The Conspiracy of Pontiac
By Charles Morris
CHAPTERS IN UNITED STATES HISTORY.* NO. 5.
The Conspiracy of Pontiac.
The New Territory of the English—Their Scattered Forts—The Indians of the West—Pontiac, Their Great Chief—His Conspiracy against the English—He Is Baffled by Major Gladwin—Detroit Besieged—Capture of the Other Forts—The Defense of Detroit—The Assault on Fort Pitt—The Settlements Raided—Bouquet's Battle with the Savages—Peace at Last—Murder of Pontiac. THE close of the contest of England and France in America left England, as we have seen, master of the situation as far as France was concerned. But this lordship of England was largely on paper only. There was a third party to the dispute, the aboriginal owners of the territory, who were in actual possession, and were not likely to give up their ancient patrimony without a struggle for its ownership.8 The region in dispute, that lying between the Ohio River and the Great Lakes, was for the most part one continuous forest, broken only by streams, rocks, reaches of prairie, or an occasional Indian clearing, planted with maize. The English claim to this vast outreach of forest land was indicated only by a few small forts, hundreds of miles apart, and garrisoned only by an ensign and sergeant, and a dozen or so of men. In their haste to supplant the French builders of these forts, the newcomers were blind to their dangers from the Indians, on whom, indeed, they often depended for supplies. Yet few and small as these forts were, they had alarmed the wandering savage. He had become in a measure attached to the French, who treated him with courtesy, and dwelt with him in his village on terms of intimacy. But he had been taught by them to hate the colder and sterner English, and it was a sore affliction to his eyes that he could not paddle his birch bark canoe over the waters of his native land without seeing the hated British flag, and feeling that he was being robbed of his birthright by strangers from a far distant land. The Indian tribes occupying this region were the Senecas, and Iroquois tribe, and the Algonquin, Delaware, Shawnees, Miamis, Wyandots, Potawatomies, Ottaways, Ojibways, and Hurons. Among these many tribes the man of the most power and importance was an Ottaway chief named Pontiac. He is said to have been a Catawba prisoner, adopted into this tribe, but by force of intellect he had risen to be the leading chief, and "the king and lord of the northwest." He was a man of integrity and humanity, according to the code of Indian morals, dauntless in courage and fertile in resources, and had gained the high respect, almost the adoration, of all the surrounding nations. At this time he was about fifty years of age, a man of dark complexion, medium height, powerful frame, and haughty bearing, with all the craft and subtlety of the Indian nature, and more than its ordinary ability. This man, more far-seeing than his savage compatriots, saw clearly that the invaders had come to stay, and that if not exterminated now while weak, they would exterminate the Indians when strong. French traders told them that their people across the waters did not propose to submit to defeat, but that a fleet bearing a great army was already on its way to the St. Lawrence. Thus encouraged, Pontiac organized in 1762 a great confederacy of the Indian tribes, for the purpose of attacking the English forts, laying waste their settlements, and driving them from the land. All the forts were to be attacked in a single day, entered by stealth or treachery, and their garrisons slaughtered, after which the scattered settlers could easily be destroyed, and the Indian patrimony regained. The date fixed for the attack was that of a certain change of the moon in May, 1763. Messengers were sent in every direction through the forest, bearing to distant tribes the red-stained tomahawk and blood-tinged belt of wampum, the signals of war. On April 27 a great council of chiefs was held, Pontiac addressed them in a long and earnest oration, dwelling on the wrongs they had received from the English, saying that the French were their friends, and were coming to their aid, and urging them to strike the projected blow. He found his auditors responsive to his wish, the details of the plot were completed, and the 7th of May was fixed as the date of the simultaneous assault. Meanwhile, secret as the savages had been, and warmly as they professed friendship for the English, some hints of the conspiracy leaked out. The officer in command at Fort Miami detected the bloody wampum belt in possession of the inhabitants of a village, who were about to forward it to tribes in the Wabash. On the 5th of May, the wife of a settler in Detroit, who had visited an Ottawa village to purchase maple sugar, saw the Indians filing off the ends of their gun-barrels. This she reported to Major Gladwin, in command of the fort, who at once guessed that some treachery was afoot. The purpose of the savages was evidently to conceal their guns under their blankets. He soon learned the truth of the conspiracy from an Ojibway girl, who loved him and put him on his guard. Detroit was the largest and most important settlement in the disputed territory. Reared on a wide and majestic river, its surrounding forests natural preserves of game, its waters stocked with fish and haunted by great flocks of water-fowl, its climate mild, its soil fertile, it attracted the whites and Indians alike, and Pontiac himself led the expedition against this leading stronghold of his foes. Gladwin had under him in the fort a garrison of 120 men and eight officers. The space outside, enclosed by a stockade, contained about eighty horses, principally occupied by traders. The fort possessed three small guns, and as many mortars, all of them hardly fit for use. In the stream outside floated two slightly armed vessels. The neighboring farm lands were occupied by French settlers, of whom there were about sixty families in the vicinity. Such was the situation on the arrival of the fateful day. At about ten o'clock of the morning of May 7, Pontiac entered the fort at Detroit at the head of sixty selected warriors, all plumed and painted and wearing gaudy blankets, beneath which lay hidden their weapons of war. Several hundred other warriors lurked in the forest outside. But to the surprise and chagrin of the conspirators, he found the garrison all drawn up under arms, the officers at their head with sword and pistol. He asked Gladwin what this meant, and was answered in a careless tone that the men were out for exercise. Pontiac held in his hand a belt that was white on one side, and green on the other. The turning of this belt in his hand was to be the signal for his warriors to draw their weapons and begin the massacre. But the chief was in a quandary. The English seemed prepared. Had the secret plot been discovered? He dared not act. Once during their long talk he seemed about to give the signal. The watchful Gladwin at once made a slight gesture, which was quickly followed by a rattle of arms and the roll of a drum. The discomfitted conspirator at length led his men away without a signal made, or a blow struck. The plot had failed. On the next day Pontiac came again to the fort, followed by a large crowd of warriors. But the gates were closed, and he was told that only he could enter. Instantly the detected conspirator threw off the disguise of friendship, declared war to the knife against the whites, and his warriors hastened to seal the declaration by murdering two or three English traders who had incautiously remained outside. This action was followed by a furious assault, the savages concealing themselves behind houses and trees and in the inequalities of the ground, whence they poured a storm of bullets upon the fort. But we must turn aside from the story of this siege to relate what took place at the other English forts. None of those had been warned of the conspiracy, and all were taken by surprise. Fort Sandusky, under the command of an ensign named Paulli, was taken May 16, and many slain, Paulli eventually escaping. The fort at the mouth of the St. Joseph was taken, nearly all except the commander being slaughtered. Fort Miami was also taken by treachery, and its nine captured. The fort at Venango, which Washington visited in 1853, was seized, and not a man of the garrison left to tell the tale. Fort Le Bœuf was set on fire and burned, but the garrison fortunately escaped. The neighboring fort at Presque Isle, on Lake Erie, after a few days' resistance, capitulated. The garrison at Mackinaw allowed a number of savages to enter to play a ball game within the stockade, the garrison was surprised, one officer and fifteen men were killed, and the rest taken prisoners. Tho these assaults had not been simultaneous, as arranged, they had been in nearly every case successful. Meanwhile the siege of Detroit continued. Food was scarce, but the commander succeeded in obtaining some supplies by way of the river. Pontiac forced the French farmers to supply him with food, and in civilized method give them in payment promissory notes drawn on birch bark, and signed with the figure of an otter. To his honor it is stated that all these notes were redeemed. He adopted another civilized device, sending fire-rafts to destroy the schooners in the stream, which had given him much trouble. In this effort he failed, tho it was several times repeated. The siege of the fort continued for three months, the assailants increasing till they numbered more than a thousand. Attempts were made to relieve it, with varying success. The first party of relief was attacked near the mouth of the river, and nearly all killed or captured. During June a schooner with sixty men reached the fort, and in July a reinforcement of 260 men was received. Dalyeil, the commander of this force, made a sally from the fort in opposition to Major Gladwin's advice, and suffered severely for his imprudence. He fell into an Indian ambuscade, and was killed, while his men only reached the fort after a heavy loss. Gladwin, however, continued his vigorous defense, and in the end forced the foe to give up the siege in despair, the garrison having been strongly reinforced. While this siege went on, Fort Pitt, formerly Fort Duquesne, at the site of the present Pittsburg, was besieged with equal vigor. This stronghold had a garrison of 330 men, and held over 200 women and children, who had taken asylum there from the fury of the savages. Several bodies of Delawares and Shawnees appeared before it and advised the garrison to withdraw, saying that they might do so in safety. As Captain Ecuyer, the commander, persistently refused, the fort was at length fiercely assailed by a large number of savages, who poured showers of musket balls and blazing arrows from holes they had dug in the ground. The siege continued throughout July, while the settlers in the neighboring districts were ruthlessly slaughtered, and more than a hundred traders were killed. While this went on, Colonel Henry Bouquet, a Swiss officer in the English service, in command at Philadelphia, set out with a force of 500 men, and a long train of oxen, sheep, and pack-horses to the relief of the fort. He passed over the ground formerly traversed by Braddock, but, unlike Braddock, he knew how to deal with Indian foes. As he advanced the savages assailed his force with fury, gathering in such numbers as to completely surround it, and firing from behind every post of vantage. After a severe fight, lasting two days, the savages were completely routed, and four days afterwards Bouquet reached the fort, and the siege came to an end. During these raids 2,000 whites were killed, and the frontier settlements destroyed. Hostilities virtually ceased by the end of November through the good offices of DeNoyen, a French officer, but Pontiac kept his hostile attitude till 1766, when he submitted. Strong bodies of troops were sent into the Indian country, at sight of whom the tribes made peace, and delivered up their captives. In 1769 Pontiac was killed by a Kaskaskian Indian, who had been bribed by a trader with a cask of whisky. Thus perished one of the ablest of Indian warriors, and ended the most notable hostile confederacy of the Indian tribes.