Chicago and the Old Northwest, 1673-1835 / A study of the evolution of the northwestern frontier, together with a history of Fort Dearborn

by Milo Milton Quaife

The storm had not broken entirely without warning, and the effort to relieve the posts that still held out and to subdue the obstreperous savages was promptly begun. In August Colonel Bouquet threw a relieving force into Fort Pitt, having beaten off the savages at Bushy Run in a bloody battle of two days' duration. The following season two armies were sent into the Indian country between the Great Lakes and the Ohio. A force under Bradstreet passed by way of Niagara and the southern shore of Lake Erie to Detroit, from which place detachments were sent out to take possession of Sault Ste. Marie, Mackinac, and Green Bay. In the fall of 1764 Bouquet with the second army crossed the Ohio River and advanced into the valley of the Muskingum where, in November, the tribes of the surrounding region were forced to subscribe to the terms of peace which the invader imposed upon them.

Not until another year had passed did the English gain possession of the country bordering on the Illinois and the Wabash.[169] A force of four hundred men with which Major Loftus attempted to ascend the Mississippi to Fort Chartres in the spring of 1764 was defeated and driven back, when only two hundred and forty miles above New Orleans. A year later Lieutenant Fraser was sent down the Ohio from Fort Pitt to warn the tribes and the French of the prospective approach of a force of troops which was to follow after him. He succeeded in reaching the Illinois villages, but was glad to flee in disguise down the Mississippi. He owed his life to the protection of Pontiac, but before granting it that terrible chieftain had "kept him all one night in dread of being boiled alive."[170] A second herald now set out, in the person of the redoubtable George Croghan, to descend the Ohio from Fort Pitt to Fort Chartres. Near the mouth of the Wabash, however, he was seized by a band of Indians and carried prisoner to Vincennes. He was subsequently released at Ouiatanon, and made a treaty with the neighboring tribes; proceeding to Detroit he repeated his success with the savages there, and then returned to Niagara. On the receipt of Croghan's report of his success in treating with the Indians, a force of one hundred and twenty Highlanders of the famous Black Watch Regiment proceeded down the Ohio from Fort Pitt, and on October 10, 1765, at Fort Chartres of the Illinois, in the heart of the Mississippi Valley, the last banner of France east of the Mississippi was hauled down. "The lilies of France gave place to the red cross of St. George, and the long struggle was ended."[171] The control of the British over this region which was thus at last established was to continue unchallenged by a civilized power less than a decade and a half.

[169] For the facts given here I have relied on Winsor, Mississippi Basin. Edward G. Mason has written charmingly of these events in his Chapters from Illinois History.

[170] Mason, op. cit., 234.

[171] Ibid., 235.

The old Northwest, to which Chicago belonged, did not participate actively in the Revolutionary struggle during its earlier stages. At the beginning of the war the British were, of course, in possession of all the Northwest. The vantage points from which they directed the affairs of this region were, in general, the old French posts, now occupied by British garrisons. Among these may be named Detroit, Mackinac, Fort Gage, and Cahokia. The first named of these was easily the most important center of British influence in the Northwest, being looked upon as the headquarters of the posts and the key to the fur trade and to the control of the Indian tribes of this region.[172] The fort was defended by a palisade of pickets and contained at the beginning of the year 1776 a garrison of one hundred and twenty men. In the town and country adjoining were three hundred and fifty men, mostly French, capable of bearing arms; and to complete the tale of Detroit's military resources, there floated in the river opposite the fort several tiny public vessels with crews aggregating thirty "seamen and servants."

[172] James, "Indian Diplomacy and Opening of the Revolution in the West," in Wisconsin State Historical Society, Proceedings, 1909, 125.

The only other considerable centers of white population in the Northwest were the old French posts on the Wabash, Ouiatanon and Vincennes, and, most populous of all, the settlements along the eastern shore of the Mississippi from the mouth of the Missouri to the mouth of the Ohio, on what later came to be known as the "American Bottom." At Ouiatanon, at the beginning of the Revolution there were about a dozen French families.[173] Vincennes had, in 1776, according to the report of Lieutenant Fraser, about sixty farmers.[174] This would imply a total population of between two and three hundred, and this estimate is borne out by a "census" of Indiana of 1769. This lists the names of sixty-six "Inhabitants" and states that in addition there are fifty women and one hundred and fifty children "belonging to the Inhabitants."[175] There were, at this time, fifty men capable of bearing arms, and during the next half-dozen years the population increased somewhat.

[173] Indiana Historical Society, Publications, II, 338.

[174] Ibid., 410.