Pontiac's War

“ Ange, so long tormented with embassy after embassy, and mob after mob, thought that the crowning evil was come at last, when he saw the arch-demon Pontiac enter at the gate, with four hundred warriors at his back. Arrived at the council-house, Pontiac addressed the commandant in a tone of great courtesy: “Father, we have long wished to see you, to shake hands with you, and, whilst smoking the calumet of peace, to recall the battles in which we fought together against the misguided Indians and the English dogs. I love the French, and I have come hither with my warriors to avenge their wrongs.” ”

“ To-morrow, she said, Pontiac will come to the fort with sixty of his chiefs. Each will be armed with a gun, cut short, and hidden under his blanket. Pontiac will demand to hold a council; and after he has delivered his speech, he will offer a peace-belt of wampum, holding it in a reversed position. This will be the signal of attack. The chiefs will spring up and fire upon the officers, and the Indians in the street will fall upon the garrison. Every Englishman will be killed, but not the scalp of a single Frenchman will be touched. ”

“ The glance of the savages, and that of Ponteac in particular, was less wary than at their entrance. Each seemed to embrace every object on which the eye could rest, as if to fix its position indelibly in his memory. The young chief, who had been so suddenly and opportunely checked while in the very act of pealing forth his terrible war whoop, again looked up at the windows of the block house, in quest of those whom his savage instinct had already devoted in intention to his tomahawk, but they were no longer there. ”

“ Pontiac had his own way of dealing with such spirits. “If you hesitate,” he exclaimed, frowning on the cowering assembly, “I will consume your tribes as the fire consumes the dry grass on the prairie.” The doubts of the Illinois vanished like the mist, and with marvellous alacrity they declared their concurrence in the views of the orator. Having secured these allies, such as they were, Pontiac departed, and hastened to Fort Chartres. ”

“ Pontiac's war-belts had been sent broadcast, and the nations who recognized him as over-chief 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 pretence of winning back the country for the French. ”

“ The white men concealed the joy which they felt at their escape from death. They had expected nothing less. Pontiac directed some of his warriors to accompany the traders and then retired to his wigwam. The traders, once safely out of his country were very careful not to revisit it while he lived. A war broke out soon after this event, in which Pontiac displayed the skill and courage of a great commander. He was victorious on many occasions, but was at last forced to conclude a peace, by the superior numbers and discipline of the whites. ”

“ Should they escape, it should be meted out to their guards. Then, too, let the warriors who had admitted those white men to their ranks look to themselves; for if any were found who had played traitor, their fate should be such that for generations the mere telling of it would chill the blood of all hearers. Thus spake Pontiac, and the forest warriors trembled before the wrath of their mighty chief.
On the following day he sat moodily in his lodge on a small island at the head of the river, whither he was accustomed to retreat for quiet and meditation. ”

“ Meantime, the warriors had come dropping in from their bloody work, until, at nightfall, nearly all had returned. Then Pontiac, hideous in his war-paint, leaped into the central area of the village. Brandishing his tomahawk, and stamping on the ground, he recounted his former exploits, and denounced vengeance on the English. The Indians flocked about him. Warrior after warrior caught the fierce contagion, and soon the ring was filled with dancers, circling round and round with frantic gesture, and startling the distant garrison with unearthly yells. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Pale-face cannot deceive Pontiac. You see before you that great warrior. Pontiac likes the English pale-face not at all; for has he not found the pale-face tongue ever fair and false? Where are the lands of our fathers? Did they not reach from the ocean beyond the big river of the Mississippi? Pontiac’s tribe very great. His chiefs have ever been renowned in council and in war. Were not our braves as numerous as the leaves of the forest? Were not peace and plenty ours until the white man came among us? ”

“ All over the land should council fires be lighted. All over the land should the hatchet be raised. By wile and treachery the forts should fall. By fire and bloodshed the settlements should be laid waste and the Englishmen driven into the sea. Thus spoke Pontiac, and thus spoke his messengers, who with war belts of black and red wampum and hatchets smeared with blood sought out the villages of the Algonquins. ”

“ When your French father comes from Montreal with his great army, he will hear of what you have done, and, instead of shaking hands with you as brethren, he will punish you as enemies.”
Pontiac sat with his eyes riveted upon the ground, listening to every word that was spoken. When the speaker had concluded, he returned the following answer:—
“Brothers:
“We have never wished to do you harm, nor allow any to be done you; but among us there are many young men who, though strictly watched, find opportunities of mischief. It is not to revenge myself alone that I make war on the English. ”

“ The little bridge became clogged beyond its capacity with panic-stricken humanity, those in front striving to fly, those in the rear endeavoring to advance, until dozens of dead, wounded, and even of those untouched by bullet were forced over the unrailed sides into the gloomy depths below. If at this moment an attack had been made from the rear, not a man of Dalzell's force would ever have regained Fort Detroit. This was what Pontiac had planned, and, for want of allies whom he could more fully trust, he had consigned this important duty to Mahng and his Ojibwas. ”

“ Up to this time, Pontiac had been, in word and deed, the128 fast ally of the French; but it is easy to discern the motives that impelled him to renounce his old adherence. The American forest never produced a man more shrewd, politic, and ambitious. Ignorant as he was of what was passing in the world, he could clearly see that the French power was on the wane, and he knew his own interest too well to prop a falling cause. By making friends of the English, he hoped to gain powerful allies, who would aid his ambitious projects, and give him an increased influence over the tribes ”

“ So he called the chief men of his tribe together, and they all agreed that this would be an easy thing to do if the other tribes would join. And then Pontiac sent messengers to every tribe between the Alleghany Mountains and the Mississippi; the messengers carried a belt of red beads and a tomahawk stained red, which meant that Pontiac was inviting them to begin war. In every village the messengers entered, the chief took the belt and tomahawk and held them up before his people, as a sign that he was willing to fight, and would help Pontiac drive away the English. ”

“ If you are French, take up that war-belt, and lift the hatchet with us; but if you are English, then we declare war upon you. My brothers, I know this is a hard thing. We are all alike children of our Great Father the King of France, and it is hard to fight among brethren for the sake of dogs. But there is no choice. Look upon the belt, and let us hear your answer.” [234]
One of the Canadians, having suspected the purpose of Pontiac, had brought with him, not the treaty of peace, but a copy of the capitulation of Montreal with its dependencies, including Detroit. ”

“ They had betrayed the common cause, and opposed the will of the Great Spirit, who had decreed that every Englishman must die. Excepting them, all the Indians had raised the hatchet. Pontiac had taken Detroit, and every other fort had also been destroyed. The English were meeting with destruction throughout the whole world, and the King of France was awakened from his sleep. He exhorted them, in conclusion, no longer to espouse the cause of the English, but, like their brethren, to lift the hatchet against them. ”

“ To tribe after tribe and to village after village came messengers bearing broad belts of wampum and the crimson hatchet of war. They came in the name of Pontiac, war chief of the fierce Ottawas, head medicine man of the powerful Metai, friend of Montcalm, stanch ally of the French during the recent war, and leader of his people at the battle of the Monongahela, where stubborn Braddock was slain with his redcoats, and even the dreaded "long-knives" from Virginia were forced to fly. ”

“ Forged letters were sent to Pontiac, signed by the King of France, exhorting him to stand his ground but a few weeks longer, and all would then be well. To give the better coloring to their falsehoods, some of these incendiaries assumed the uniform of French officers, and palmed themselves off upon their credulous auditors as ambassadors from the king. Many of the principal traders distributed among the warriors supplies of arms and ammunition, in some instances given gratuitously, and in others sold on credit, with the understanding that payment should be made from the plunder of the English. ”

“ One lay on the ground before the entrance to the lodge, covered with blood and apparently lifeless, while the other, clad in a tattered blanket and tightly bound, stood dejectedly beside him.
"Why bring ye dead men to this place?" demanded Pontiac, spurning the prostrate form with his foot. "Take the scalp, and throw the body to the fishes."
"He is not dead. He still breathes," answered one of the warriors who had brought the prisoners. ”

“ All this Pontiac saw. He felt commissioned to lead a return to nature. The arts of the white man must be discarded and the Indians must come back to their primitive mode of living in dependence upon their own skill and ingenuity.
And so Pontiac waged a religious war. At a great convention of the savages he told them that a Delaware Indian had, while lost in the forests, been guided into a path which led to the home of the Great Spirit, and, on coming there, had been upbraided by the Master of Life himself for the degenerate state to which his race was falling. ”

“ Not a very heroic curtain fall to a dramatic life. But pause a bit: the Pontiac War was the last united stand of a doomed race against the advance of the conquering alien; and the Indian is defeated, and he knows it, and he acknowledges it, and he {292} drowns his despair in a vice, and so he passes down the Long Trail of time with his face to the west, doomed, hopeless, pushed westward and ever west.
Pontiac goes down the Mississippi to his friends, the French fur traders of St. ”

“ The French were his friends. Enemies might deceive each other, but friends must trust each other.
His confidence in the French was encouraged by the fact that several of the forts in the Illinois country were still occupied by French garrisons.
Pontiac resolved to make another effort to rouse his people. He set his squaws to work on a wampum war belt, broad and long, containing symbols of the forty-seven tribes which belonged to his confederacy. When the belt was done he sent a delegation of chiefs to the south with it. ”

“ The safe arrival at the fort of Dalzell's expedition was the most deadly blow yet struck at his cherished project. To crown all, he was not on the best of terms with his sole remaining allies, the fierce and warlike Ojibwas. These had no more desire than the Wyandots to fight on a losing side; and, moreover, they had a private grievance of long standing against Pontiac. It arose from the capture of one of their chiefs by the English, and the refusal of Pontiac to offer Major Hester in exchange for him. ”

“ His influence was great among all the nations of the Illinois country; while, from the139 sources of the Ohio to those of the Mississippi, and, indeed, to the farthest boundaries of the wide-spread Algonquin race, his name was known and respected.
The fact that Pontiac was born the son of a chief would in no degree account for the extent of his power; for, among Indians, many a chief’s son sinks back into insignificance, while the offspring of a common warrior may succeed to his place. Among all the wild tribes of the continent, personal merit is indispensable to gaining or preserving dignity. ”