History of the United States in Words of One Syllable

by Helen Wall Pierson

There was one brave chief, Pon-ti-ac, who heard all this with a glad heart. "I will live and die a French man," he said, and he sent men to each town to bear a belt with red or black beads on it, and a knife with a red stain on it; these meant war. The knife was of the kind with which they were wont to scalp the foe, and the red stain told that deeds of blood were at hand. When this belt and knife were kept, Pon-ti-ac knew that the chiefs there would join the war. Their first move was on a fort at De-troit.

IRON TOM-A-HAWK.

STONE TOM-A-HAWK.

This was Pon-ti-ac's plan. He would go some day to the fort with some men and ask leave to come in and show them a war dance. While some were in the dance, a few would stroll through the fort and see all that could be seen. Then they would go once more as if for a call, with arms hid in their clothes, and strike down the white men when they did not look for it. The first part of this plan went on all right; but one of the squaws, who was a friend to the head man of the fort, told him what the red men meant to do. So when Pon-ti-ac and his men went in the fort, each with his gun hid in his clothes, they found ranks of men with arms to meet them, and they were glad to get out with their lives.

But Pon-ti-ac would not give up, for he made more friends, and laid siege to De-troit in 1763. It was a long siege for the red man, but it held out, though food was scarce, and the men in it felt that they must soon starve. Pon-ti-ac at last had to make peace, and met his own death at the hands of a red man, who was mad with drink; and so the French and In-di-an war came to an end.

CHAPTER IV.
THE WAR THAT MADE US FREE.

For a time all were at peace; but at last a war broke out that took more time, and cost more men, than all the wars of the past. You have heard of it, it may be, by the name of the Rev-o-lu-tion.

There are some old men who fought in that war, who are alive this day. You see the cause of this war came out of what our men thought to be their wrongs. They thought the rule of Eng-land too hard, and that they should have their own men to rule them. They would have gone on as they were, if they had thought that Eng-land was just to them; but she put a tax on the things they had to use. She had a large debt to pay, and so she thought it fair our men should help to pay it; and our men held that they ought to have a voice as to what the tax should be, and fix what they knew to be right.