Heroes of the Middle West: The French

by Mary Hartwell Catherwood

The second day of winter, late in the afternoon, Pontiac went into the fort unattended by any warrior, and without a word sat down near St. Ange de Bellerive in the officers' quarters. Both veteran soldier and old chief knew that Major Farmar, with a large body of troops, was almost in sight of Fort Chartres, coming from New Orleans. Perhaps before the low winter sun was out of sight, cannon mounted on one of the bastions would have to salute the new commandant. Sentinels on the mound of Fort Chartres could see a frosty valley, reaching to the Mississippi, glinting in the distance. That alluvial stretch was, in the course of years, to be eaten away by the river even to the bastions. The fort itself, built at such expense, would soon be abandoned by its conquerors, to sink, piecemeal, a noble and massive ruin. The dome-shaped powder house and stone quarters would be put to ignoble uses, and forest trees, spreading the spice of walnut fragrance, or the dense shadow of oaks, would grow through the very room where St. Ange and Pontiac sat. Indians, passing by, would camp in the old place, forgetting how the last hope of their race had clung to it.

The Frenchman partly foresaw these changes, and it was a bitter hour to him. He wanted to have it over and to cross the Mississippi, to a town recently founded northward on the west shore, where many French settlers had collected, called St. Louis. This was then considered Spanish ground. But if the French king deserted his American colonies, why should not his American colonists desert him?

"Father," spoke out Pontiac, with the usual Indian term of respect, "I have always loved the French. We have often smoked the calumet together, and we have fought battles together against misguided Indians and the English dogs."

St. Ange de Bellerive looked at the dejected chief and thought of Le Moyne de Bienville, now an old man living in France, who was said to have wept and implored King Louis on his knees not to give up to the English that rich western domain which Marquette and Jolliet and La Salle and Tonty and many another Frenchman had suffered to gain, and to secure which he himself had given his best years.

"The chief must now bury the hatchet," he answered quietly.

"I have buried it," said Pontiac. "I shall lift it no more."

"The English are willing to make peace with him, if he recalls all his wampum belts of war."

Pontiac grinned. "The belts are more than one man can carry."

"Where does the chief intend to go when he leaves this post?"

Pontiac lifted his hand and pointed east, west, north, south. He would have no settled abode. It was a sign that he relinquished the inheritance of his fathers to an invader he hated. His race could not live under the civilization of the Anglo-Saxon. He would have struck out to the remotest wilderness, had he foreseen to what a burial place his continual clinging to the French would bring him. For Pontiac was assassinated by an Illinois Indian, whom an English trader had bribed, and his body lies somewhere to-day under the pavements of St. Louis, English-speaking men treading constantly over him. But if the dead chief's ears could hear, he would catch also the sound of the beloved French tongue lingering there.