 CHAPTER I. THE TIMES AND THE MEN. There was rejoicing throughout the thirteen colonies in the month of September, 1760, and news arrived of the capitulation of Montreal. Bonfires flamed forth, and prayers were offered up in the churches and meeting-houses in gratitude for deliverance from a foe that for over a hundred years had harried and had caused the Indians to harry the frontier settlements. The French armies were defeated by land, the French fleets were beaten at sea. The troops of the enemies had been removed from North America, and so powerless was France on the ocean that, even if success should crown her arms on the European continent, where the Seven Years' War was still raging, it would be impossible for her to transport a new force to America. The principal French forts in America were occupied by British troops. Louisburg had been raised to the ground, the British flag waved over Quebec, Montreal and Niagara, and was soon to be raised on all the lesser forts in the territory known as Canada. The Mississippi Valley from the Illinois River southward alone remained to France. Vincennes on the Wabish and Fort Châtres on the Mississippi were the only posts in the hinterland occupied by French troops. These posts were under the government of Louisiana, but even these the American colonies were prepared to claim, basing the right on their sea-to-sea charters. The British in America had found the strip of land between the Algennes and the Atlantic far too narrow for a rapidly increasing population, but their advanced westward had been barred by the French. Now praise the Lord, the French were out of the way, and American traders and settlers could exploit the profitable fur fields and the rich agricultural lands of the region beyond the mountains. True, the Indians were there, but these were not regarded as formidable foes. There was no longer any occasion to consider the Indians, so thought the colonists and the British officers in America. The Red Men had been a force to be reckoned with, only because the French had supplied them with the sinews of whore, but they might now be treated like other denizens of the forest, the bears, the wolves and the wild cats. For this mistaken policy the British colonies were to pay a heavy price. The French and the Indians, safe for one exception, had been on terms of amity from the beginning. The reason for this was that the French had treated the Indians with studied kindness. The one exception was the Iroquois League, or Six Nations. Champlain, in the first years of his residence at Quebec, had joined the Agonquins and Hurons in an attack on them, which they never forgot. And in spite of the noble efforts of the French missionaries and a lavish bestowal of gifts, the Iroquois Thorn remained in the side of New France. But with the other Indian tribes the French worked hand in hand, with the Cross and the Priest ever in advance of the Traders' Pack. French missionaries were the first white men to settle in the populous Huron country near Lake Simcoe. A missionary was the first European to catch a glimpse of Georgian Bay, and a missionary was possibly the first of the French race to launch his canoe on the lordly Mississippi. As a father the priest watched over his wilderness flock, while the French traders fraternized with the red men, and often mated with dusky beauties. Many French traders, according to Sir William Johnson, a good authority of whom we shall learn more later, were gentlemen in manners, character and dress, and they treated the natives kindly. At the great centres of trade, Montreal, three rivers in Quebec, the chiefs were royally received with role of the drum and salute of guns. The governor himself, the big mountain as they called him, would extend to them a welcoming hand, and take part in their feasting in councils. At the inland trading posts the Indians were given goods for their winter hunts, on credit and loaded with presents by the officials. To such an extent did the custom of giving presents prevail that it became a heavy tax on the treasury of France. And however, compared with the alternative of keeping in hinterland an armed force, the Indians too had fought side by side with the French in many notable engagements. They had aided Montcom and had assisted in such triumphs as the defeat of Braddock. They were not only friends of the French, they were sword companions. The British colonists could not, of course, entertain friendly feelings towards the tribes which sided with their enemies and often devastated their homes and murdered their people. But it must be admitted that, from the first, the British and America were far behind the French in Christian-like conduct towards the native races. The colonial traders generally despised the Indians and treated them as of a commercial value only, as gatherers of pelts, and held their lives in little more esteem than the lives of the animals that yielded the pelts. The missionary zeal of England, compared with that of New France, was exceedingly mild. Rum was a leading article of trade. The Indians were often cheated out of their furs. In some instances they were slain and their packs stolen. Sir William Johnson described the British traders as men of no zeal or capacity, men who even sacrificed the credit of the nation to the basest purposes. There were exceptions, of course, in such men as Alexander Henry and Johnson himself, who, besides being a wise official and a successful military commander, was one of the leading traders. No sooner was New France vanquished than the British began building new forts and blockhouses in the hinterland. Footnote. By the hinterland is meant, of course, the regions beyond the zone of settlement, roughly all west of Montreal and the Alleghenies. Since the French were no longer to be reckoned with, why were these forts needed, evidently the Indians thought, to keep the red children in subjection and to deprive them of their hunting grounds. The gardens they saw in cultivation about the forts were to them the forerunners of general settlement. The French had been content with trade. The British appropriated lands for farming, and the coming of the white settler meant the disappearance of game. German chiefs saw in these forts and cultivated strips of land a desire to exterminate the red man and steal his territory, and they were not far wrong. Outside influences as well were at work among the Indians. Soon after the French armies departed, the inhabitants along the St. Lawrence had learned to welcome the change of government. They were left to cultivate their farms in peace. The tax-gatherer was no longer squeezing from them their last zoo, as in the days of Bijaud, nor were their sons, whose labour was needed on the farms and in the workshops, forced to take up arms. They had peace and plenty, and were content. But in the hinterland it was different. At Detroit, Michela Mackenac, and other forts were French trading communities which, being far from the seat of war and government, were slow to realize that they were no longer subjects of the French King. While themselves, these French traders naturally encouraged the Indians in an attitude of hostility to the incoming British. They said that a French fleet and army were on their way to Canada to recover the territory, even if Canada were lost, Louisiana was still French, and if only the British could be kept out of the West, the trade that had hitherto gone down the St. Lawrence, might now go by way of the Mississippi. The commander-in-chief of the British forces in North America, Sir Geoffrey Amherst, despised the Red Men. They were only fit to live with the inhabitants of the woods, being more nearly allied to the brute than to the human creation. Other British officers had much the same attitude. Colonel Henry Bouquet, on a suggestion made to him by Amherst, that blankets infected with smallpox might be distributed to good purpose among the savages, not only fell in with Amherst's views, but further proposed that dogs should be used to hunt them down. You will do well, Amherst wrote to Bouquet, to try to inoculate the Indians by means of blankets as well as to try every other method that can serve to extirpate this extricable race. I should be very glad if your scheme for hunting them down by dogs could take effect, but England is at too great a distance to think of that at present. One Major Henry Gladwin, who as we shall see, gallantly held Detroit through months of trying siege, thought that the unrestricted sale of rum among the Indians would extirpate them more quickly than powder and shot, and at less cost. There was, however, one British officer at least, in America who did not hold such views towards the natives of the soil. Sir William Johnson, through his sympathy and generosity, had won the friendship of the six nations, the most courageous and the most cruel of the Indian tribes. It has been said, by a recent writer, that Johnson was as much Indian as white man. Nothing could be more misleading. Johnson was simply an enlightened Irishman of broad sympathies who could make himself at home in palace, hut, or wigwam. He was an astute diplomatist, capable of winning his point in controversy with the most learned and experienced legislators of the colonies, a successful military leader, and most successful trader, and there was probably no more progressive and scientific farmer in America. He had a cultivated mind. The orders he sent to London, for books, showed that he was something of a scholar, and in his leisure moments, given to serious reading, his advice to the lords of trade regarding colonial affairs was that of a statesman. He fraternised with the Dutch settlers of his neighborhood and with the Indians wherever he found them. At Detroit in 1761, he entered into the spirit of the French settlers and joined with enthusiasm in their feasts and dances. He was one of those rare characters who can be all things to all men, and yet keep an untarnished name. The Indians loved him as a firm friend, and his home was to them Liberty Hall. But for this man, the Indian rising against the British rule would have attained greater proportions. At the critical period he succeeded in keeping the Six Nations loyal, safe for the Seneca's. This was most important, for had the Six Nations joined in the war against the British, it is probable that not a fort west of Montreal would have remained standing. The line of communication between Albany and Oswego would have been cut, provisions and troops could not have been forwarded, and inevitably both Niagara and Detroit would have fallen. But as it was the Pontiac War proved serious enough. It extended as far north as Sault St. Marie, and as far south as the borders of South Carolina and Georgia. Detroit was cut off for months. The Indians drove the British from all other points on the Great Lakes west of Lake Ontario. For a time they triumphantly pushed their war-parties plundering and burning and murdering, from the Mississippi to the frontiers of New York. During the year 1763 more British lives were lost in America than in the memorable year of 1759, the year of the Siege of Quebec and the world-famous battle of the Plains of Abraham. It has been customary to speak of this chief as possessed of princely grandeur and as one honoured and revered by his subjects. But it was not by a display of princely dignity or by inspiring awe and reverence that he influenced his bloodthirsty followers. His chief traits were treachery and cruelty, and his preeminence in these qualities commanded their respect. His conduct of the Siege of Detroit, as we shall see, was marked by duplicity and diabolic savagery. He has often been extolled for his skill as a military leader, and there is a good deal in his Siege of Detroit and in the murderous ingenuity of some of his raids to support this view. But his principal claim to distinction is due to his position as the head of a confederacy, whereas the other chiefs in the conflict were merely leaders of single tribes, and to the fact that he was situated at the very centre of the theatre of war. The use from Detroit could be quickly heralded along the canoe routes and forest trails to the other tribes, and it thus happened that when Pontiac struck, the whole Indian country rose in arms. But the evidence clearly shows that, except against Detroit and the neighbouring blockhouses, he had no pardon planning the attacks. The war as a whole was a leaderless war. Let us now look for a moment at the Indians who took part in the war. Immediately under the influence of Pontiac were three tribes. The Ottawa's, the Chippewa's, and the Potawatomys. These had their hunting grounds chiefly in the Michigan Peninsula, and formed what was known as the Ottawa Confederacy, or the Confederacy of the Three Fires. It was at the best a loose Confederacy, with nothing of the organised strength of the six nations. The Indians in it were of a low type, sunken savagery and superstition, a leader such as Pontiac naturally appealed to them. They existed by hunting and fishing, feasting today and famishing tomorrow, and were easily roused by the hope of plunder. The weakly manned forts containing the white man's provisions, ammunition, and trader's supplies were an attractive lure to these savages. Within the Confederacy, however, there were some who did not rally around Pontiac. The Ottawa's of the northern part of Michigan, under the influence of their priest, remained friendly to the British, including the Ottawa's and Chippewa's of the Ottawa and Lake Superior, the Confederates numbered many thousands. Yet at no time was Pontiac able to command from among them more than one thousand warriors. In close alliance with the Confederacy of the Three Fires, were the tribes dwelling to the west of Lake Michigan, the Minomenes, the Winnebagoes, and the Sacks and Foxes. These tribes could put into the field about twelve hundred warriors, but none of them took part in the war save in one instance, when the Sacks, moved by the hope of plunder, assisted the Chippewa's and the capture of Fort Machilla Mackenac. The Wyendos living on the Detroit River were a remnant of the ancient Hurons of the famous mission near Lake Simcoe. For more than a century they had been bound to the French by ties of Amity. They were courageous, intelligent, and in every way on a higher plane of life than the tribes of the Ottawa Confederacy. Their two hundred and fifty braves were to be Pontiac's most important allies in the siege of Detroit. South of the Michigan Peninsula, about the headwaters of the river's maumee and waybosh, dwelt the Miami's, numbering probably fifteen hundred. Influenced by French traders and Pontiac's emissaries, they took to the warpath, and the British were thus cut off from the trade route between Lake Erie and the Ohio. The tribes just mentioned were all that came under the direct influence of Pontiac. Farther south were other nations who were to figure in the impending struggle. The Wyendos of Sandusky Bay at the southwest corner of Lake Erie had about two hundred warriors, and were in alliance with the Seneca's and Delaware's. Living near Detroit, they were able to assist in Pontiac's siege. Directly south of these, along the Skiotto, dwelt the Shawnees, the tribe which later gave birth to the Great Tecumseh, with three hundred warriors. East of the Shawnees, between the Muskingham and the Ohio, were the Delaware's. At one time this tribe had lived on both sides of the Delaware River, in Pennsylvania and New York, and also in parts of New Jersey and Delaware. They called themselves Lenny Lenape, real men, but were nevertheless conquered by the Iroquois, who made women of them, depriving them of the right to declare war or sell land without permission. Later, through an alliance with the French, they went back their old independence, but they lay in the path of white settlement, and were ousted from one hunting ground after another, until finally they had to seek homes beyond the Alleghenes. The British had robbed the Delaware's of their ancient lands, and the Delaware's hated with an undying hatred the race that had injured them. They mustered six hundred warriors. Almost directly south of Fort Niagara, by the upper waters of the Genesee and Allegheny rivers, lay the homes of the Seneca's, one of the six nations. This tribe looked upon the British settlers in the Niagara region as squatters on their territory. It was the Seneca's, not Pontiac, who began to plot for the destruction of the British in the hinterland, and in the war which followed, more than a thousand Seneca warriors took part. Happily, as has been mentioned, Sir William Johnson was able to keep the other tribes of the six nations loyal to the British. But the doorkeepers of the Long House, as the Seneca's were called, stood aloof and hostile. The motives of the Indians in the rising of 1763 may therefore be summarized as follows. Amity with the French, hostility towards the British, hope of plunder, and fear of aggression. The first three were the controlling motives of Pontiac's Indians about Detroit. They called it the Beaver War. To them it was a war on behalf of the French traders who loaded them with gifts, and against the British who drove them away empty-handed. But the Seneca's and Delaware's, with their allies of the Ohio Valley, regarded it as a war for their lands. Already the Indians had been forced out of their hunting grounds in the valleys of the Juniata and the Suscohani. The Ohio Valley would be the next to go, unless the Indians went on the warpath. The chiefs there had good reason for alarm. Not so Pontiac at Detroit, because no settlers were invading his hunting grounds, and it was for this lack of a strong motive that Pontiac's campaign, as will hereafter appear, broke down before the end of the war, that even his own confederates deserted him, and that while the Seneca's and Delaware's were still holding out, he was wandering through the Indian country in a vain endeavour to rally his scattered warriors. CHAPTER III THE GATHERING STORM When Montreal capitulated and the whole of Canada passed into British hands, it was the duty of Sir Geoffrey Amherst, the commander-in-chief, to arrange for the defence of the country that had been rested from France. General Gage was left in command at Montreal, Colonel Burton at Three Rivers, and General Murray at Quebec. Amherst himself departed for New York in October, and never again visited Canada. Meanwhile, provision had been made, though quite inadequate, to garrison the long chain of forts that had been established by the French in the vaguely defined Indian territory to the west. FOOTNOAT See the accompanying map. Except for these forts or trading-posts, the entire region west of Montreal was at this time practically an unbroken wilderness. There were, on the north shore of the St. Lawrence, a few scattered settlements, on Île Perrault and at Vaudré, and on the south shore at the cedars in Chateau-Gaye, but anything like continuity of settlement westward ceased with the island of Montreal. END OF FOOTNOAT The fortunes of war had already given the British command of the eastern end of this chain. Fort Levy, on what is now Chimney Island, a few miles east of Ogdensburg, had been captured. Fort Frontenac had been destroyed by Bradstreet, and was left without a garrison. British troops were in charge of Fort Oswego, which had been built in 1759. Niagara, the strongest fort on the Great Lakes, had been taken by Sir William Johnson. Near it were two lesser forts, one at the foot of the rapids, where Lewiston now stands, and the other, Fort Schlosser, on the same side of the river, above the falls. Forts Prequile, Leberth, and Venengo, on the trade route between Lake Erie and Fort Pitt, and Fort Pitt itself, were also occupied. But all west of Fort Pitt was to the British unknown country. Sandusky, at the south-west end of Lake Erie, Detroit guarding the passage between Lakes Erie and Sinclair, Miami and Wittonaw, on the trade route between Lake Erie and the Wabash, Micheli Mackenac, at the entrance to Lake Michigan, Green Bay, La Bay, at the southern end of Green Bay, Yosef, on Lake Michigan, Sol Saint-Marie at the entrance to Lake Superior, all were still commanded by French officers as they had been under New France. The task of raising the British flag over these forts was entrusted to Major Robert Rogers of New England, who commanded Rogers' Rangers, a famous body of Indian fighters. On September the 13th, 1760, with two hundred Rangers in fifteen whale boats, Rogers set out from Montreal. On November the 7th, the contingent without mishap reached a river named by Rogers, the Chogage, evidently the Queer Hoga, on the south shore of Lake Erie. Here the troops landed, probably on the site of the present city of Cleveland, and Rogers was visited by a party of Ottawa Indians whom he told of the conquest of Canada and of the retirement of the French armies from the country. He added that his force had been sent by the commander-in-chief to take over for their father, the King of England, the Western posts still held by French soldiers. He then offered them a peace-belt, which they accepted, and requested them to go with him to Detroit to take part in the capitulation and see the truth of what he had said. They promised to give him an answer next morning. The Calumet was smoked by the Indians and the officers in turn, but a careful guard was kept as Rogers was suspicious of the Indians. In the morning, however, they returned with a favourable reply, and the younger warriors of the band agreed to accompany their new friends. Owing to stormy weather, nearly a week passed, the Indians keeping the camps supplied with venison and turkey, for which Rogers paid them liberally, before the party on November 12th moved forward towards Detroit. Detroit was at this time under the command of the Sire de Belethe, or Belestra. This officer had been in charge of the post since 1758, and had heard nothing of the surrender of Montreal. Rogers, to pave the way, sent one of his men in advance with a letter to Belethe, notifying him that the Western posts now belonged to King George, and informing him that he was approaching with a letter from the Marquis de Verde and a copy of the capitulation. Belethe was irritated. The French armies had been defeated, and he was about to lose his post. He at first refused to believe the tidings, and it appears that he endeavored to rouse the inhabitants and Indians about Detroit to resist the approach in British. For on November 20th several Wyandotte's HMS met the advancing party, and told Rogers that 400 warriors were in ambush at the entrance to the Detroit river to obstruct his advance. The Wyandotte's wished to know the truth regarding the conquest of Canada, and on being convinced that it was no fabrication, they took their departure in good temper. On the 23rd Indian messengers, among whom was an Ottawa chief, arrived at the British camp at the western end of Lake Erie, reporting that Belethe intended to fight, and that he had arrested the officer who bore Rogers's message. Footnote. In Rogers's journal of this trip, no mention is made of Pontiac's name. In A Concise Account of North America, published in 1765 with Rogers's name on the title page, a detailed account of a meeting with Pontiac at the Queer Hoga is given, but this book seems to be of doubtful authenticity. It was, however, accepted by Parkman. End of footnote. Belethe's chief reason for doubting the truth of Rogers's statement appears to have been that no French officers had accompanied the British contingent from Montreal. When the troops entered the Detroit River, Rogers sent Captain Donald Campbell to the fort with a copy of the capitulation of Montreal, and Vadre's letter instructing Belethe to hand over his fort to the British. These documents were convincing, and Belethe consented, though with no good grace. Footnote. Although Belethe received Rogers and his men in no friendly spirit, he seems soon to have become reconciled to British rule, for in 1763 he was appointed to the first Legislative Council of Canada, and until the time of his death in May 1793 he was a highly respected citizen of Quebec. End of footnote. And on November the 29th Rogers formally took possession of Detroit. It was an impressive ceremony. Some seven hundred Indians were assembled in the vicinity of Fort Detroit, and, ever ready to take sides with the winning party, appeared about the stockade painted and plumed in honour of the occasion. When the lilies of France were lowered and the cross of St George was thrown to the breeze, the barbarous horde uttered wild cries of delight. A new and rich people had come to their hunting grounds, and they had visions of unlimited presence of clothing, ammunition, and rum. After the fort was taken over, the militia were called together and disarmed, and made to take the oath of allegiance to the British King. Captain Campbell was installed in command of the fort, and Belethe and the other prisoners of war were sent to Philadelphia. Two officers were dispatched with twenty men to bring the French troops from Fort Miami and Wittgenau. A few soldiers were stationed at Fort Miami to keep the officers at Detroit informed of any interesting events in that neighbourhood. Provisions being scarce at Detroit, Rogers sent the majority of his force to Niagara, and on December the 10th set out for Micheli Mackenac with an officer and thirty-seven men, but he was driven back by stormy weather and ice and forced for the present year to give up the attempt to garrison the posts on Lake Huron and Michigan. Leaving everything in peace at Detroit, Rogers went to Fort Pitt, and for nine months the forts in the country of the Ottawa Confederacy were to be left to their own resources. Meanwhile the Indians were getting into a state of unrest. The presence on which they depended so much for existence were not forthcoming, and rumours of trouble were in the air. Seneca's Shawnees and Delaware's were sending war belts east and west and north and south. A plot was on foot to seize Pitt, Niagara, and Detroit. Seneca ambassadors had visited the Wyandots in the vicinity of Detroit, urging them to fall on the garrison. After an investigation Captain Campbell reported to Amherst that an Indian rising was imminent and revealed a plot originated by the Seneca's which was identical with that afterwards matured in 1763 and attributed to Pontiac's initiative. Campbell warned the commandants of the other forts of the danger, and the Indians seeing that their plans were discovered assumed a peaceful attitude. Still the situation was critical, and to allay the hostility of the natives and gain their confidence Amherst dispatched Sir William Johnson to Detroit with instructions to settle and establish a firm and lasting treaty between the British and the Ottawa Confederacy and other nations inhabiting the Indian territory to regulate the fur trade at the posts and to settle the price of clothes and provisions. He was likewise to collect information as exhaustive as possible regarding the Indians, their manners and customs, and their abodes. He was to find out whether the French had any shipping on Lake's Huron, Michigan and Superior what were the best posts for trade and the price paid by the French for pelts. He was also to learn if possible how far the boundaries of Canada extended towards the Mississippi and the number of French posts, settlements and inhabitants along that river. Sir William left his home at Fort Johnson on the Mohawk River early in July 1761. Scarcely had he begun his journey when he was warned that it was dangerous to proceed as the nations in the west were unfriendly and would surely fall upon his party. But Johnson was confident that his presence among them would put a stop to any such wicked design. As he advanced up Lake Ontario the alarming reports continued. The Seneca's, who had already stolen horses from the whites and taken prisoners, had been sending ambassadors abroad, endeavouring to induce the other nations to attack the British. Johnson learned too that the Indians were being cheated in trade by British traders, that at several posts they had been roughly handled very often without cause, that their women were taken from them by violence, and that they were hindered from hunting and fishing on their own grounds near the posts, even what they did catch or kill being taken from them. He heard too that Seneca and Ottawa warriors had been murdered by whites near Fort's pit and Venango. At Niagara he was visited by Seneca chiefs who complained that one of their warriors had been wounded nearby and that four horses had been stolen from them. Johnson evidently believed the story, for he gave them two casks of rum, some paint and money to make up their loss, and they left him well satisfied. On Lake Erie stories of the hostility of the Indians multiplied. They were ready to revolt even before leaving Niagara, Johnson had it on good authority that the Indians were certainly determined to rise and fall on the English, and that several thousands of the Ottowers and other nations had agreed to join the dissatisfied member of the six nations in this scheme or plot. But Johnson kept on his way confident that he could allay dissatisfaction and win all the nations to friendship. When Sir William reached Detroit on September the third, he was welcomed by musketry volleys from the Indians and by cannon from the Fort. His reputation as the great superintendent of Indian affairs, the friend of the red man, had gone before him, and he was joyously received and at once given quarters in the house of the former commandant of Detroit, Beletra. On the day following his arrival, the Wyandots and other Indians, with their priest Father Pierre Potier, called Potty by Johnson, waited on him. He treated them royally and gave them pipes and tobacco and a barbeque of a large ox roasted whole. He found the French inhabitants most friendly, especially Pierre Shane, better known as La Butte, the interpreter of the Wyandots, and Saint Matin, the interpreter of the Ottowers. The ladies of the settlement called on him and were regaled with cakes, wine, and cordial. He was hospitably entertained by the officers and settlers, and in return gave several balls, at which it appears he danced with Mamma Zelle Curie, a fine girl. This vivacious lady evidently made an impression on the susceptible Irishman, for after the second ball, there never was so brilliant an affair at Detroit before, he records in his private diary, promised to write Mamma Zelle Curie My Sentiments. While at Niagara, on his journey westward, Johnson had been joined by Major Henry Gladwin, to whom Amherst had assigned the duty of garrisoning the western forts, and taking over in person the command of Fort Detroit. Gladwin had left Niagara a day or two in advance of Johnson, but on the way to his new command he had been seized with severe fever and aegew, and totally incapacitated for duty. On Johnson fell the task of making arrangements for the still unoccupied posts. He did the work with his customary promptitude and thoroughness, and by September the 10th had dispatched men of Gage's Light Infantry, and of the Royal Americans, from Detroit for Micheli Mackinac, Green Bay, and Saint Joseph. The chiefs of the various tribes had flocked to Detroit to confer with Sir William. He won them all by his honeyed words and liberal distribution of presence. He was told that his presence had made the sun and sky bright and clear, the earth smooth and level, the roads all pleasant, and they begged that he would continue in the same friendly disposition towards them, and they would be a happy people. His work completed. Johnson set out, September the 19th, on his homeward journey, leaving behind him the promise of peace in the Indian Territory. Footnote. It is remarkable that Johnson, in his private diary, or in his official correspondence, makes no mention of Pontiac. The Ottawa chief apparently played no conspicuous part in the plots of 1761 and 1762. End of footnote. For the time being, Johnson's visit to Detroit had a salutary effect, and the year 1761 terminated with only slight signs of unrest among the Indians. But in the spring of 1762 the air was again heavy with threatening storm. The Indians of the Ohio Valley were once more sending out their war belts and bloody hatchets. In several instances Englishmen were murdered and scout and horses were stolen. The Shawnees and Delaware's held British prisoners whom they refused to surrender. By Amherst's orders presents were withheld. Until they surrendered all prisoners and showed a proper spirit towards the British he would suppress all gifts in the belief that a due observance of this alone will soon produce more than can ever be expected from bribing them. The reply of the Shawnees and Delaware's to his orders was stealing horses and terrorizing traders. So William Johnson and his assistant in office George Crohn warned Amherst of the danger he was running in rousing the hatred of the savages. Crohn in a letter to Bouquet said, I do not approve of General Amherst's plan of distressing them too much, as in my opinion they will not consider consequences if too much distressed, though Sir Jeffery thinks they will. Although warnings were pouring in upon him Amherst was of the opinion that there was no necessity for any more at the several posts than are just enough to keep up the communication, there being nothing to fear from the Indians in our present circumstances. To Sir William Johnson he wrote that it was not in the power of the Indians to effect anything of consequence. In the spring of 1763 the war cloud was about to burst, but in remote New York the commander-in-chief failed to grasp the situation and turned a deaf ear to those who warned him that an Indian war with all its horrors was inevitable. These vague rumours, as Amherst regarded them, of an imminent general rising of the western tribes took more definite form as the spring advanced. Towards the end of March Lieutenant Edward Jenkins, the commandant of Fort Wittano, learned that the French traders had been telling the Indians that the British would all be prisoners in a short time. But what caused most alarm was information from Fort Miami of a plot for the capture of the forts and the slaughter of the garrisons. A war-belt was received by the Indians residing near the fort and with it came the request that they should hold themselves in readiness to attack the British. Robert Holmes, the commandant of Fort Miami, managed to secure the bloody belt and sent it to Gladwin, who in turn sent it to Amherst. Footnote, Gladwin's illness in 1761 proved so severe that he had to take a journey to England to recuperate, but he was back in Detroit as commandant in August 1762. End of footnote. News had now reached the Ohio tribes of the Treaty of Paris, but the terms of this treaty had only increased their unrest. On April 30, 1763 Crohn wrote to Amherst that the Indians were uneasy since so much of North America was ceded to Great Britain. Holding that the British had no right in their country, the peace, added Crohn, and hearing so much of this country being given up has thrown them into confusion and prevented them bringing in their prisoners this spring as they promised. Amherst's reply was whatever idle notions they may entertain in regard to the sessions made by the French crown can be of very little consequence. On April the 20th, Gladwin, though slow to see danger, wrote to Amherst they, the Indians, say we mean to make slaves of them by taking so many posts in the country and that they had better attempt something now to recover their liberty than wait till we are better established. Even when word that the Indians were actually on the warpath reached Amherst, he still refused to believe it a serious matter and delayed making preparations to meet the situation. It was, according to him, a rash attempt of that turbulent tribe, the Seneca's, and again he was, persuaded this alarm will end in nothing more than a rash attempt of what the Seneca's have been threatening. Eight British forts in the west were captured at the frontiers of the colonies bathed in blood before he realised that the affair of the Indians was more general than they apprehended. The Indians were only waiting for a sudden bold blow at some one of the British posts and on the instant they would be on the warpath from the shores of Lake Superior to the borders of the most colonies of Great Britain. The blow was soon to be struck. Pontiac's warbelts had been sent broadcast and the nations who recognised him as overchief were ready to follow him to the slaughter. Detroit was the strongest position to the west of Niagara. It contained an abundance of stores and would be a rich prize. As Pontiac yearly visited this place during the trading season he knew the locality well and was familiar with the settlers, the majority of whom were far from being friendly to the British. Against Detroit he would lead the warriors under the pretense of winning back the country for the French. In the spring of 1763, instead of going direct to his usual camping-place, an island in Lake Sinclair, Pontiac pitched his wigwam on the bank of the river Eccorsies, ten miles south of Detroit, and here awaited the tribes whom he had summoned to a council to be held on the fifteenth of the moon, the twenty-seventh of April. And at the appointed time nearly five hundred warriors, Ottowers, Pottawatomies, Chippewas and Wyandots, with their scores and purposes, had gathered at the meeting-place, petty tribal jealousies and differences being laid aside in their common hatred of the dogs dressed in red, the British soldiers. When the council assembled, Pontiac addressed them with fiery words. The Ottowa chief was at this time about fifty years old. He was a man of average height, of darker hue than is usual among Indians, lithe as a panther, his muscles hardened by forest life and years of warfare against Indian enemies and the British. Like the rush of a mountain torrent, the words fell from his lips. His speech was one stream of denunciation of the British. In trade they had cheated the Indians, robbing them of their furs, overcharging them for the necessaries of life, and heaping insults and blows upon the red men who from the French had known only kindness. The time had come to strike. As he spoke he flashed a red and purple wampum belt before the gaze of the excited braves. This, he declared, he had received from their father the king of France, who commanded his red children to fight the British. Holding out the belt he recounted with wild words and vehement gestures the victories gained in the past by the Indians over the British, and as he spoke the blood of his listeners pulsed through their veins with battle ardour. To their hatred and sense of being wronged he had appealed, and he saw that every warrior present was with him. But his strongest appeal was to their superstition. In spite of the fact that French missionaries had been among them for a century they were still pagan, and it was essential to the success of his project that they should believe that the master of life favoured their cause. He told them the story of a wolf, Delaware Indian, who had journeyed to heaven and talked with the master of life, receiving instructions to tell all the Indians that they were to drive out, and make war upon. The dogs clothed in red who will do you nothing but harm. When he had finished such chiefs as Ninivoire of the Chippewas and Take of the Wyandots the Bad Hurons as the writer of the Pontiac manuscript describes them to distinguish them from Father Potier's flock, spoke in similar terms. Every warrior present shouted his readiness to go to war and before the council broke up it was agreed that in four days Pontiac should go to the fort with his young men for a peace dance in order to get information regarding the length of the place. The blow must be struck before the spring boats arrived from the Niagara with supplies and additional troops. The council at an end the different tribes scattered to their several summer villages seemingly peaceful Indians who had gathered together for trade. End of Chapter 3 Recording by Graham Redman Chapter 4 Section 1 of a Chronicle of the Pontiac War This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Mike Venditti A Chronicle of the Pontiac War by Thomas Guthrie Marquis Chapter 4 Section 1 The Siege of Detroit At the time of the Pontiac outbreak there were in the vicinity of Fort Detroit between 1,000 and 2,000 white inhabitants. Yet the place was little more than a wilderness post. The settlers were cut off from civilization and learned news of the great world outside only in the spring when the traders boats came with supplies. They were out of touch with Montreal and Quebec and it was difficult for them to realize that they were subject of the hated King of England. They had not lost their confidence in the armies of France would yet be victorious and sweep the British from the Great Lakes and in this opinion they were strengthened by traders from the Mississippi who came among them but the change of rulers had made little difference in their lives. The majority of them were employed by traders and the better class contentedly cultivated their narrow farms and traded with the Indians who periodically visited them. The settlement was widely scattered extending along the east shore of the Detroit River for about eight miles from Lake St. Clair and along the west shore for about six miles four above and two below the fort. On either side of the river the fertile fields and a long row of whitewashed low-built houses with their gardens and orchards of apple and pear trees fenced about with rounded pickets presented a picture of peace and plenty. The summers of the inhabitants were enlivened by the visits of the Indians and the traders and in winter they lightheartedly wild away the tedious hours with gossip and dance and feast like the habitants along the Rochelot and St. Lawrence. The militia of the settlement as we have seen had been deprived of their arms at the taking over of Detroit by Robert Rogers and for the most part the settlers maintained a stolid attitude toward their conquerors from whom they suffered no hardship and whose rule was not galling. The British had nothing to fear from them but the Indians were a force to be reckoned with. There were three Indian villages in the vicinity, the Wyandotte on the east side of the river opposite the fort, the Ottawa five miles above opposite Isle-à-Cochon Bell Isle and the Pottawame about two miles below the fort on the west shore. The Ottawa's here could muster 200 warriors. The Pottawame's about 150 and the Wyandotte's 250 while near at hand were the Chippewas 320 strong. Pontiac although head chief of the Ottawa's did not live in the village but had his wakewam on Isle-à-Cochon. At the outlet of Lake St. Clair a spot where whitefish abounded. Here he dwelt with his squaws and papooses a brand-yore but in squalid savagery. Between the Indians and the French there existed a most friendly relationship. Many of the inhabitants indeed having Indian wives. Near the centre of the settlement on the west bank of the river about 20 miles from Lake Erie stood Fort Detroit, a miniature town. It was in the form of a parallelogram and was surrounded by a palisade 25 feet high. According to a letter of an officer the walls had an extent of over 1,000 paces. At each corner was a bastion and over each gate a blockhouse. Within the walls were about 100 houses. The little Catholic church of St. Anne's a council house, officer's quarters and a range of barracks. Save for one or two exceptions the buildings were wood, thatched with bark or straw and stood close together. The streets were exceedingly narrow. But immediately within the palisade a wide road extended round the entire village. The spiritual welfare of the French and Indian Catholics in the garrison was looked after by Fr. Portier, a Jesuit whose mission was in the Wyenton village and by Fr. Bakot, a recollect who lived within Fort. Major Henry Gladwin was in command. He had 120 soldiers and two armed schooners. And the beaver were in the river nearby. On the first day of May 1763 Pontiac came to the main gate of the Fort asking to be allowed to enter. As he and the warriors with him, 40 in all, desired to show their love for the British by dancing the calamet or peace dance. Gladwin had not the slightest suspicion of evil intent and readily admitted them. The savages selected a spot in front of the officers' houses and thirty of them went through their grotesque movements shouting and dancing to the music of the Indian drum and all the while waving their calamets in token of friendship. While the dancers were thus engaged, the remaining ten of the party were busily employed in surveying the Fort noting the number of men and the strength of the palisades. The dance lasted about an hour. Presence were then distributed to their departure. Pontiac now summoned the Indians about Detroit to another council. On this occasion, the chiefs and warriors assembled in the council house in the Pottawame village south of the Fort. When all were gathered together, Pontiac rose and, as at the council at the river of Corsies, in a torrent of words and with vehement gestures denounced the British. He declared that under the new occupancy of the Indians in the Indian country, the red men were neglected and their wants were no longer supplied as they had been in the days of the French. And exorbitant prices were charged by the traders for goods. That when the Indians were departing for their winter camps to hunt for furs, they were no longer able to obtain ammunition and clothing on credit. And finally, that the British desired the death of the Indians. And it was therefore necessary to do so. This was an act of self-preservation to destroy them. He once more displayed the war-belt that he pretended to have received from the King of France. This belt told him to strike in his own interest and in the interest of the French. He closed his speech by saying that he had sent belts to the Chippewas of Saganaugh and the Ottawa's of Michel-Lamaqueque Seeing that his words were greeted with grunts and shouts of approval, and that the assembled warriors were with him to a man, Pontiac revealed a plan he had formed to seize the fort and slaughter the garrison. He and some fifty chiefs and warriors would wait on Gladwin on the pretense of discussing matters of importance. Each one would carry beneath his blanket a gun, with the barrel cut short to permit of concealment. Warriors and even women were to enter the fort as if on a friendly visit and take up positions of advantage in the streets, in readiness to strike with Tomahawk's knives and guns, all which they were to have concealed beneath their blankets. At the council Pontiac was to address Gladwin and in pretended friendship hand him a wampum belt. If it were wise to strike he would on presenting the belt hold its reverse side towards Gladwin. This was to be the signal for attack. Instantly blankets were to be thrown aside and the officers were to be shot down. At the sound of firing in the council room the Indians in the streets were to fall on the garrison and every British soldier was to be slain. Care being taken that no Frenchman suffered. The plan by its treachery and by its possibilities of slaughter and plunder appealed to the savages and they dispersed to make preparations for the morning of the seventh. The day chosen for carrying out the murderous scheme. The plot was difficult to conceal. The aid of French blacksmith had to be sought to shorten the guns. Moreover the British garrison had some friends among the Indians. Scarcely had the plot been matured when it was discussed among the French and on the day before the intended massacre it was revealed to Gladwin. His informant is not certainly known. A Chippewa maiden, an old squaw, several Frenchmen, and an Ottawa name among he have been mentioned. It is possible that Gladwin had it from a number of sources, but most likely from behind him. The Pontiac manuscript, probably the work of Robert Navire, the keeper of the notorial records of the settlement, distinctly states that McGarhani revealed the details of the plot with the request that Gladwin should not divulge his name. For, should Pontiac learn, the informer would surely be put to death. This would account for the fact that Gladwin, even in his report of the affair to Amherst, gave no hint as to the person who told him. Gladwin at once made preparations to receive Pontiac and his chiefs. On the night of the sixth instructions were given to the soldiers and the traitors within the fort to make preparations to resist an attack, and the guards were doubled. As the centuries peered out into the darkness occasional yells and whoops and the beating of drums reached their ears, telling of the war dance that was being performed in the Indian villages to hearten the warriors for the slaughter. Gladwin determined to act boldly. On the morning of the seventh all the trader's stores were closed and every man capable of bearing weapons was under arms, but the gates were left open as usual and shortly after daylight Indians and squads by twos and threes began to gather in the forts as if to trade. At ten in the morning a line of chiefs with Pontiac at their lead filed along the road leading to the river gate. All were painted and plumbed and each one was wrapped in a brightly colored blanket. When they entered the fort they were astonished to see the war-like preparation, but stoically concealed their surprise. Arrived in the council chamber the chiefs noticed the central standing at arms. Commandant and his officers seated their faces stern and set, pistols in their belts and swords by their sides. So perturbed with the chief by all this war-like display that it was some time before they would take their seats on the mats prepared for them. At length they recovered their composure and Pontiac broke the silence by asking why so many of the young men were standing in the streets with their guns. Answer was made through the interpreter, Lebut, that it was for exercise and discipline. Pontiac then addressed Gladwin, vehemently protesting, friendship. All the time he was speaking Gladwin bent on him a scrutinizing gaze and as the chief was about to present the wampum belt a signal was given and the drums crashed out of charge. Every doubt was removed from Pontiac's mind his plot was discovered. His nervous hand lowered the belt, but he recovered himself immediately and presented it in the ordinary way. Gladwin repatried to his speech sternly but kindly, saying that he would have the protection and friendship of the British so long as he merited it. A few presents were then distributed among the Indians and the council ended. The chiefs, with their blankets still tightly wrapped about them, filed out of the council room and scattered to their villages, followed by the disappointed rabble of fully three hundred Indians who had assembled in the fort. On the morrow Pontiac, accompanied by three chiefs, again appeared at the fort, bringing with him a pipe of peace. When this had been smoked by the officers and chiefs he presented it to Captain Campbell as a further mark of friendship. The next day he was once more at the gate seeking entrance, but he found them closed. Gladwin felt that the time had come to take no chances. This morning a rabble of Padawamas, Ottawa's, Wyandots, and Chippewa's thronged the common just outside of Muscat Range. On Pontiac's request for a conference with Gladwin he was sternly told that he might enter alone. The answer angered him and he strode back to his followers. Now with yells and war hoops, parties of the savages bounded away on a murderous mission. Half a mile behind the fort an English woman. Mrs. Turnbill and her two sons cultivated a small farm. All three were straight away slain. A party of Ottawa's leapt into their canoes and paddled swiftly to Isle Auc Chone, where lived a former sergeant, James Fisher. Fisher was seized, killed, and scalped. His young wife brutally murdered and their two little children carried into captivity. On this same day news was brought to the fort that Sir Robert Davers and Captain Robertson had been murdered three days before on Lake St. Clair by Chippewa's who were on their way from Saginaw to join Pontiac's forces. Thus began the Pontiac War in the vicinity of Detroit. For several months the garrison was to know little rest. That night at the Ottawa village arose the hideous den of the war dance, and while the warriors worked themselves into a frenzy the squaws were busy breaking camp. Before daylight the village was moved to the opposite side of the river, and the wigwams were pitched near the mouth of Parents' Creek, about a mile and a half above the fort. On the morning of the tenth the siege began in earnest. Shortly after daybreak the yells of a horde of savages could be heard north and south and west. But few of the enemy could be seen as they had excellent shelter behind barns, outhouses, and fences. For six hours they kept up a continuous fire on the garrison, but wounded only five men. The fort vigorously returned the fire, and none of the enemy dared attempt to rush the palisades. A cluster of buildings in the rear sheltered a particularly ferocious set of savages. A three-pounder, the only effective artillery in the fort, was trained on this position. Spikes were bound together with wire. He did red-hot and fired at the buildings. These were soon a mass of flames and the savages concealed behind them fled for their lives. Presently the Indians grew tired of this useless warfare and withdrew to their villages. Gladwin, thinking that he might bring Pontiac to terms, sent Lebut to ask the cause of the attack and to say that the British were ready to retress any wrongs from which the Indians might be suffering. Lebut was accompanied by Jean Baptiste Chapton, a captain of the militia, and a man of some importance in the fort, and Jacques Godfrey a traitor and likewise an officer of militia. It may be noted that Godfrey's wife was the daughter of a Miami chief. The ambassadors were received in a friendly manner by Pontiac, who seemed ready to cease hostilities. Lebut returned to the fort with some of the chiefs to report progress. But when he went again to Pontiac he found that the Ottawa chief had made no definite promise. It seems probable judging from their later actions. The Chapaton and Godfrey had betrayed Gladwin and urged Pontiac to force the British out of the country. Pontiac now requested that Captain Donald Campbell, who had been in charge of Detroit before Gladwin took over the command, should come to his village to discuss terms. Campbell was confident that he could pacify the Indians, and accompanied by Lieutenant George McDougal. He set out along the River Road for the Ottawa's encampment at Parents' Creek. As the two officers crossed the bridge at the mouth of the creek, they were met by a savage crowd, men, women, and children armed with sticks and clubs. The mob rushed at them with yells and threatening gestures, and were about to fall on the officers when Pontiac appeared, and restored order. A council was held, but as Campbell could get no satisfaction he suggested returning to the fort. There upon Pontiac remarked, My father will sleep tonight in the lodges of his red children. Campbell and McDougal were given good quarters in the House of Jean Baptiste Moloche. For nearly two months they were to be kept close prisoners. So far only part of the Wyandotte's adjoined Pontiac, Father Portier, had been trying to keep his flock neutral. But on the eleventh Pontiac crossed to the Wyandotte village and threatened it with destruction, if the warriors did not take up the tomahawk. On this compulsion they consented, no doubt glad of an excuse to be rid of the discipline of their priest. Another attack on the fort was made. This time by about six hundred Indians. But it was futile, as the one of the earlier day. Pontiac now tried negotiation. He summoned Gladwin to surrender, promising that the British should be allowed to depart un-molested on their The officers, knowing that their communications with the east were cut, that food was scarce, that a vigorous assault could not fail to carry the fort urged Gladwin to accept the offer. But he sternly refused. He would not abandon Detroit while one pound of food and one pound of powder were left in the fort. Moreover, the treacherous conduct of Pontiac convinced him that the troops and traitors as they left the fort would be plundered and slaughtered. He rejected Pontiac's demand and advised him to disperse his people and save his ammunition for hunting. At this critical moment Detroit was undoubtedly saved by a French Canadian. But for Jacques Baby, the grim specter Starvation would have stalked through the little fortress. Baby was a prosperous traitor and merchant who, with his wife Suzanne Riome, lived on the east shore of the river, almost opposite the fort. He had a farm of one thousand acres, two hundred of which were under cultivation. His trading establishment was a low-built log structure eighty feet long by twenty wide. He owned thirty slaves, twenty men and ten women. He seems to have treated them kindly at any rate. Their loyalty did his will. Baby agreed to get provisions into the fort by stealth and on a dark night, about a week after the siege commenced. Gladwin had a lantern displayed on a plank fixed at the water's edge. Baby had six canoes in readiness, and each were stowed two quarters of beef, three honks, and six bags of meal. All night long these canoes plied across the half-mile stretch of water, and by daylight, sufficient food to last the garrison for several weeks had been delivered. End of Chapter 4 Section 1 Part 2 of Chapter 4 From day to day the Indians kept up a desultory firing while Gladwin took precautions against a long siege. Food was taken from the houses of the inhabitants and placed in a common store house. Timber was torn from the walks and used in the construction of portable bastions, which were erected outside the fort. There being danger that the roofs of the houses would be ignited by means of fire arrows, the French inhabitants of the fort were made to draw water and store it in vessels at convenient points. Houses, fences, and orchards in the neighborhood were destroyed and leveled, so that sulking warriors could not find shelter. The front of the fort was comparatively safe from attack, for the schooners guarded the river gate and the Indians had a wholesome dread of these floating fortresses. About the middle of the month the Gladwin sailed down the Detroit to meet a convoy that was expected with provisions and ammunition for Fort Schulzer. At the entrance to Lake Erie as the vessel lay becalmed in the river, she was suddenly beset by a swarm of savages in canoes and Pontiac's prisoner Captain Campbell appeared in the foremost canoe, the savages thinking that the British would not fire on them for fear of killing him. Happily a breeze sprang up and the schooners escaped to the open lake. There was no sign of the convoy and the Gladwin sailed off for Niagara to carry to the officers their tidings of the Indian rising in the west. On May 30th the watchful sentries at Detroit saw a line of Beetoo flying the British flag rounding up point on the east shore of the river. This was the expected convoy from Fort Schulzer and the cannon boomed forth a welcome, but the rejoicings of the garrison were soon stilled. Instead of British cheers wild war hoops resounded from the Beetoo, the Indians had captured the convoy and were forcing their captives to row. In the foremost boat were four soldiers and three savages. Nearing the fortress one of the soldiers conceived the daring plan of overpowering the Indian guard and escaping to the beaver, which lay anchored in front of the fort. Seizing the nearest savage he attempted to throw him into the river, but the Indians succeeded in stabbing him and both fell overboard and were drowned. The other savages, dreading capture, leapt out of the boat and swam ashore. The Beetoo, with the three soldiers in it, reached the beaver and the provisions and ammunition that contained were taken to the fort. The Indians in the remaining Beetoo, warned by the fate of the leading vessel, landed on the east shore and marching their prisoners over land past the fort they took them across the river to Pontiac's camp, where most of them were put to death with fiendish cruelty. The soldiers who escaped to the beaver told the story of the ill-fated convoy. On May 13, Lieutenant Abraham Collier, totally ignorant of the outbreak of hostilities at Detroit, had left Fort Schulzer with ninety-six men in ten Beetoo. They had journeyed in leisurely fashion along the northern shore of Lake Erie, and by the twenty-eighth had reached Point Pili, about thirty miles from the Detroit River. Here a landing was made and while tents were being pitched, a band of painted savages suddenly darted out of the forest and attacked a man and a boy, who were gathering wood. The man escaped, but the boy was tomahawked and scalped. Collier drew up his men in front of the boats, and a sharp musketeer fire followed between the Indians, who were sheltered by a thick wood and the white men on the exposed shore. The raiders were Wyandots from Detroit, the most courageous and intelligent savages in the region. Seeing that Collier's men were panic-stricken, they broke from their cover, with unusual boldness for Indians, and made a mad charge. The soldiers completely unnerved by the savage gels and hurtling tomahawks threw down their arms and dashed in confusion to the boats. Five they succeeded in pushing off, and into these they tumbled without weapons of defense. Collier himself was left behind wounded, but he waited out and was taken aboard under a bisque fire from the shore. The Indians then launched two of the abandoned boats, rushed in pursuit of the fleeing soldiers, speedily captured three of the boats, and brought them ashore in triumph. The two others, in one of which was Collier, hoisted sail and escaped. The Indians, as we have seen, brought the captured boats and their prisoners to Detroit. Collier had directed his course to Sandusky, but finding the blockhouse there burnt to the ground, he had rode eastward to Pretzgrilisle, and then hastened to Niagara to report the disaster. The siege of Detroit went on. Towards the middle of June, shock may be, brought word to the commandant that the glad one was returning from the Niagara with supplies and men, and that the Indians were making preparations to capture her. A few miles below Detroit lay Fighting Island. Between it and the east shore, Turkey Island, here the savages had erected a breastwork, so carefully concealed that it would be difficult, even for the keenest eyes to detect his presence. The vessel would have to pass with an easy range of this barricade, and it was the plan of the Indians to dart out in their canoes as the schooner worked upstream, seize her, and slay her crew. On learning this news Gladwin ordered Cannon to be fired to notify the captain that the fort still held out and send a messenger to meet the vessel with word of the plot. It happened that the Gladwin was well manned and prepared for battle. On board was Collier, with twenty-two survivors of the ill-starred convoy, besides twenty-eight men of Captain Hopkins Company. To deceive the Indians as to the number of men all the crew and soldiers, save ten or twelve, were concealed in the hold. To invite attack, the vessel advanced boldly upstream and at nightfall cast anchor in the narrow channel in front of Turkey Island. About midnight the Indians stealthily bordered their canoes and cautiously, but confidently, swept toward her with muffled paddles. The Gladwin was ready for them. Not a sound broke the silence of the night as the Indians approached the schooner, when suddenly the clang of a hammer against the mast echoed over the calm waters, the signal to the soldiers in the hold. The Indians were almost on their prey, but before they had time to utter the war hoop, the soldiers had come up and had attacked the savages with bullets and cannon-shot. Shrieks of death arose amid the din of the firing and the splash of swimmers hurriedly making for the shore, from the sinking canoes. In a moment fourteen Indians were killed and as many more wounded. From behind the barricade the survivors began a harmless musket-read fire against the schooner, which simply weighed anchor and drifted downstream to safety. A day or two later she cleared Turkey Island and reached the fort, pouring a shattering broadside into the Wandawn village as she passed it. Beside the troops the Gladwin had on board a precious cargo of a hundred and fifty barrels of provision and some ammunition. She had not run the blockade unscathed, for in passing Turkey Island one sergeant and four men had been wounded. There was rejoicing in the fort when the reinforcements marched in. This additional strength in men and provisions it was expected would enable the garrison to hold out for at least another month. Within which time soldiers would arrive in sufficient force to drive the Indians away. In the meantime Pontiac was becoming alarmed. He had expected an easy victory and was not prepared for a protected siege. He had drawn on the French settlers for supplies his warriors had slain cattle and taken provisions without the consent of the owners. Leaders in the settlement now waited on Pontiac making complaint. He professed to be fighting for French rule and expressed sorrow at the action of his young men. Promising that in future the French should be paid, acting no doubt on the suggestion of some of his French allies, he made a list of each of the inhabitants, drew on each for a definite quantity of supplies and had these deposited at Melchie's house near his camp on Parents' Creek. A commissary was appointed to distribute the provisions as required. In payment he issued letters of credit, signed with his totem the otter. It is said that all of them were afterwards redeemed, but this is almost past belief in the face of what actually happened. From the beginning of the siege Pontiac had hoped that the French traders and settlers would join him to force the surrender of the fort. The arrival of the reinforcement under Kalyer made him despair of winning without their assistance. And early in July he sent his Indians to the leading inhabitants along the river, ordering them to a council, at which he hoped by persuasion or threats, to make them take up arms. This council was attended by such settlers as Robert Nevere, Zachary Sikoti, Louis Campot and Toine Kalyer, François Malone, all men of standing and influence. In his address to them Pontiac declared, if you are French accept this war belt for yourselves, or your young men, and join us. If you are English we declare war upon you. The Gladwin had brought news of the peace of Paris between France and England. Many of the settlers had been hoping that success would crown the French arms in Europe and that Canada would be restored. Some of those at the council said that these articles of peace were a mere ruse on the part of Gladwin, to gain time. Robert Nevere, who had published the articles of peace to the French and Indians, and several others were friendly to the British. But the majority of those present were unfriendly. Sikort told Pontiac that while the heads of families could not take up arms, there were three hundred young men about Detroit who would willingly join him. These words were probably intended to humor the chief, but there were those who took the belt and commenced recruiting among the Fowls. The settlers who joined Pontiac were nearly all half-breeds, or men made it to Indian wives. Others such as Pierre Renume and Louis Campot, believing their lives to be in danger on account of their loyalty to the new rulers, sought shelter in the fort. By July 4 the Indians under the direction of French allies had strongly entrenched themselves and had begun a vigorous attack. But a force of about sixty men marched out from the fort and drove them from the position. In the retreat two Indians were killed and one of the pursuing soldiers, who had been prisoner among the Indians and had learned the ways of savage warfare, scalped one of the Fallen Braves. The victim proved to be a nephew of the chief of the Saginaw Chippewas, who now claimed life for life, and demanded that Captain Campbell should be given to him. According to the Pontiac manuscript, Pontiac acquiesced and a Saginaw chief killed Campbell with a blow of his tomahawk, and after cast him into the river. Campbell's fellow prisoner, McDougal, along with two others, had escaped to the fort some days before. The investment continued, although the attacks became less frequent. The schooners maneuvering in the river poured broadsides into the Indian villages, battering down the flimsy wigwams. Pontiac moved his camp, from the mouth of Parents Creek, to a position nearer Lake St. Clair. Out of a range of their guns and turned his thoughts to contrive some means of destroying the troublesome vessels. He had learned from the French of the attempt with fireships against the British fleet at Quebec, and made a trial of a similar artifice. Petrel were joined together, loaded with inflammable material ignited and sent on their mission, but these fireships floated harmlessly past the schooners and burnt themselves out. Then for a week the Indians worked on the construction of a gigantic fire raft, but nothing came of this ambitious scheme. It soon appeared that Pontiac was beginning to lose his hold on the Indians. About the middle of July, ambassadors from the Wyandots and Potawamis came to the fort with an offer of peace protesting, after the Indian manner, love and friendship for the British. After much parlaying, they surrendered their prisoners and plunder, but soon after a temptation irresistible to their treacherous natures offered itself and they were again on the warpath. Amherst, at New York, had at last been aroused to the danger, and Captain James Daryl had set out from Fort Schulser with twenty-two barges carrying nearly three hundred men, with cannon and supplies for the relief of Detroit. The expedition skirted the southern shore of Lake Erie until it reached Sandusky. The Wyandot villages here were found deserted. After destroying them, Dulyel shaped his course for the Detroit River. Fortune favored the expedition. Pontiac was either ignorant of its approach or unable to mature a plan to check its advance. Through the darkness and fog of the night of July twenty-eight, the barges cautiously crept upstream, and when the morning sun of the twenty-ninth lifted, the mists from the river they were in full view of the fort. Relief at last. The weary watching of months was soon to end. The band of the fort was assembled, and the martial airs of England floated on the morning breeze. Now it was that the Wyandots and Potwamis, although so lately swearing friendship to the British, thought the opportunity too good to be lost. In passing their villages the barges were assailed by a musketry fire which killed two and wounded thirteen of Daryl's men. But the soldiers with muskets and swivels replied to the attack and put the Indians to flight. Then the barges drew up before the fort to the welcome of the anxious watchers of Detroit. The reinforcement was composed of men of the fifty-fifth and eight regiments, and of twenty rangers under Major Robert Rogers. Like their commander, Daryl, many of them were experienced in Indian fighting and were eager to be at Pontiac and his warriors. Daryl thought that Pontiac might be taken by surprise, and urged on Gladwin the advisability of an immediate advance. To this Gladwin was averse, but Daryl was insistent, and won his point. By the following night all was in readiness. At two o'clock in the morning of the thirty-first the river gate was thrown open and about two hundred and fifty men filed out. Heavy clouds hid both moon and stars, and the air was oppressively hot. The soldiers marked along the dusty road. Guided by Bebe and St. Martin, who had volunteered for the work, not a sound saved their own dull tramp broke the silence. On their right gleamed the calm river and keeping pace with them were two large beitu armed with swivels. Presently as the troops passed the farmhouses drowsy watchdogs caught the sound of marching feet embarked furiously. Pontiac's camp, however, was still far away. This barking would not alarm the Indians. But the soldiers did not know that they had been betrayed by a spy of Pontiacs within the fort, nor did they suspect that snake-like eyes were even then watching their advance. At length Parents' Creek was reached, where a narrow wooden bridge spanned the stream a few yards from its mouth. The advance guard were half way over the bridge, and the main body crowding after them went from a black ridge in front. The crackle of muscatria rose, and half the advance guard fell. The narrow stream ran red with their blood, and even after this night it was known as Bloody Run. On the high ground to the north of the creek a barricade of cordwood had been erected, and behind this, and behind barns and houses and fences and in the cornfields and orchards, Indians were firing and yelling like demons. The troops recoiled, but Dal-Yell rallied them. Again they crowded to the bridge. There was another volley and another pause. With reckless bravery the soldiers pressed across the narrow way and rushed to the spot where the muscat flashes were seen. They won the height, but not an Indian was there. The muscat flashes continued and war hoops sounded from new shelters. The Baytruel drew up alongside the bridge, and the dead and wounded were taken on board to be carried to the fort. It was useless to attempt to drive the shifty savages from their layers, and so the retreat was sounded. Captain Grant, in charge of the rear company, led his men back across the bridge while Dal-Yell covered the retreat, and now the fight took on a new aspect. As the soldiers retreated along the road, leading to the fort a destructive fire poured upon them from houses and barns from behind fences and from a newly dug cellar. With the river on their left and with the enemy before and behind as well as on the right, they were in danger of being annihilated. Grant ordered his men to fix bayonets. A dash was made where the savages were thickest, and they were scattered. As the fire was renewed, panic seized the troops. But Dal-Yell came up from the rear and with shouts and threats and flat of sword restored order. Day was breaking, but a thick fog hung over the scene. Under cover which the Indians continued the attack. The house of Jacques Campot, a trader, sheltered a number of Indians who were doing most destructive work. Rogers and a party of his rangers attacked the house, and pounding in the doors drove out through assailants. From Campot's house Rogers covered the retreat of Grant's company, but was himself in turn besieged. By this time the arm by toe which had borne the dead and wounded to the fort had returned, and opening fire with their swivels on the Indians attacking Rogers drove them off. The rangers joined Grant's company and all retreated for the fort. The shattered remnant of Dal-Yell's competent forces arrived at Fort Detroit at eight in the morning after six hours of marching in desperate battle, exhausted and crestfallen. Dal-Yell had been slain. An irreparable loss. The casualty list was twenty killed and forty-two wounded. The Indians had suffered but slightly. However they gained but little permanent advantage from the victory as the fort still had about three hundred effective men with ample provisions in ammunition and could defy assault and withstand a protracted siege. In this fight Chippewa's and Ottawa's took the leading part the Wyandots had, however, at the sound of firing crossed the river and the Potawamis also had joined in the combat in spite of the truce so recently made with Gladwin. At the battle of Bloody Run at least eight hundred warriors were engaged in the endeavor to cut off Dal-Yell's men. There was rejoicing in the Indian villages and more British scalps adorned the warriors' wigwams. Runners were sent out to the surrounding nations with news of the victory and many recruits were added to Pontiac's forces. While Fort Detroit was withstanding Pontiac's hordes, the smaller forts and blockhouses scattered throughout the hinterland were fearing badly. On the southern shore of Lake Erie, almost directly south of the Detroit River, stood Fort Sandusky, a rude blockhouse surrounded by stockade. Here were about a dozen men commanded by Ensign Christopher Polly. The blockhouse could easily have been taken by assault, but such was not the method of the band of Wyandots in the neighborhood. They preferred treachery and, under the guise of friendship, determined to destroy the garrison with no risk to themselves. On the morning of May 16, Polly was informed that seven Indians wished to confer with him. Four of these were members of the Wyandot tribe and three belonged to Pontiac's band of Ottawa's. The Wyandots were known to Polly, and as he had no news of the situation at Detroit and no suspicion of danger to himself, he readily admitted them to his hordes. The Indians produced a calumet and handed it to Polly in token of friendship. As the pipe passed from lip to lip, a warrior appeared at the door of the room and raised his arm. It was the signal for attack. Immediately Polly was seized by the Indians, two of whom had placed themselves on either side of him. At the same time, a war-whoop rang out and firing began, and as Polly was rushed across the parade ground, he saw the bodies of several of his men who had been treacherously slain. The sentry had been tomahawked as he stood at arms at the gate, and the sergeant of the little company was killed while working in the garden of the garrison outside the stockade. When night fell, Polly and two or three others, all that remained of the garrison, were placed in canoes, and these were headed for Detroit. As the prisoners looked back over the calm waters of Sandusky Bay, they saw the blockhouse burst into flames. Polly and his men were landed at the Ottawa camp, where a horde of howling Indians, including women and children, beat them and compelled them to sing and dance for the entertainment of the rabble. Preparations were made to torture Polly to death at the stake, but an old squaw who had recently lost her husband was attracted by the handsome dark-skinned young ensign and adopted him in place of her deceased warrior. Polly's hair was cut close. He was dipped into the stream to wash the white blood from his veins, and finally he was dressed and painted as became an Ottawa brave. News of the destruction of Fort Sandusky was brought to Gladwyn by a trader named Labros, a resident of Detroit, and a few days later a letter was received from Polly himself. For nearly two months Polly had to act the part of an Ottawa warrior, but early in July, Pontiac being in a state of great rage against the British, his squaw placed him in a farmhouse for safekeeping. In the confusion arising out of the attack on Fort Detroit on the fourth of the month and the murder of Captain Campbell he managed to escape by the aid, it is said, of an Indian maiden. He was pursued to within musketshot of the walls of Detroit. When he entered the fort so much did he resemble an Indian that at first he was not recognized. The next fort to fall into the hands of the Indians was St. Joseph on the east shore of Lake Michigan at the mouth of the St. Joseph River. This was the most inaccessible of the posts on the Great Lakes. The garrison here lived lonely lives. Around them were thick forests and swamps, and in front the desolate waters of the sea-like lake. The Indians about St. Joseph had long been under the influence of the French. This place had been visited by La Salle, and here in 1688 the Jesuit Allway had established a mission. In 1763 the post was held by Ensign Francis Schlosser and fourteen men. For months the little garrison had been without news from the east when on May 25 a party of Padawatomies from about Detroit arrived on a pretended visit to their relations living in the village at St. Joseph and asked permission to call on Schlosser. But before a meeting could be arranged a French trader entered the fort and warned the commandant that the Padawatomies intended to destroy the garrison. Schlosser at once ordered his sergeant to arm his men and went among the French settlers seeking their aid. Even while he was addressing them a shrill death cry rang out. The sentry at the gate had fallen a victim to the tomahawk of a savage. In an instant a howling mob of Padawatomies under their chief Washi were within the stockade. Eleven of the garrison were straight away put to death and the fort was plundered. Schlosser and the three remaining members of his little band were taken to Detroit by some foxes who were present with the Padawatomies. On June 10 Schlosser had the good fortune to be exchanged for two chiefs who were prisoners in Fort Detroit. The Indians did not destroy Fort St. Joseph but left it in charge of the French under Louis Chevalier. Chevalier saved the lives of several British traders and in every way behaved so admirably that at the close of the Indian War he was given a position of importance under the British which position he held until the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. We have seen that when Major Robert Rogers visited Detroit in 1760 one of the French forts first occupied was Miami situated on the Mami River at the commencement of the portage to the Wabash near the spot where Fort Wayne was afterwards built. At the time of the outbreak of the Pontiac War this fort was held by Ensign Robert Holmes and twelve men. Holmes knew that his position was critical. In 1762 he had reported that the Seneca's, Shawnee's, and Delaware's were plotting to exterminate the British in the Indian country and he was not surprised when towards the end of May 1763 he was told by a French trader that Detroit was besieged by the Ottawa Confederacy. But though Holmes was on the alert and kept his men under arms he was nevertheless to meet death and his fort was to be captured by treachery. In his desolate wilderness home the young Ensign seems to have lost his heart to a handsome young squaw living in the vicinity of the fort. On May 27 she visited him and begged him to accompany her on a mission of mercy to help save the life of a sick Indian woman. Having acted as position to the Indians on former occasions Holmes thought to request a natural one. The young squaw led him to the Indian village pointed out the wigwam where the woman was supposed to be and then left him. As he was about to enter the wigwam two musket shots rang out and he fell dead. Three soldiers who were outside the fort rushed for the gate but they were tomahawked before they could reach it. The gate was immediately closed and the nine soldiers within the fort made ready for resistance. With the Indians were two Frenchmen Jack Godfroy whom we have met before as the ambassador to Pontiac in the opening days of the Siege of Detroit and one Minie Shane. Footnote this is the only recorded instance accepted Detroit in which any French took part with the Indians in the capture of a fort and both Godfroy and Minie Chaine had married Indian women and they had an English prisoner a trader named John Welsh who had been captured and plundered at the mouth of the mommy while on his way to Detroit. The Frenchmen called on the garrison to surrender pointing out how useless it would be to resist and how dreadful would be their fate if they were to slay any Indians. Without a leader and surrounded as they were by a large band of savages the men of the garrison saw that resistance would be of no avail. The gates were thrown open the soldiers marched forth and were immediately seized and bound and the fort was looted. With Welsh the captives were taken to the Ottawa village at Detroit where they arrived on June 4 and where Welsh and several of the soldiers were tortured to death. A few miles south of the present day city of Lafayette on the southeast side of the Wabash at the mouth of Way Creek stood the little wooden fort of Wea Tannen. It was connected with Fort Miami by a footpath through the forest. It was the most westerly of the British forts in the Ohio country and might be said to be on the borderland of the territory along the Mississippi which was still under the government of Louisiana. There was a considerable French settlement and nearby was the principal village of the Ways, a sub-tribe of the Miami nation. The fort was guarded by the usual dozen of men under the command of Lieutenant Edward Jenkins. In March Jenkins had been warned that an Indian rising was imminent and that soon all the British in the hinterland would be prisoners. The French and Indians in this region were under the influence of the Mississippi officers and traders who were, in Jenkins words, eternally telling lies to the Indians, leading them to believe that a great army would soon arrive to recover the forts. Towards the end of May ambassadors arrived at Wea Tannen either from the Delaware's or from the Pontiac bringing war belts and instructions to the Ways to seize the fort. This as usual was achieved by treachery. Jenkins was invited to one of their cabins for a conference. Totally unaware of the Pontiac conspiracy or of the fall of St. Joseph, Sandusky or Miami, he accepted the invitation. While passing out of the fort he was seized and bound and, when taken to the cabin, he saw there several of his soldiers, prisoners like himself. The remaining members of the garrison surrendered, knowing how useless it would be to resist, and under the threat that if one Indian were killed all the British would be put to death. It had been the original intention of the Indians to seize the fort and slaughter the garrison, but less bloodthirsty than Pontiac's immediate followers, they were won to mercy by two traders, Mesambi and Loran, who gave them presence on the condition that the garrison should be made prisoners instead of being slain. Jenkins and his men were to have been sent to the Mississippi, but their removal was delayed and they were quartered on the French inhabitants and kindly treated by both French and Indians until restored to freedom. The capture of Fort's Miami and Weatanon gave the Indians complete control of the route between the western end of Lake Erie and the rivers Ohio and Mississippi. The French traders, who had undoubtedly been instrumental in goading the Indians to hostilities, had now the trade of the Wabash and Lower Ohio and of the tributaries of both in their own hands. No British trader could venture into the region with impunity. The few who attempted it were plundered and murdered. The scene of hostilities now shifts to the north. Next to Detroit, the most important fort on the Great Lakes west of Niagara was Michela Mackenac, situated on the southern shore of the strait connecting Lakes Huron and Michigan. The officer there had supervision of the lesser forts at Sioux-Saint-Marie, Green Bay, and St. Joseph. At this time Sioux-Saint-Marie was not occupied by troops. In the preceding winter Lieutenant Jeumette had arrived to take command, but fire had broken out in his quarters and destroyed the post and he and his men had gone back to Michela Mackenac where they still were when the Pontiac War broke out. There were two important Indian tribes in the vicinity of the Michela Mackenac, the Chippewas and the Ottawa's. The Chippewas had populous villages on the island of Mackenac and at Thunder Bay on Lake Huron. They had, as their hunting grounds, the eastern half of the peninsula which is now the state of Michigan. The Ottawa's claimed as their territory, the western half of the peninsula, and their chief village was Larb Croche, where the venerable Jesuit priest, Fr. du Jeunet, had long conducted his mission. The Indians about Michela Mackenac had never taken kindly to the new occupants of the forts on their territory. When the trader Alexander Henry arrived there in 1761 he had found them decidedly hostile. On his journey up the Ottawa he had been warned of the reception in store for him. At Michela Mackenac he was waited on by a party of Chippewas headed by their chief Minna Bhavna, a remarkably sagacious Indian known to the French as Le Grand Satur, whose village was situated at Thunder Bay. This chief addressed Henry in most eloquent words, declaring that the Chippewas were the children of the French king, who was asleep, but who would shortly awaken and destroy his enemies. The king of England, he said, had entered into no treaty with the Chippewas and had sent them no presence. They were therefore still at war with him, and until he made such concessions they must look upon the French king as their chief. But, he continued, you come unarmed, sleep peacefully. The pipe of peace was then passed to Henry. After smoking it he bestowed on the Indians some gifts and they filed out of his presence. Almost immediately on the departure of the Chippewas came some 200 Ottawa's demanding of Henry and of several other British traders who were also there, ammunition, clothing and other necessities for their winter hunt, on credit until spring. The traders refused and, when threatened by the Indians, they and their employees, some thirty in all, barricaded themselves in a house and prepared to resist the demands by force of arms. Fortunately at this critical moment word arrived of a strong British contingent that was approaching from Detroit to take over the fort and the Ottawa's hurriedly left for their villages. For nearly two years the garrison at Michelin Mackinac lived in peace. In the spring of 1763 they were resting in a false security. Captain George Etherington, who was in command, heard that the Indians were on the warpath and that the fort was threatened, but he treated the report lightly. It is noteworthy too that Henry, who was in daily contact with the French settlers and Indians and had his agents scattered throughout the Indian country, saw no cause for alarm. But it happened that towards the end of May news reached the Indians at Michelin Mackinac of the situation at Detroit, and with the news came a war belt signifying that they were to destroy the British garrison. A crowd of Indians, chiefly Chippewas and Sacks, presently assembled at the post. This was a usual thing in spring and would cause no suspicion. The savages, however, had planned to attack the fort on June 4, the birthday of George III. The British were to celebrate the day by sports and feasting, and the Chippewas and Sacks asked to be allowed to entertain the officers with a game of lacrosse. Etherington expressed pleasure at the suggestion and told the chiefs who waited on him that he would back his friends the Chippewas against their sack opponents. On the morning of the 4th, posts were set up on the wide plain behind the fort, and tribe was soon opposed to tribe. The warriors appeared on the field with moccasin feet and otherwise naked, safe for their breech cloths. Hither and tither the ball was batted, thrown and carried. Player pursued player, tripping, slashing, shouldering each other, and shouting in their excitement as command of the ball passed with the fortunes of the game from Chippewa to Sack and from Sack to Chippewa. Etherington and Lieutenant Leslie were standing near the gate, interested spectators of the game, and all about and scattered throughout the fort were squazzed with stoical faces, each holding tight about her a godly colored blanket. The game was at its height when a player threw the ball to a spot near the gate of the fort. There was a wild rush for it, and as the gate was reached, lacrosse sticks were cast aside, the squazz threw open their blankets, and the players seized the tomahawks and knives held out in readiness to them. The shouts of play were changed to war-woops. Instantly, Etherington and Leslie were seized and hurried to a nearby wood. Into the fort the horde dashed. Here stood more squazz with weapons, and before the garrison had time to seize their arms, Lieutenant Jamet and fifteen soldiers were slain and scalped, and the rest made prisoners, while the French inhabitants stood by viewing the tragedy with the parent indifference. Etherington, Leslie, and the soldiers were held close prisoners. A day or two after the capture of the fort, a Chippewa chief, Le Grand Sablé, who had not been present at the massacre, returned from his wintering ground. He entered a hut where a number of British soldiers were bound hand and foot, and brutally murdered five of them. The Ottawa's, it will be noted, had taken no part in the capture of Michelinacanet. In fact, owing to the good offices of their priest, they acted towards the British as friends in need. A party of them from Larbre-Croche presently arrived on the scene and prevented further massacre. Etherington and Leslie were taken from the hands of the Chippewa's and removed to Larbre-Croche. From this place, Etherington sent a message to Green Bay, ordering the commandant to abandon the fort there. He then wrote to Gladwin at Detroit, giving an account of what had happened and asking aid. This message was carried to Detroit by Father de John A., who made the journey in company with seven Ottawa's and eight Chippewa's commanded by Canonchonec, a son of Minnavavna. But as we know, Gladwin was himself in need of assistance and could give none. The prisoners at Larbre-Croche, however, were well treated and finally taken to Montreal by way of the Ottawa River under an escort of friendly Indians. On the southern shore of Lake Erie, where the city of Erie now stands, was the fortified post of Presqueal, a stockaded fort with several substantial houses. It was considered a strong position, and its commandant, Ensign John Christie, had confidence that he could hold out against any number of Indians that might beset him. The news brought by Kyler, when he visited Presqueal, after the disaster at Pointe-Pelet, put Christie on his guard. Presqueal had a blockhouse of unusual strength, but it was of wood and inflammable. To guard against fire, there was left at the top of the building an opening through which water could be poured in any direction. The blockhouse stood on a tongue of land, on the one side a creek, on the other the lake. The most serious weakness of the position was that the banks of the creek and the lake rose in ridges to a considerable height, commanding the blockhouse and affording a convenient shelter for an attacking party within musket range. Christie had twenty-four men and believed that he had nothing to fear when, on June 15, some two hundred Wyandots arrived in the vicinity. These Indians were soon on the ridges assailing the blockhouse. Arrows tipped with burning tow and balls of blazing pitch rained upon the roof, and the utmost exertions of the garrison were needed to extinguish the fires. Soon the supply of water began to fail. There was a well nearby on the parade ground, but this open space was subject to such a hot fire that no man would ventured across it. A well was dug in the blockhouse, and the resistance continued. All day the attack was kept up, and during the night there was intermittent firing from the ridges. Another day passed, and at night came a lull in the siege. A demand was made to surrender. An English soldier, who had been adopted by the savages and was aiding them in the attack, cried out that the destruction of the fort was inevitable, that in the morning it would be fired at the top and bottom, and that unless the garrison yielded they would all be burnt to death. Christie asked till morning to consider, and when morning came he agreed to yield up the fort on condition that the garrison should be allowed to march to the next post. But as his men filed out they were seized and bound, then cast into canoes and taken to Detroit. Their lives however were spared, and early in July when the Wyandots made with Gladwin the peace which they afterwards broke, Christie and a number of his men were the first prisoners given up. A few miles inland, south of Preskill, on the trade route leading to Fort Pitt, was a rude blockhouse known as Labouf. This post was at the end of the portage from Lake Erie on Allegheny Creek where the canoe navigation of the Ohio Valley began. Here were stationed Ensign George Price and Thirteen Men. On June 18 a band of Indians arrived before Labouf and attacked it with muskets and fire arrows. The building was soon in flames. As the walls smoked and crackled the Indians danced in wild glee before the gate, intending to shoot down the defenders as they came out. But there was a window at the rear of the blockhouse through which the garrison escaped to the neighboring forest. When night fell the party became separated. Some of them reached Fort Venango two days later, only to find it in ruins. Price and seven men laboriously toiled through the forest to Fort Pitt where they arrived on June 26. Ultimately all save two of the garrison of Fort Labouf reached safety. The circumstances attending the destruction of Fort Venango on June 20 are but vaguely known. This fort situated near the site of the present city of Franklin had long been a center of Indian trade. In the days of the French occupation it was known as Fort Michoud. After the French abandoned the place in the summer of 1760 a new fort had been erected and named Venango. In 1763 there was a small garrison here under Lieutenant Gordon. For a time all that was known of its fate was reported by the fugitives from Labouf and a soldier named Gray who had escaped from Presquile. These fugitives had found Venango completely destroyed and, in the ruins, the blackened bones of the garrison. It was afterwards learned that they attacking Indians were Seneca's and that they had tortured the commandant to death over a slow fire after compelling him to write down the reason for the attack. It was threefold. 1. The British charged exorbitant prices for powder, shot, and clothing. 2. When Indians were ill treated by British soldiers they could obtain no redress. 3. Contrary to the wishes of the Indians forts were being built in their country and these could mean but one thing the determination of the invaders to deprive them of their hunting grounds. With the fall of Presquile, Labouf, and Venango the trade route between Erie and Fort Pitt was closed. Save for Detroit, Niagara, and Pitt not a British fort remained in the Great Hinterland and the soldiers at these three strong positions could leave the shelter of the Palisades only at the risk of their lives. Meanwhile the frontiers of the British settlements as well as the forts were being raided. Homes were burnt and the inmates massacred. Traders were plundered and slain. From the eastern slopes of the Alleghenies to the Mississippi no British life was safe.