Thus the agitation fostered by Tecumseh kept the northwestern frontier in a turmoil for several years, and constitutes for that region the prelude to the War of 1812. At Chicago there were no actual hostilities during this time, but the Indians of this vicinity shared the unrest which existed among their fellows on the Wabash. In June, 1805, representatives from several of the northwestern tribes journeyed to Maiden to solicit the assistance of their British Father against the encroachments of the Americans. Among the speakers were two chiefs from Chicago, one of them the notorious Black Bird to whom Captain Heald seven years later surrendered the survivors of the Fort Dearborn massacre. The burden of their complaint was that the Long Knives were pressing on them so that they deemed it time to take up the hatchet. Both the Chicago chiefs professed an attachment to peace hitherto, but seeing "the White Devil with his mouth wide open" ready to take possession of their lands by any means whatever, they had determined to join with their fellows in opposition.[510]
[510] Michigan Pioneer Collections, XXIII, 39-42.
A year later, in June, 1806, a French trader informed Captain Wells at Fort Wayne that a plot had been formed by the Chippewas, Ottawas, and Pottawatomies to surprise Detroit, Mackinac, Fort Wayne, and Chicago.[511] In 1808 Jouett, the agent at Chicago, reported that the neighboring Indians were planning a visit to the Prophet.[512] He feared that the meeting would be attended with serious consequences, and advised that it be forestalled by the apprehension of the Prophet. About this same time the followers of Main Poc made threatening demonstrations at Fort Dearborn, stirred up, as Doctor Cooper was told, by some act of alleged injustice on the part of the government contractor.[513]
[511] Dawson, Harrison, 85.
[512] Ibid., 105.
[513] Wilson, Chicago from 1803 to 1812.
From threatened hostilities to the commission of acts of violence was a step easily taken. In 1810 the Indians of Illinois committed a series of depredations and murders along the Mississippi border.[514] In July four white men were killed near Portage des Sioux by a band of marauding Indians engaged in a horse-stealing expedition. Two of the murderers shortly took refuge with the Prophet.[515] Both Governor Edwards and Governor Harrison endeavored to secure the surrender of the offenders, but without success.[516] One of the culprits was Nuscotnemeg, who later bore a prominent part in the Chicago massacre.[517] Main Poc, who had made the demonstration against Fort Dearborn in 1808, seems to have been the most active marauder during the next few years. In May, 1811, La Lime, the interpreter at Fort Dearborn, reported that two of Main Poc's brothers had been engaged in stealing horses from the settlements of southern Illinois.[518] In August Gomo informed Governor Edwards' representative that Main Poc had gone to Detroit where he would remain until fall.[519] The nature of his mission is revealed by a letter of Captain Wells the following February.[520] He had been stationed near Maiden since August, visiting the British headquarters there every few days. He had with him one hundred and twenty warriors, disposed in bands of ten or fifteen each to allay the suspicion of the Americans, ready to take the warpath the moment hostilities between the British and Americans should begin. Thus alarming reports poured in upon the government from every part of the frontier.[521] British agents in Canada co-operated with those in the West to secure the allegiance of the Indians, and early in the year 1812 attacks were proposed upon the border settlements of Louisiana and Illinois.[522] It was due mainly to Robert Dickson, one of the most astute and influential British traders in the Northwest, that these plans were not fully carried out, and that the hostile bands were transferred to the territory about Detroit and the Canadian frontier.[523] The Americans urged upon the Indians a policy of neutrality in the impending war between the whites,[524] while the British, with greater success, sought to enlist them actively in their support. The opening of the year 1812 found the Indians only awaiting the co-operation of the British to devastate the frontier with blood and slaughter.
[514] Edwards, Life of Ninian Edwards, 37.
[515] Edwards Papers, 56-57; Edwards, Life of Ninian Edwards, 37.
[516] Dawson, Harrison, 182-84; Edwards, Life of Ninian Edwards, chap. iii.