"The Indians, who had loudly and Justly complained of a treaty [1783] in which they were sacrificed by a cession of their country contrary to repeated promises, were with difficulty appeased, however finding the Posts retained and some Assurances given they ceased to murmur and resolved to defend their country extending from the Ohio Northward to the Great Lakes and westward to the Mississippi, an immense tract, in which they found the deer, the bear, the wild wolf, game of all sorts in profusion. They employed the Tomahawk and Scalping Knife against such deluded settlers who on the faith of the treaty to which they did not consent, ventured to cross the Ohio, secretly encouraged by the Agents of Government, supplied with Arms, Ammunition, and provisions they maintained an obstinate & destructive war against the States, cut off two Corps sent against them.... The American Government, discouraged by these disasters were desirous of peace on any terms, their deputies were sent to Detroit, they offered to confine their Pretensions within certain limits far South of the Lakes. if this offer had been accepted the Indian Country would have been for ages an impassible Barrier between us. twas unfortunately perhaps wantonly rejected, and the war continued."
Acting under the privileges accorded to them by Jay's treaty, the British traders were in almost as complete possession of Wisconsin until after the war of 1812 as if Great Britain still owned it. When the war broke out the keys of the region, Detroit and Michillimackinac, fell into the British hands. Green Bay and Prairie du Chien were settlements of French-British traders and voyageurs. Their leader was Robert Dickson, who had traded at the latter settlement. Writing in 1814 from his camp at Winnebago Lake, he says: "I think that Bony [Bonaparte] must be knocked up as all Europe are now in Arms. The crisis is not far off when I trust in God that the Tyrant will be humbled, & the Scoundrel American Democrats be obliged to go down on their knees to Britain."[188] Under him most of the Wisconsin traders of importance received British commissions. In the spring of 1814 the Americans took Prairie du Chien, at the mouth of the Wisconsin river, whereupon Col. M'Douall, the British commandant at Michillimackinac, wrote to General Drummond:[189] ... "I saw at once the imperious necessity which existed of endeavoring by every means to dislodge the American Genl from his new conquest, and make him relinquish the immense tract of country he had seized upon in consequence & which brought him into the very heart of that occupied by our friendly Indians, There was no alternative it must either be done or there was an end to our connection with the Indians for if allowed to settle themselves by dint of threats bribes & sowing divisions among them, tribe after tribe would be gained over or subdued, & thus would be destroyed the only barrier which protects the great trading establishments of the North West and the Hudson's Bay Companys. Nothing could then prevent the enemy from gaining the source of the Mississippi, gradually extending themselves by the Red river to Lake Winnipic, from whense the descent of Nelsons river to York Fort would in time be easy."
The British traders, voyageurs and Indians[190] dislodged the Americans, and at the close of the war England was practically in possession of the Indian country of the Northwest.
In the negotiations at Ghent the British commissioners asserted the sovereignty of the Indians over their lands, and their independence in relation to the United States, and demanded that a barrier of Indian territory should be established between the two countries, free to the traffic of both nations but not open to purchase by either.[191] The line of the Grenville treaty was suggested as a basis for determining this Indian region. The proposition would have removed from the sovereignty of the United States the territory of the Northwest with the exception of about two-thirds of Ohio,[192] and given it over to the British fur traders. The Americans declined to grant the terms, and the United States was finally left in possession of the Northwest.
THE NORTHWEST COMPANY.
The most striking feature of the English period was the Northwest Company.[193] From a study of it one may learn the character of the English occupation of the Northwest.[194] It was formed in 1783 and fully organized in 1787, with the design of contesting the field with the Hudson Bay Company. Goods were brought from England to Montreal, the headquarters of the company, and thence from the four emporiums, Detroit, Mackinaw, Sault Ste. Marie, and Grand Portage, they were scattered through the great Northwest, even to the Pacific ocean.
Toward the end of the eighteenth century ships[195] began to take part in this commerce; a portion of the goods was sent from Montreal in boats to Kingston, thence in vessels to Niagara, thence overland to Lake Erie, to be reshipped in vessels to Mackinaw and to Sault Ste. Marie, where another transfer was made to a Lake Superior vessel. These ships were of about ninety-five tons burden and made four or five trips a season. But in the year 1800 the primitive mode of trade was not materially changed. From the traffic along the main artery of commerce between Grand Portage and Montreal may be learned the kind of trade that flowed along such branches as that between the island of Mackinaw and the Wisconsin posts. The visitor at La Chine rapids, near Montreal, might have seen a squadron of Northwestern trading canoes leaving for the Grand Portage, at the west of Lake Superior.[196]
The boatmen, or "engagés," having spent their season's gains in carousal, packed their blanket capotes and were ready for the wilderness again. They made a picturesque crew in their gaudy turbans, or hats adorned with plumes and tinsel, their brilliant handkerchiefs tied sailor-fashion about swarthy necks, their calico shirts, and their flaming worsted belts, which served to hold the knife and the tobacco pouch. Rough trousers, leggings, and cowhide shoes or gaily-worked moccasins completed the costume. The trading birch canoe measured forty feet in length, with a depth of three and a width of five. It floated four tons of freight, and yet could be carried by four men over difficult portages. Its crew of eight men was engaged at a salary[197] of from five to eight hundred livres, about $100 to $160 per annum, each, with a yearly outfit of coarse clothing and a daily food allowance of a quart of hulled corn, or peas, seasoned with two ounces of tallow.
The experienced voyageurs who spent the winters in the woods were called hivernans, or winterers, or sometimes hommes du nord; while the inexperienced, those who simply made the trip from Montreal to the outlying depots and return, were contemptuously dubbed mangeurs de lard,[198] "pork-eaters," because their pampered appetites demanded peas and pork rather than hulled corn and tallow. Two of the crew, one at the bow and the other at the stern, being especially skilled in the craft of handling the paddle in the rapids, received higher wages than the rest. Into the canoe was first placed the heavy freight, shot, axes, powder; next the dry goods, and, crowning all, filling the canoe to overflowing, came the provisions—pork, peas or corn, and sea biscuits, sewed in canvas sacks.