The War Chief of the Ottawas by Thomas Guthrie Marquis

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CHRONICLES OF CANADA
Edited by George M. Wrong and H. H. Langton
In thirty-two volumes

Volume 15

THE WAR CHIEF OF THE OTTAWAS
A Chronicle of the Pontiac War

By THOMAS GUTHRIE MARQUIS
TORONTO, 1915

CONTENTS

I. THE TIMES AND THE MEN
II. PONTIAC AND THE TRIBES OF THE HINTERLAND
III. THE GATHERING STORM
IV. THE SIEGE OF DETROIT
V. THE FALL OF THE LESSER FORTS
VI. THE RELIEF OF FORT PITT
VII. DETROIT ONCE MORE
VIII. WINDING UP THE INDIAN WAR
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

CHAPTER I

THE TIMES AND THE MEN

There was rejoicing throughout the Thirteen Colonies, in
the month of September 1760, when 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 enemy 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. Louisbourg had been razed 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 Wabash and Fort Chartres 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 Alleghanies and the Atlantic far too narrow for a
rapidly increasing population, but their advance 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 war, 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, save 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 Algonquins and
Hurons in an attack on them, which they never forgot;
and, in spite of the noble efforts of 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 trader's 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 probably 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, and Quebec--the chiefs were royally received with
roll of 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 feastings
and 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, insignificant,
however, compared with the alternative of keeping in the
hinterland an armed force. The Indians, too, had fought
side by side with the French in many notable engagements.
They had aided Montcalm, 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 in America were far behind the French
in christianlike conduct towards the native races. The
colonial traders generally despised the Indians and
treated them as of 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 New 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
sacrifice 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 Alleghanies.] 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.
Indian 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 sou as in the days of
Bigot; 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, Michilimackinac,
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. Hostile 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 Jeffery 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 small-pox
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 Execrable
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.' And
Major Henry Gladwyn, 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. [Footnote: For more about Sir William Johnson
see _The War Chief of the Six Nations_ in this Series.]
It has been said by a recent writer that Johnson was 'as
much Indian as white man.' [Footnote: Lucas's _A History
of Canada, 1763-1812_, p. 58.] 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, a 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 show 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 fraternized
with the Dutch settlers of his neighbourhood 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
British rule would have attained greater proportions. At
the critical period he succeeded in keeping the Six
Nations loyal, save for the Senecas. 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 Ste 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.

CHAPTER II

PONTIAC AND THE TRIBES OF THE HINTERLAND

Foremost among the Indian leaders was Pontiac, the
over-chief of the Ottawa Confederacy. 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 pre-eminence 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. News
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 part in 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 Ottawas, the Chippewas, and the
Potawatomis. 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 organized strength of the Six Nations. The Indians
in it were of a low type--sunk in savagery and superstition.
A leader such as Pontiac naturally appealed to them. They
existed by hunting and fishing--feasting to-day and
famishing to-morrow--and were easily roused by the hope
of plunder. The weakly manned forts containing the white
man's provisions, ammunition, and traders' supplies were
an attractive lure to such savages. Within the confederacy,
however, there were some who did not rally round Pontiac.
The Ottawas of the northern part of Michigan, under the
influence of their priest, remained friendly to the
British. Including the Ottawas and Chippewas 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
Menominees, the Winnebagoes, and the Sacs 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 Sacs, moved by the hope of plunder,
assisted the Chippewas in the capture of Fort Michilimackinac.

The Wyandots 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 head-waters
of the rivers Maumee and Wabash, dwelt the Miamis,
numbering probably about fifteen hundred. Influenced by
French traders and by Pontiac's emissaries, they took to
the war-path, 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 Wyandots of Sandusky Bay, at the south-west corner
of Lake Erie, had about two hundred warriors, and were
in alliance with the Senecas and Delawares. Living near
Detroit, they were able to assist in Pontiac's siege.
Directly south of these, along the Scioto, dwelt the
Shawnees--the tribe which later gave birth to the great
Tecumseh--with three hundred warriors. East of the
Shawnees, between the Muskingum and the Ohio, were the
Delawares. 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 _Leni-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 won 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 Alleghanies. The British had
robbed the Delawares of their ancient lands, and the
Delawares 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 Alleghany rivers, lay the homes of
the Senecas, one of the Six Nations. This tribe looked
upon the British settlers in the Niagara region as
squatters on their territory. It was the Senecas, not
Pontiac, who began the 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 'Door-keepers of the Long House,' as
the Senecas 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 Senecas and the Delawares, 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
Susquehanna. The Ohio valley would be the next to go,
unless the Indians went on the war-path. 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 Senecas and Delawares 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 Jeffery Amherst,
the commander-in-chief, to arrange for the defence of
the country that had been wrested 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
[Footnote: 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 Ile Perrot and at Vaudreuil,
and on the south shore at the Cedars and Chateauguay;
but anything like continuity of settlement westward ceased
with the island of Montreal.] that had been established
by the French in the vaguely defined Indian territory to
the west. The fortunes of war had already given the
British command of the eastern end of this chain. Fort
Levis, 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
Presqu'isle, Le Boeuf, and Venango, 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 St Clair; Miami and Ouiatanon, on the trade-route
between Lake Erie and the Wabash; Michilimackinac, at
the entrance to Lake Michigan; Green Bay (La Baye), at
the southern end of Green Bay; St Joseph, on Lake Michigan;
Sault Ste 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's Rangers, a famous body of
Indian-fighters. On September 13, 1760, with two hundred
Rangers in fifteen whale-boats, Rogers set out from
Montreal. On November 7 the contingent without mishap
reached a river named by Rogers the Chogage, evidently
the Cuyahoga, 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 camp supplied with venison and turkey, for which
Rogers paid them liberally--before the party, on November
12, moved forward towards Detroit.

Detroit was at this time under the command of the Sieur
de Beletre, or Bellestre. 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 Beletre 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 Vaudreuil and a copy of the
capitulation. Beletre 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 endeavoured to rouse the inhabitants and Indians
about Detroit to resist the approaching British, for on
November 20 several Wyandot sachems met the advancing
party and told Rogers that four hundred warriors were in
ambush at the entrance to the Detroit river to obstruct
his advance. The Wyandots 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, [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 Cuyahoga is given, but
this book seems to be of doubtful authenticity. It was,
however, accepted by Parkman.] arrived at the British
camp, at the western end of Lake Erie, reporting that
Beletre intended to fight and that he had arrested the
officer who bore Rogers's message. Beletre'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 Vaudreuil's letter instructing
Beletre to hand over his fort to the British. These
documents were convincing, and Beletre [Footnote: Although
Beletre 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.]
consented, though with no good grace; and on November 29
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 presents 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.

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