The War Chief of the Ottawas by Thomas Guthrie Marquis

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Before the council ended Johnson presented to each of
the chiefs a silver medal engraved with the words: 'A
pledge of peace and friendship with Great Britain,
confirmed in 1766.' He also loaded Pontiac and his brother
chiefs with presents; then, on the last day of July, the
Indians scattered to their homes.

For three years Pontiac, like a restless spirit, moved
from camp to camp and from hunting-ground to hunting-ground.
There were outbreaks of hostilities in the Indian country,
but in none of these did he take part. His name never
appears in the records of those three years. His days of
conspiracy were at an end. By many of the French and
Indians he was distrusted as a pensioner of the British,
and by the British traders and settlers he was hated for
his past deeds. In 1769 he visited the Mississippi, and
while at Cahokia he attended a drunken frolic held by
some Indians. When he left the feast, stupid from the
effects of rum, he was followed into the forest by a
Kaskaskia Indian, probably bribed by a British trader.
And as Pontiac lurched among the black shadows of the
trees, his pursuer crept up behind him, and with a swift
stroke of the tomahawk cleft his skull. Thus by a
treacherous blow ended the career of a warrior whose
chief weapon had been treachery.

For twelve years England, by means of military officers,
ruled the great hinterland east of the Mississippi--a
region vast and rich, which now teems with a population
immensely greater than that of the whole broad Dominion
of Canada--a region which is to-day dotted with such
magnificent cities as Chicago, Detroit, and Indianapolis.
Unhappily, England made no effort to colonize this
wilderness empire. Indeed, as Edmund Burke has said, she
made 'an attempt to keep as a lair of wild beasts that
earth which God, by an express charter, had given to the
children of men.' She forbade settlement in the hinterland.
She did this ostensibly for the Indians, but in reality
for the merchants in the mother country. In a report of
the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations in 1772
are words which show that it was the intention of the
government to confine 'the western extent of settlements
to such a distance from the seaboard as that those
settlements should lie within easy reach of the trade
and commerce of this kingdom,... and also of the exercise
of that authority and jurisdiction... necessary for the
preservation of the colonies in a due subordination to,
and dependence upon, the mother country... It does appear
to us that the extension of the fur trade depends entirely
upon the Indians being undisturbed in the possession of
their hunting-grounds... Let the savages enjoy their
deserts in quiet. Were they driven from their forests
the peltry trade would decrease, and it is not impossible
that worse savages would take refuge in them.'

Much has been written about the stamp tax and the tea
tax as causes of the American revolution, but this
determination to confine the colonies to the Atlantic
seaboard 'rendered the revolution inevitable.' [Footnote:
Roosevelt's _The Winning of the West_, part i, p. 57.]
In 1778, three years after the sword was drawn, when an
American force under George Rogers Clark invaded the
Indian country, England's weakly garrisoned posts, then
by the Quebec Act under the government of Canada, were
easily captured; and, when accounts came to be settled
after the war, the entire hinterland south of the Great
Lakes, from the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, passed
to the United States.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The main source of information regarding the siege of
Detroit is the 'Pontiac Manuscript.' This work has been
translated several times, the best and most recent
translation being that by R. Clyde Ford for the Journal
of _Pontiac's Conspiracy, 1763_, edited by C. M. Burton.
Unfortunately, the manuscript abruptly ends in the middle
of the description of the fight at Bloody Run.

The following works will be found of great assistance to
the student: Rogers's _Journals_; Cass's _Discourse before
the Michigan Historical Society_; Henry's _Travels and
Adventures in Canada and the Indian Territories_; Parkman's
_Conspiracy of Pontiac_ (the fullest and best treatment
of the subject); Ellis's _Life of Pontiac, the Conspirator_
(a digest of Parkman's work); _Historical Account of the
Expedition against the Ohio Indians, 1764_ (authorship
doubtful, but probably written by Dr William Smith of
Philadelphia); Stone's _The Life and Times of Sir William
Johnson_; Drake's _Indians of North America_; _Handbook
of American Indians North of Mexico_ and _Handbook of
Indians of Canada_; Ogg's _The Opening of the Mississippi_;
Roosevelt's _The Winning of the West_; Carter's _The
Illinois Country_; Beer's _British Colonial Policy,
1754-1765_; Adair's _The History of the American Indians_;
the _Annual Register_ for the years 1763, 1764, and 1774;
Harper's _Encyclopedia of United States History_; Pownall's
_The Administration of the Colonies_; Bancroft's _History
of the United States_; Kingsford's _History of Canada_;
Winsor's _Narrative and Critical History of America_ and
his _Mississippi Basin_; Gordon's _History of Pennsylvania_;
Lucas's _A History of Canada, 1763-1812_; Gayarre's
_History of Louisiana_; and McMaster's _History of the
People of the United States_.

In 1766 there was published in London a somewhat remarkable
drama entitled _Ponteach: or the Savages of America_. A
part of this will be found in the appendices to Parkman's
_Conspiracy of Pontiac_. Parkman suggests that Robert
Rogers may have had a hand in the composition of this
drama.

END

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