GENERAL MURRAY, FIRST GOVERNOR OF QUEBEC
And Guy Carleton, though he is an Englishman and owes his appointment to the complaints of the English minority against Murray, remains absolutely impartial. Good reason for the wisdom of his policy. There are rumblings from the New England colonies that forewarn the coming earthquake. For years friction has been growing between the mother country and the colonies. The story of the Revolution does not belong to the story of Canada. For years far-sighted statesmen had predicted that the minute New England ceased to fear New France, ceased to need England's protection, that minute the growing friction would flame in open war. Carleton foresaw that to pander to the English minority would sacrifice the loyalty of the French. Thus he reported to the home government, and the Quebec Act of 1774 came to the relief of the French. By it Canada's boundaries were extended across the region of the Ohio to the Mississippi. French laws were restored in all civil actions. English law was to rule in criminal cases, which meant trial by jury. The French are relieved from oaths of office and enabled to serve on the jury. Also, the Catholic clergy is entitled to collect its usual tithe of one twenty-sixth from the Catholics. An elective assembly is refused for reasons that are plain, but a legislative council is granted, to be appointed by the crown. For the expense of government a slight tax is levied on liquor; but as the St. Pierre smuggling is now flourishing, the tax docs not begin to meet the cost of government, and the difference is paid from the imperial treasury. However badly the imperial government blundered with the New England colonies, her treatment of Quebec was an object lesson in colonizing to the world. Had she treated her New England colonies half as justly as she treated Quebec, British America might to-day extend to Mexico. Had she treated Quebec half as unjustly as she treated her own offspring of New England, the United States might to-day extend to the Arctic Circle. The man who saved Canada to England, in the first place by wisdom, in the second place by war, was Sir Guy Carleton.
While the English and French, Protestant and Catholic, wrangle for power in Quebec there rages on the frontier one of the most devastating Indian wars known to American history. Not for nothing had Pontiac drawn himself to his full height and defied Major Rogers down on Lake Erie. From tribe to tribe the lithe coureurs ran, naked but for the breechcloth, painted as for war, carrying in one hand the tomahawk dipped in blood, in the other the wampum belt of purple, typifying war. The French had deeded away the Indian lands to the English! The news ran like wildfire, ran by moccasin telegram from Montreal up Ottawa River to Michilimackinac, from Niagara westward to Detroit, and southward to Presqu' Isle and all that chain of forts leading southwestward to the Mississippi. Was it a "Conspiracy of Pontiac," as it has been called? Hardly. It was more one of those general movements of unrest, of discontent, of misunderstanding, that but awaits the appearance of a brave leader to become a torrent of destruction. Pontiac, the Ottawa chief, was such a leader, and to his standard rallied Indians from Virginia, from the Mississippi, from Lake Superior. Of the universal unrest among the Indians the English were not ignorant, but they failed to realize its significance; failed, too, to realize that the French fur traders, cast out of the western forts and now roaming the wilds, fanned the flame, gave presents of gunpowder and firearms to the savages, and egged the hostiles on against the new possessors of Canada, in order to divert the fur trade to French traders still in Louisiana. Down at Miami, southwest of Lake Erie, Ensign Holmes hears in March of 1763 that the war belt has been carried to the Illinois. Up at Detroit, in May, Pontiac is camped on the east side of the river with eight hundred hunters. Daily the French farmers, who supply the fort with provisions, carry word to Major Gladwin that the Indians are acting strangely, holding long and secret powwow, borrowing files to saw off the barrels of their muskets short. A French woman, who has visited the Indians across the river for a supply of maple sugar, comes to Gladwin on May 5 with the same story. From eight hundred, the Indians increase to two thousand. Old Catherine, a toothless squaw, comes shaking as with the palsy to the fort, and with mumbling words warns Gladwin to "Beware, beware!" So does a young girl whose fine eyes have caught the fancy of Gladwin himself. Breaking out with bitter weeping, she covers her head with her shawl and bids her white lover have a care how he meets Pontiac in council. Gladwin himself was a seasoned campaigner, who had escaped the hurricane of death with Braddock and had also served under Amherst at Montreal. In his fort are one hundred and twenty soldiers and forty traders. At the wharf lie the two armed schooners, Beaver and Gladwin. When Pontiac comes with his sixty warriors Gladwin is ready for him. In the council house the warriors seat themselves, weapons concealed under blankets; but when Pontiac raises the wampum belt that was to be the signal for the massacre to begin, Major Gladwin, never moving his light blue eyes from the snaky gleam of the Indian, waves his hand, and at the motion there is a roll of drums, a grounding of the sentry's arms, a trampling of soldiers outside, a rush as of white men marching. Pontiac is dumfounded and departs without giving the signal. Back in his cabin of rushes across the river he rages like a maniac and buries a tomahawk in the skull of the old squaw Catherine. Monday, May 9, at ten o'clock he comes again, followed by a rabble of hunters. The gates are shut in his face. He shouts for admittance. The sentry opens the wicket and in traders' vernacular bids him go about his business. There is a wild war yell. The siege of Detroit begins.
SETTLEMENTS ON THE DETROIT RIVER
The story of that siege would fill volumes. For fifteen months it lasted, the French remaining neutral, selling provisions to both sides, Gladwin defiant inside his palisades, the Indians persistent as enraged hornets. Two English officers who have been out hunting are waylaid, murdered, skinned, the skin sewed into powder pouches, the bloody carcasses sent drifting down on the flood of waters past the fort walls. Desperately in need of provisions from the French, Gladwin consents to temporary truce while Captain Campbell and others go out to parley with the Indians. Gladwin obtains cart loads of provisions during the parley, but Pontiac violates the honor of war by holding the messengers captive. Burning arrows are shot at the fort walls. Gladwin's men sally out by night, hack down the orchards that conceal the enemy, burn all outbuildings, and come back without losing a man. Nightly, too, lapping the canoe noiselessly across water with the palm of the hand, one of the French farmers comes with fresh provisions. Gladwin has sent a secret messenger, with letter in his powder pouch, through the lines of the besiegers to Niagara for aid. May 30, moving slowly, all sails out, the English flag flying from the prow, comes a convoy of sailboats up the river. Cheer on cheer rent the air. The soldiers at watch in the galleries inside the palisades tossed their caps overhead, but as the ships came nearer the whites were paralyzed with horror. Silence froze the cheer on the parted lips. Indian warriors manned the boats. The convoy of ninety-six men had been cut to pieces, only a few soldiers escaping back to Niagara, a few coming on, compelled by the Indians to act as rowers. As the boats passed the fort, whoops of derision, wild war chants, eldritch screams, rose from the Indians. One desperate white captive rose like a flash from his place at the rowlocks, caught his Indian captor by the scuff of the neck and threw him into the river; but the redskin grappled the other in a grip of death. Turning over and over, locked in each other's arms, the hate of the inferno in their faces, soldier and Indian swept down to watery death in the river tide. Taking advantage of the confusion, and under protection of the fort guns, one of the other captives sprang into the river and succeeded in swimming safely to the fort. Terrible was the news he brought. All the other forts south of Niagara, with the exception of Fort Pitt,—Miami, St. Joseph, Presqu' Isle,—lay in ashes. From some not a man had escaped to tell the story.
That night it was pitch-dark,—soft, velvet, warm summer darkness. From the fort the soldiers could see the sixty captives from the convoy burning outside at the torture stakes. Then as gray morning came mangled corpses floated past on the river tide. June 18 another vessel glides up the river with help, but the garrison is afraid of a second disaster, for eight hundred warriors have lain in ambush along the river. Gladwin orders a cannon fired. The boat fires back answer, but the wind falls and she is compelled to anchor for the night below the fort. Sixty soldiers armed to the teeth are on board; but the captain is determined to out-trick the Indians, and he permits only twelve of his men at a time on deck. Darkness has barely fallen on the river before the waters are alive with canoes, and naked warriors clamber to the decks like scrambling monkeys, so sure they have outnumbered their prey that they forget all caution. At the signal of a hammer knock on deck,—rap—rap—rap,—three times short and sharp, up swarm the soldiers from the hatchway. Fourteen Indians dropped on the deck in as many seconds. Others were thrown on bayonet points into the river. It is said that after the fight of a few seconds on the ship the decks looked like a butcher's shambles. Finally the schooner anchored at Detroit, to the immense relief of the beleaguered garrison. So elated were the English, one soldier dashed from a sally port and scalped a dying Indian in full view of both sides. Swift came Indian vengeance. Captain Campbell, the truce messenger, was hacked to pieces. By July 28, Dalzell has come from Niagara with nearly two hundred men, including Rogers, the famous Indian fighter. Both Dalzell and Rogers are mad for a rush from the fort to deal one crushing blow to the Indians. Here the one mistake of the siege was made. Gladwin was against all risk, for the Indians were now dropping off to the hunting field, but Dalzell and Rogers were for punishing them before they left. In the midst of a dense night fog the English sallied from the fort at two o'clock on the 31st of July for Pontiac's main camp, about two miles up the river, boats rowing upstream abreast the marchers. It was hot and sultry. The two hundred and fifty bushrangers marched in shirt sleeves, two abreast. A narrow footbridge led across a brook, since known as Bloody Run, to cliffs behind which the Indians were intrenched. Along the trail were the whitewashed cottages of the French farmers, who stared from their windows in their nightcaps, amazed beyond speech at the rashness of the English. On a smaller scale it was a repetition of Braddock's defeat on the Ohio. Indians lay in ambush behind every house, every shrub, in the long grass. They only waited till Dalzell's men had crossed the bridge and were charging the hill at a run. Then the war whoop shrilled both to fore and to rear. The Indians doubled up on their trapped foe from both sides. Rogers' Rangers dashed for hiding in a house. The drum beat retreat. Under cover of Rogers' shots from one side, shots from the boats on the other, Dalzell's men escaped at a panic run back over the trail with a loss of some sixty dead. In September came more ships with more men, again to be ambushed at the narrows, and again to reach Detroit, as the old record says, "bloody as a butcher's shop." So the siege dragged on for more than a year at Detroit. Winter witnessed a slight truce to fighting, for starvation drove the Indians to the hunting field; but May saw Pontiac again encamped under the walls of Detroit till word came from the French on the lower Mississippi in October, definitely and for all, they would not join the Indians. Then Pontiac knew his cause was lost.
Up at Michilimackinac similar scenes were enacted. Major Etherington and Captain Leslie had some thirty-five soldiers. There were also hosts of traders outside the walls, among whom was Alexander Henry of Montreal. Word had come of Pontiac at Detroit, but Etherington did not realize that the uprising was general. June 4 was the King's birthday. Shops had been closed. Flags blew above the fort. Gates were wide open. Squaws with heads under shawls sat hunched around the house steps, with that concealed beneath their shawls which the English did not guess. All the men except Henry, who was writing letters, and some Frenchmen, who understood the danger signs, had gone outside the gates to watch a fast and furious game of lacrosse. Again and again the ball came bounding towards the fort gates, only to be whisked to the other end of the field by a deft toss, followed by the swift runners. No one was louder in applause than Etherington. The officers were completely off guard. Suddenly the crowds swayed, gave way, opened; … and down the field towards the fort gates surged the players. A dexterous pitch! The ball was inside the fort. After it dashed the Indians. In a flash weapons were grasped from the shawls of the squaws. Musket and knife did the rest. When Henry heard the war whoop and looked from a window he saw Indian warriors bending to drink the blood of hearts that were yet warm. For two days Henry lived in the rubbish heap of the attic in the house of Langlade, a pioneer of Wisconsin. Of the whites at Michilimackinac only twenty escaped death, and they were carried prisoners to the Lower Country for ransom.
From Virginia to Lake Superior such was the Indian war known as Pontiac's Campaign. Fort Pitt held out like Detroit. Niagara was too strong for assault, but in September twenty-four soldiers, who had been protecting portage past the falls, were waylaid and driven over the precipice at the place called Devil's Hole. More soldiers sent to the rescue met like fate, horses and wagons being stampeded over the rocks, seventy men in all being hurled to death in the wild canyon.