[163] Wisconsin Historical Collections, XVII, 404-5.
[164] Ibid., 338-39.
That the French did not dare to execute this program is sufficiently evident. Their power in the Northwest was tottering, and in 1743 Beauharnois confessed that he was powerless to hinder the union of the Sioux with the Foxes.[165] The tribe whose destruction had so often been decreed and so many times attempted could at last defy the French with impunity. A few years later the disaffection among the Indians for the French culminated in a widespread revolt.[166] Even the Illinois, with whom allegiance to the French had become proverbial, for a time inclined to join it. The danger was surmounted for the time being but the struggle of the French to maintain themselves was shortly transferred to a far wider field. In the upper Ohio Valley they joined in deadly combat with the English. The immediate stake was the control of the Indian trade of the Mississippi Valley, and so, appropriately enough, the contest was inaugurated by a descent on Pickawillany, the center of influence of the English traders in the Northwest, by a band of French Indians led by the young Wisconsin half-breed fur trader, Charles de Langlade.[167] The larger stake was the commercial and political supremacy of three continents and all the seas. The struggle was accordingly waged on a world-wide scale. When it ended the dominion of France in North America had passed forever. We shall have occasion still to deal with the French, whose influence long persisted in the Northwest, but henceforth the shaping of the destiny of Chicago and the tributary region rested with the Anglo-Saxon.
[165] Ibid., 435-38.
[166] Wisconsin Historical Collections, XVII, 456-69, 478-93.
[167] Turner, Indian Trade in Wisconsin, 40-41.
CHAPTER IV
CHICAGO IN THE REVOLUTION
The years from 1754 to 1760 witnessed the overthrow of the power of France in the new world. For the fourth time in two generations England and France had joined in deadly combat. Twice the issue ended in a drawn contest; twice France was overwhelmed, and the English gained a decisive victory. Each of these great wars had its American counterpart, and the outcome of each was reflected in the disposition made in the treaty of peace of the territories of the warring nations in America. At the close of the two drawn contests there were no territorial changes. By the Treaty of Utrecht, which closed the Spanish Succession War, however, England made substantial territorial gains in North America at the expense of her defeated rival. Finally, by the Treaty of Paris of 1763, which registered the results of the Seven Years' War, France lost all of her vast American possessions on the mainland. Canada passed into the hands of the English, while the imperial domain of Louisiana, in the establishment of which La Salle and Tonty and many another intrepid Frenchman had toiled and died, was divided; all that lay west of the Mississippi was given to Spain, while the portion drained by the eastern tributaries of that stream fell to the English.
What the dividing line between Canada and Louisiana had been in the French period is not easy to determine. Nor is it necessary to our purpose to do so, for whether it had belonged to Canada or Louisiana, the region tributary to Chicago, since known as the old Northwest, was now the property of England. Her civilized rival crushed, however, another foe arose to resist the assumption by England of possession of her new-won territory. The idea of passing under the control of the English was extremely distasteful to a large proportion of the northwestern Indians. Under the leadership of Pontiac a conspiracy was formed in the spring of 1763 to wipe out in a day all the English posts from Pennsylvania to Lake Superior.[168] The execution of this terrible project stopped short of complete success. Fort Pitt and Detroit withstood the attacks of the savages. But Green Bay and Sault Ste. Marie were abandoned; the forts at Mackinac, Sandusky, Miami, St. Joseph, Ouiatanon, Presque Isle, and Venango were taken; and over two thousand frontier settlers were slain.
[168] The classic account of these events is Parkman's Conspiracy of Pontiac. For a brief narrative see Winsor, Mississippi Basin, chaps, xxii, xxiii.