[432] MS. Letter—Bouquet to Bradstreet, 5 Sept. 1764.
[434] Captain Grant, who had commanded during the spring at Fort Pitt, had sent bad accounts of the disposition of the neighboring Indians; but added, “At this Post we defy all the Savages in the Woods. I wish they would dare appear before us.... Repairing Batteaux, ploughing, gardening, making Fences, and fetching home fire Wood goes on constantly every day, from sun rise to the setting of the same.”—Grant to Bouquet, 2 April, 1764. A small boy, captured with his mother the summer before, escaped to the fort about this time, and reported that the Indians meant to plant their corn and provide for their families, after which they would come to the fort and burn it. The youthful informant also declared that none of them had more than a pound of powder left. Soon after, a man named Hicks appeared, professing to have escaped from the Indians, though he was strongly suspected of being a renegade and a spy, and was therefore cross-questioned severely. He confirmed what the boy had said as to the want of ammunition among the Indians, and added that they had sent for a supply to the French at the Illinois, but that the reception they received from the commandant had not satisfied them. General Gage sent the following not very judicial instructions with regard to Hicks: “He is a great villain. I am glad he is secured. I must desire you will have him tried by a General Court-Martial for a Spy. Let the proceedings of the Court prove him a Spy as strong as they can, and if he does turn out a spy, he must be hanged.”—Gage to Bouquet, 14 May, 1764. The court, however, could find no proof.
[435] Account of Bouquet’s Expedition, 5.
[436] This speech is taken from the official journals of Colonel Bouquet, a copy of which is preserved in the archives of Pennsylvania, at Harrisburg, engrossed, if the writer’s memory does not fail him, in one of the volumes of the Provincial Records. The published narrative, which has often been cited, is chiefly founded upon the authority of these documents; and the writer has used his materials with great skill and faithfulness, though occasionally it has been found advisable to have recourse to the original journals, to supply some omission or obscurity in the printed compilation.
[437] The sachem is the civil chief, who directs the counsels of the tribe, and governs in time of peace. His office, on certain conditions, is hereditary; while the war-chief, or military leader, acquires his authority solely by personal merit, and seldom transmits it to his offspring. Sometimes the civil and military functions are discharged by the same person, as in the instance of Pontiac himself.
The speech of Bouquet, as given above, is taken, with some omission and condensation, from the journals mentioned in the preceding note.
[438] The following is from a letter of Bouquet dated Camp near Tuscarawas, 96 miles west of Fort Pitt, 21st Oct. 1764: “They came accordingly on the 15th and met me here, to where I had moved the camp. Time does not permit me to send you all the messages which have passed since, and the conferences I have had with them, as we are going to march. I shall for the present inform you that they have behaved with the utmost submission, and have agreed to deliver into my hands all their prisoners, who appear to be very numerous, on the 1st of November; and, as I will not leave any thing undone, they have not only consented that I should march to their towns, but have given me four of their men to conduct the Army. This is the only point hitherto settled with them. Their excessive fear having nearly made them run away once more, that circumstance and the Treaty of Colonel Bradstreet, of which they produce the original, added to the total want of government among them, render the execution of my orders very intricate.”
[439] An Indian council, on solemn occasions, is always opened with preliminary forms, sufficiently wearisome and tedious, but made indispensable by immemorial custom; for this people are as much bound by their conventional usages as the most artificial children of civilization. The forms are varied to some extent, according to the imagination and taste of the speaker; but in all essential respects they are closely similar, throughout the tribes of Algonquin and Iroquois lineage. They run somewhat as follows, each sentence being pronounced with great solemnity, and confirmed by the delivery of a wampum belt: Brothers, with this belt I open your ears that you may hear—I remove grief and sorrow from your hearts—I draw from your feet the thorns which have pierced them as you journeyed thither—I clean the seats of the council-house, that you may sit at ease—I wash your head and body, that your spirits may be refreshed—I condole with you on the loss of the friends who have died since we last met—I wipe out any blood which may have been spilt between us. This ceremony, which, by the delivery of so many belts of wampum, entailed no small expense, was never used except on the most important occasions; and at the councils with Colonel Bouquet the angry warriors seem wholly to have dispensed with it.
An Indian orator is provided with a stock of metaphors, which he always makes use of for the expression of certain ideas. Thus, to make war is to raise the hatchet; to make peace is to take hold of the chain of friendship; to deliberate is to kindle the council-fire; to cover the bones of the dead is to make reparation and gain forgiveness for the act of killing them. A state of war and disaster is typified by a black cloud; a state of peace, by bright sunshine, or by an open path between the two nations.