my love for him, and who is also sensible of the great favors I have done him, can think of taking away my life"; then putting the cup to his lips he drank a draught without betraying the slightest apprehension. He could practice treachery himself, yet scorned to suspect it in white men.
Weeks rolled by with no change in the situation at Detroit. The British commander-in-chief at New York, unmindful of the Indian outbreak, had, as usual in the spring, sent a detachment up the lakes with food, ammunition and reenforcements for the different forts.
On May 30 some faint specks appeared on the distant watery horizon. They grew larger and blacker. The sentry in the bastion called aloud to the officers, who eagerly ran to look with spy-glasses. They recognized the banner of St. George, floating at the masthead of the leading boat of the long expected fleet. The officer at once gave command for a salute of welcome. When the sound of the booming cannon died away, every ear was strained to catch the response. It soon came, but instead of artillery, it was a faint but unmistakablewar-whoop.The faces of the English grew pale. The approaching flotilla was watched with breathless anxiety. When it was well in view, a number of dark and savage forms rose up in the boats.The flotilla was in the hands of the Indians.In the foremost of the eighteen barges there were four prisoners and only three Indians. In the others, the Indians outnumbered the white men and compelled them to row. Just as the leading boat was opposite the Beaver, the one small schooner which lay at anchor before the fort (the Gladwyn having been sent to hasten and escort this very flotilla) one of the soldiers was seen to seize a savage by the hair and belt and throw him overboard. The Indian held fast to his enemy's clothes, and drawing himself upward, stabbed him again and again with his knife and then dragged him overboard. Both sank grappled in each other's arms. The two remaining Indians leaped out of the boat. The prisoners turned, and pulled for the distant schooner, shouting aloud for aid. The Indians on shore opened a heavy fire upon them, wounding one of their number, and the light birch canoes gave chase, gaining on them at every stroke of the oar. Escape seemed hopeless, when the report of a cannon burst from the side of the schooner. The ball narrowly missed the foremost canoe, beating the water in a line of foam which almost capsized the frail craft. At this the pursuers drew back in dismay; and the Indians on shore, being in turn saluted by a second shot, ceased firing and scattered among the bushes. The prisoners thus rescued were greeted as men snatched from the jaws of death.
This, in brief, was their story. Lieutenant Cuyler had left Fort Niagara on May 13 with twenty barges, ninety-six men and a plentiful supply of provisions and ammunition. Coasting along the northern shore of Lake Erie, they had passed the armed schooner Gladwyn without seeing it, and, of course, knew nothing of the Indian hostilities. On the twenty-eighth of the month, the flotilla landed at Point Pelee, not far from the mouth of the Detroit river. The boats were drawn on the beach, and the party prepared to encamp. A man and a boy went to gather firewood at a short distance from the spot, when an Indian leaped out of the woods, seized the boy by the hair, and tomahawked him. The man ran into the camp shouting that the woods were full of Indians. The report was true, for Pontiac had stationed the Wyandots at this very spot to intercept trading boats or parties of troops. Cuyler quickly formed his soldiers into a semicircle before the boats, just as the Indians opened fire. For an instant there was a hot blaze of musketry on both sides; then the Indians broke out of the woods in a body, and rushed fiercely upon the center of the line, which gave way in every part; the men flinging down their guns, running panic-stricken to the boats and struggling with ill-directed efforts to shove them into the water. Five were set afloat, and pushed off from the shore, crowded with terrified soldier's, huddled together like sheep in the shambles. Never was rout more complete or soldiers more unnerved and demoralized.
Cuyler, seeing himself deserted by his men, as he afterward stated, waded up to his neck in the lake and climbed into one of the retreating boats. The Indians, on their part, pushed two more boats afloat and went in pursuit of the fugitives, three boatloads of whom allowed themselves to becaptured without resistance.Think of it, two boatloads of Indians capturethree boatloads of English,who seemingly made no effort to escape the fate of horrible torture which awaited all but a few, who were enslaved. The other two boats, in one of which was Cuyler himself, effected their escape, and returning to Niagara, he reported his loss to Major Wilkins, the commanding officer. Between thirty and forty men, some of whom were wounded, were crowded in these two boats. These, with the three rescued at Detroit, were all of the ninety-six which survived the ill-fated expedition.
The little schooner Gladwyn, having passed the flotilla probably in the night or during a fog, reached Niagara without mishap. She was still riding at anchor in the smooth river above the falls, when Cuyler and the remnant of his men returned and reported the terrible disaster that had befallen him. This officer, and the survivors of his party, with a few other troops spared from the garrison of Niagara, were ordered to embark on board of her, and make the best of their way back to Detroit. The force, amounting to sixty men, with such ammunition and supplies as could be spared from the fort, was soon under sail. In due time they entered the Detroit river, and were almost in sight of the fort, but the critical part of the undertaking still remained.
The river was in some places narrow, and more than eight hundred Indians were on the alert to intercept their passage. On the afternoon of the 23d the schooner began to move slowly up the river, with a gentle breeze, which gradually died away, and left the vessel becalmed in the narrow channel opposite Fighting Island, and within gunshot of an Indian ambush.
Of the sixty men on board all were crowded below deck except ten or twelve, in hopes that the Indians, encouraged by this apparent weakness, might make an open attack. At sunset the guards on board the vessel were doubled. Hours wore on, and nothing had broken the deep repose of the night. At last, the splash of muffled oars was heard. Dark objects came moving swiftly down the stream toward the vessel. The men were ordered up from below and took their places in perfect silence. A blow on the mast with a hammer was to be the signal for firing. The Indians, gliding stealthily over the water in their birch canoes, thought the prize was theirs. At last the hammer struck the mast. The slumbering vessel burst into a blaze of cannon and musketry, which illumined the night like a flash of lightning. Grape and musket shot flew, tearing among the canoes, sinking some outright, killing fourteen Indians, wounding about twenty more and driving the rest in consternation to the shore. As the enemy opened fire from their breastwork, the schooner weighed anchor, and, drifting with the river's tide, floated down out of danger. Several days afterward, with a favoring wind, she again attempted to ascend. This time she was successful, for though the Indians fired at her constantly from the shore, no man was hurt. As she passed the Wyandot village she sent a shower of grape among its yelping inhabitants, by which several were killed; and then, furling her sails, lay peacefully at anchor by the side of her companion vessel, abreast of the fort.
The schooner brought to the garrison a much-needed supply of men, ammunition and provisions. She also brought the important news that a treaty of peace was concluded between France and England. But Pontiac refused to believe it, and his war went on.
The two schooners in the river were regarded by the Indians with mingled rage and superstition; not alone on account of the broadsides with which their camps were bombarded, but the knowledge that the vessels served to connect the isolated garrison with the rest of the world. They determined, therefore, to destroy them. The inventive genius of Pontiac caused a fire raft to be constructed by lashing together a number of canoes, piled high with a vast quantity of combustibles. A torch was applied in several places, and the thing of destruction was pushed off into the current.
But fortune or Providence protected the schooners, the blazing raft passed within a hundred feet of them, and floating harmlessly down the stream, consumed nothing but itself. This attempt was several times repeated, but Gladwyn, on his part, provided boats and floating logs, which were moored by chains at some distance above the vessels, and foiled every attempt.
In the meantime, unknown to the garrison, Captain Dalyell was on his way to Detroit with twenty-two barges, bearing two hundred and eighty men, with several small cannon, and a fresh supply of provisions and ammunition. Under cover of night and fog they reached the fort in safety, but not until they sustained an attack from the Indians which resulted in the loss of fifteen men. With this expedition was Major Rogers, commander of the famous Rogers's Rangers, and twenty of his men.
Hollow Horn
Captain Dalyell had a conference with Gladwyn, and requested permission to march out on the following night and attack the Indian camp. The commander, better acquainted with the position of affairs, opposed it; but Dalyell urged the matter so strongly, Gladwyn gave a reluctant consent. About two o'clock on the morning of July 31, the gates were silently opened, and two hundred and fifty men marched up the road along the river's shore. In the river, keeping abreast of the troops, two bateaux, each carrying a swivel gun, were rowed with muffled oars. As there was no moon shining, everything seemed favorable to strike a deadly blow at the camp of Pontiac. But though they knew it not, that vigilant and crafty chieftain was apprised of this movement by his spies, and with several hundred Indians lay in ambush at the bridge across Parent's creek, a mile and a half from the fort. As the English drew near the dangerous pass they could discern the house of Meloche, mentioned before, upon a rising ground to the left, while in front the bridge was dimly visible, and the ridges beyond it seemed like a wall of blackness, partly due to the fog rising from the river. The advance guard were half way over the bridge and the main body just entering upon it. Suddenly there was a wild war-whoop in the darkness, and the ridges, fences, trees and anything which could afford shelter to a savage, burst into flame. Half the advance guard fell at the first discharge; the terrified survivors fled to the rear, and in a moment the whole column was thrown into confusion. Dalyell rushed to the front and did what he could to rally his men. His clarion voice rang out above this infernal din. But all in vain. He received several wounds, and was in the act of rescuing a disabled soldier when he was killed. It is said that Pontiac ordered the head of the gallant captain to be cut off and set upon a post. The total command was demoralized by his fall. In this crisis Major Rogers and his twenty rangers, followed by a number of the regulars, took possession of a strong house, which commanded the road, owned by a Canadian named Campau. Barricading the windows, they held the savages at bay and covered the retreat. Captain Grant hurried forward and took another strong position near the river. From here he ordered the two armed bateaux to return to a point opposite Campau's house, and open a fire of swivels in order to scatter the Indians and rescue Rogers and his men. This was promptly done, and the gallant Rogers and his handful of rangers, who, by their courage, saved the command from total destruction, were in turn rescued, just as the savage horde was about to overpower them by sheer force of numbers. The rangers made their way to the fort under cover of the cannonade.
The fight at Bloody Run, as Parent's creek has since been called, cost the garrison at Detroit fifty-nine men killed and wounded, according to Parkman, while Thatcher, strange to say, estimates the loss of the English atseventy men killedandforty wounded.This was the last important event attending the prosecution of the siege.
Not long after this, the schooner Gladwyn, having been sent down to Niagara with letters and dispatches, made the trip in safety. She was now returning, having on board Horst, her master; Jacobs, her mate, and a crew of ten men, besides six Iroquois Indians, supposed to be friendly to the English. She entered the Detroit river on the night of September 3, and in the morning the six Indians asked to be put ashore, and the request was foolishly granted.
That they went at once to Pontiac with a report of the weakness of the crew there can be no doubt. Certain it is, the wind failing, the schooner anchored about nine miles below the fort. Here she was attacked by three hundred and fifty Indians, at night. The savages swarmed over the sides of the vessel by scores, but they were met with such desperate courage and furious resistance that in a few minutes the English had killed and wounded more than twice their own number. There were only twelve men on board and they killed and wounded twenty-seven Indians; of the wounded, eight died in a few days. But resistance was useless. Ten or fifteen Indians surrounded each gallant defender. Just as all seemed over, Jacobs, the mate, shouted, "Fire the magazine, boys, and blow her up!" This desperate command saved her and her crew. Some Wyandots understood the meaning of the words, and gave the alarm to their companions. With a wild cry of terror the Indians leaped from the vessel into the water, and all were seen swimming and diving in all directions, to escape the explosion. The savages did not renew the attack.
The next morning the Gladwyn sailed up the river, reaching the fort safely. Six of her crew escaped unhurt; of the other six, two, including Horst, the master, were killed and four seriously wounded, while the Indians had seven men killed outright, and about twenty wounded, of whom eight were known to have died within a few days. The whole action lasted but a few minutes, but the fierceness of the struggle is apparent from the loss on both sides. The survivors of the little crew each received a medal.
The news of the disaster at Bloody Run, following on the heels of the ill-fated Cuyler's expedition, was conveyed to Niagara by the schooner Gladwyn on the last voyage, just recorded.
These disasters at the siege of Detroit, together with the fact that nine out of the twelve forts on the frontier had been captured by Pontiac's warriors, forced Sir Jeffrey Amherst to the reluctant conclusion that the tribes had risen in a general insurrection. As commander-in-chief of these English forces, he saw the time had come for decisive action with a large force if he would regain what was lost, and force the Indians into subjection.
Accordingly, he dispatched two armies, from different points, into the heart of the Indian country. The command of the first was given to Colonel Boquet, with orders to advance from Philadelphia to Fort Pitt, and thence to penetrate into the midst of the Delawares and Shawnees. The other army, under Colonel Bradstreet, was to ascend the lakes and force the tribes of Detroit and the regions beyond to unconditional submission.
The first expedition, that under Colonel Boquet, was very successful. He met the Indians at Bushy Run, and in a two-days' battle—one of the best contested ever fought between white and red men—routed them completely. He now compelled the Indians to sue for peace and surrender their captives.
News of Boquet's victory, and the approach of Colonel Bradstreet with a force of three thousand men, soon reached the Indians besieging Detroit, in the summer of 1764. Pontiac was too well aware of the superiority of the English arms to indulge a hope of resisting successfully so great a force in battle. Many of his allies were now ready to desert him and make peace with the English. Early in the summer of 1764, a grand council was held at Niagara by Sir William Johnson and Colonel Bradstreet, who stopped there on his way to Detroit and the Northwest. Nearly two thousand Indians attended, including representatives from twenty-two different tribes, eleven of them Western—a fact strikingly indicating the immense train of operations managed by the influence of Pontiac. Before Bradstreet and his army reached Detroit, Pontiac and his Ottawas abandoned the siege, at least temporarily, and repaired to the Illinois. His allies at Detroit made a treaty of peace with Colonel Bradstreet, and thus ended the siege which had continued a year, but, as Rogers says, "he(Pontiac)would not be personally concerned in it,saying, that when he made a peace, it should be such a one as would be useful and honorable to himself and to the King of Great Britain.But he has not as yet proposed his terms."
What the great chief attempted to do about this time was to rally the western tribes of Indiana and Illinois into a new confederation to resist the English invaders to the last. Crossing over to the Wabash, he passed from village to village, among the Kickapoos and the three tribes of the Miamis, rousing them by his eloquence and breathing into them his own fierce spirit of resistance.
He next, by rapid marches, crossed to the banks of the Mississippi, and summoned the four tribes of the Illinois to a general council. But these degenerate savages, beaten by the surrounding tribes for several generations past, had lost their warlike spirit, and though still noisy and boastful, they had become "like women, using only tongues for weapons." They showed no zeal for fight, nor did they take any interest in the schemes of the great war chief of the Ottawas.
But Pontiac knew how to deal with such cravens. Frowning on the cowering assembly, he exclaimed: "If you hesitate, I will consume your tribes as a fire consumes the dry grass on the prairie." They did not hesitate, but professed concurrence in his views at once. It is quite probable, however, those threatening words cost Pontiac his life, as will be seen. Even cowards have good memories.
Leaving the Illinois, he hastened to Fort Chartres, at the head of four hundred warriors, and demanded men and ammunition, which St. Ange, the commander, politely refused to grant. He also sent an embassy all the way to New Orleans to demand help from the French government, and to convey a war belt to the distant tribes of Louisiana, urging them, in the name of the mighty Pontiac, to prevent the English from ascending the Mississippi, which his military genius foresaw they would attempt. In this he was right, but their attempts were completely foiled.
The principal mission of the ambassadors was, however, a complete failure. The government was about to be transferred from France to Spain. The Governor granted an interview and explained the true situation. From France no help was to be expected.
When the report of this embassy reached Pontiac, he saw that all was lost. The foundation of all his ambitious schemes had been French interference. He had believed a lie and rested his hopes on a delusion. As Mason says, "His solitary will, which had controlled and combined into cooperation a hundred restless tribes, had breathed life into a conspiracy continental in its proportions, and had exploded a mine ramifying to forts, isolated by hundreds of miles of unbroken wilderness, could no longer uphold the crumbling fabric. His stormy spirit had warred with destiny, and had been conquered."
For the proud Pontiac there remained but two alternatives destruction or submission. With a hell of hate in his heart he chose the latter. At Fort Quiatenon, on the Wabash, near the site of Lafayette, Indiana, he met George Croghan, the commissioner appointed by Sir William Johnson, and formally tendered the traditional calumet of peace. Pontiac and his retinue also accompanied Croghan to Detroit, and in the same old council-hall where he and his sixty chiefs had attempted to destroy the garrison, the terms of peace were arranged, and ratified by representatives from Ojibway and Pottawatomie tribes, August 27, 1764.
Pontiac's speech on this occasion, in reply to that of Croghan, is rich in figures and symbols, and is, therefore, quoted in full:
"Father, we have all smoked out of this pipe of peace. It is your children's pipe; and as the war is over, and the Great Spirit and Giver of Light, who has made the earth and everything therein, has brought us all together this day for our mutual good, I declare to all nations that I have settled my peace with you before I came here, and now deliver my pipe to be sent to Sir William Johnson, that he may know I have made peace, and taken the King of England for my father, in the presence of all the nations now assembled; and whenever any of those nations go to visit him, they may smoke out of it with him in peace. Fathers, we are obliged to you for lighting up our old council-fire for us, and desiring us to return to it; but we are now settled on the Miami river, not far from hence. Whenever you want us you will find us there.
"Our people love liquor, and if we dwelt near you in our old village of Detroit, our warriors would be always drunk, and quarrels would arise between us and you."
The wise chief could see that drunkenness was the bane of his whole unhappy race, and therefore chose to be remote from the white settlement. He kept his young men away from whisky. When will the white chiefs be as wise and keep whisky away from their young men?
The following spring, 1766, Pontiac was as good as his word, and visited Sir William Johnson at his castle on the Mohawk, and in behalf of the tribes lately banded in his confederation concluded a treaty of peace and amity.
From this time he disappears from the page of history, only to reappear in the closing scene in the eventful drama of his life. He is believed to have lived like a common warrior, with a remnant of his tribe, in different parts of what is now the States of Indiana and Illinois.
In April, 1769, he went to St. Louis, and made a two days' visit with his old friend, St. Ange, who was then in command at that post, having offered his services to the Spaniards after the cession of Louisiana. St. Ange, Pierre Chouteau and other principal inhabitants of the little settlement, entertained him and his attendant chiefs with cordial hospitality for several days. But hearing that there was a large assembly of Illinois Indians at Cahokia, on the Illinois side of the river, Pontiac, against the advice of his friends, determined to go over and see what was going forward. It was at this time he was arrayed in the full uniform of a French officer, which had been presented to him by the Marquis of Montcalm as a token of esteem, and this fact tended to excite uneasiness, as well as to enrage the English traders at Cahokia, who believed the chief did it to add insult to injury.
The gathering in progress proved to be a trading and drinking bout, in which the remorseless English traders, as usual, plied the Indians with whisky in order to swindle them, while intoxicated, out of their furs. The place was full of Illinois Indians, but Pontiac held them in contempt, and accepted the hospitality of the friendly Creoles of Cahokia, and, at such primitive entertainment the whisky bottle would not fail to play its part. Pontiac soon became intoxicated himself, and starting to the neighboring woods was shortly afterward heard singing magic songs, in the mystic influence of which he reposed the greatest confidence.
An English trader, named Williamson, was then in the village, who, in common with the rest of his countrymen, regarded Pontiac with the greatest distrust, probably augmented by the visit of the chief to St. Louis, and while the opportunity was favorable, determined to effect his destruction. Approaching a strolling Indian of the Kaskaskia band of the Illinois tribe, he bribed him with a barrel of whisky and a promise of a further reward to murder the great chief.
It will be remembered that Pontiac incurred the hatred of this tribe by saying to them when in council, "If you hesitate, I will consume your tribes as the fire consumes the dry grass on the prairie." No doubt those words had been rankling in the hearts of the Illinois Indians ever since, for an Indian never forgets a friend or forgives an injury, and now the hour of revenge has come. The bargain was quickly made. The assassin glided up behind Pontiac in the forest and buried a tomahawk in the mighty brain in which all ambitions were dead forever.
Thus basely terminated the career of the warrior whose great natural endowments made him the greatest of his race, but his memory is still cherished by the remnant of the tribes who felt the power of his influence.
The body was soon found, and the village became a pandemonium of howling savages. His few friends seized their arms to wreak vengeance on the perpetrator of the murder, but the Illinois, interposing in behalf of their countryman, drove them from the town. Foiled in their attempt to obtain retribution they fled to the tribes over whom Pontiac had held sway, to spread the tidings and call them to avenge his murder. Meanwhile St. Ange procured the body of his guest, and mindful of his former friendship, buried it with warlike honors near the fort under his command at St. Louis.
A war of extermination was declared against the abettors of this crime. Swarms of Ottawas, Sacs, Foxes, Pottawatomies and other northern tribes who had been fired by the eloquence, or led to victory by the martyred chief, descended on the prairies of Illinois, and whole villages and tribes were extirpated to appease his shade.
It was at this time that the famous "Starved Rock" took its expressive but unpoetical name. It is a rocky bluff about six miles below the beautiful city of Ottawa, Illinois, named after the tribe of which Pontiac was head chief. The great rock overhangs the sluggish Illinois river on the left bank, and is about one hundred and twenty-five feet high and inaccessible except by a narrow and difficult path in the rear. Its top is nearly an acre in extent. Here La Salle and Tonty built a palisade, which they named Fort St. Louis, and collected at its base about twenty thousand Indians, whom they formed into a defensive league against the encroachments of the dreaded Iroquois.
Tradition states, that in the war of extermination which followed the cold-blooded and unprovoked murder of Pontiac in time of peace, a remnant of the Illinois Indians made their last stand at this famous stronghold. Here they were besieged by a vastly superior force of Pottawatomies. But the besieged knew that a few warriors could defend this rock against a host, and defied their enemies for a time and kept them at bay. Hunger and thirst, more formidable enemies, however, soon accomplished what the foe was unable to effect. Their small quantity of provisions quickly failed, and their supply of water was stopped by the enemy severing the cords of rawhide attached to the vessels by which they elevated it from the river below. Thus environed by relentless foes, they took a last lingering look at their beautiful hunting grounds, spread out like a panorama on the gently rolling river and slowly gave way to despair.