The War Chief of the Ottawas : A chronicle of the Pontiac war

by Thomas Guthrie Marquis

Bradstreet halted at Presqu'isle. Here he was visited by pretended deputies from the Shawnees and Delawares, who ostensibly sought peace. He made a conditional treaty with them and agreed to meet them twenty-five days later at Sandusky, where they were to bring their British prisoners. From Presqu'isle he wrote to Bouquet at Fort Pitt, saying that it would be unnecessary to advance into the Delaware country, as the Delawares were now at peace. He also reported his success, as he considered it, to Gage, but Gage was not impressed: he disavowed the treaty and instructed Bouquet to continue his preparations. Continuing his journey, Bradstreet rested at Sandusky, where more Delawares waited on him and agreed to make peace. It was at this juncture that he sent Captain Thomas Morris on his ill-starred mission to the tribes of the Mississippi. [Footnote: Morris and his companions got no farther than the rapids of the Maumee, where they were seized, stripped of clothing, and threatened with death. Pontiac was now among the Miamis, still striving to get together a following to continue the war. The prisoners were taken to Pontiac's camp. But the Ottawa chief did not deem it wise to murder a British officer on this occasion, and Morris was released and forced to retrace his steps. He arrived at Detroit after the middle of September, only to find that Bradstreet had already departed. The story will be found in more detail in Parkman's Conspiracy of Pontiac.]

Bradstreet was at Detroit by August 26, and at last the worn-out garrison of the fort could rest after fifteen months of exacting duties. Calling the Indians to a council, Bradstreet entered into treaties with a number of chiefs, and pardoned several French settlers who had taken an active part with the Indians in the siege of Detroit. He then sent troops to occupy Michilimackinac; Green Bay, and Sault Ste Marie; and sailed for Sandusky to meet the Delawares and Shawnees, who had promised to bring in their prisoners. But none awaited him: the Indians had deliberately deceived him and were playing for time while they continued their attacks on the border settlers. Here he received a letter from Gage ordering him to disregard the treaty he had made with the Delawares and to join Bouquet at Fort Pitt, an order which Bradstreet did not obey, making the excuse that the low state of the water in the rivers made impossible an advance to Fort Pitt. On October 18 he left Sandusky for Niagara, having accomplished nothing except occupation of the forts. Having already blundered hopelessly in dealing with the Indians, he was to blunder still further. On his way down Lake Erie he encamped one night, when storm threatened, on an exposed shore, and a gale from the north-east broke upon his camp and destroyed half his boats. Two hundred and eighty of his soldiers had to march overland to Niagara. Many of them perished; others, starved, exhausted, frost-bitten, came staggering in by twos and threes till near the end of December. The expedition was a fiasco. It blasted Bradstreet's reputation, and made the British name for a time contemptible among the Indians.

The other expedition from Fort Pitt has a different history. All through the summer Bouquet had been recruiting troops for the invasion of the Delaware country. The soldiers were slow in arriving, and it was not until the end of September that all was ready. Early in October Bouquet marched out of Fort Pitt with one thousand provincials and five hundred regulars. Crossing the Alleghany, he made his way in a north-westerly direction until Beaver Creek was reached, and then turned westward into the unbroken forest. The Indians of the Muskingum valley felt secure in their wilderness fastness. No white soldiers had ever penetrated to their country. To reach their villages dense woods had to be penetrated, treacherous marshes crossed, and numerous streams bridged or forded. But by the middle of October Bouquet had led his army, without the loss of a man, into the heart of the Muskingum valley, and pitched his camp near an Indian village named Tuscarawa, from which the inhabitants had fled at his approach. The Delawares and Shawnees were terrified: the victor of Edge Hill was among them with an army strong enough to crush to atoms any war-party they could muster. They sent deputies to Bouquet. These at first assumed a haughty mien; but Bouquet sternly rebuked them and ordered them to meet him at the forks of the Muskingum, forty miles distant to the south-west, and to bring in all their prisoners. By the beginning of November the troops were at the appointed place, where they encamped. Bouquet then sent messengers to all the tribes telling them to bring thither all the captives without delay. Every white man, woman, and child in their hands, French or British, must be delivered up. After some hesitation the Indians made haste to obey. About two hundred captives were brought, and chiefs were left as hostages for the safe delivery of others still in the hands of distant tribes. So far Bouquet had been stern and unbending; he had reminded the Indians of their murder of settlers and of their black treachery regarding the garrisons, and hinted that except for the kindness of their British father they would be utterly destroyed. He now unbent and offered them a generous treaty, which was to be drawn up and arranged later by Sir William Johnson. Bouquet then retraced his steps to Fort Pitt, and arrived there on November 28 with his long train of released captives. He had won a victory over the Indians greater than his triumph at Edge Hill, and all the greater in that it was achieved without striking a blow.

There was still, however, important work to be done before any guarantee of permanent peace in the hinterland was possible. On the eastern bank of the Mississippi, within the country ceded to England by the Treaty of Paris, was an important settlement over which the French flag still flew, and to which no British troops or traders had penetrated. It was a hotbed of conspiracy. Even while Bouquet was making peace with the tribes between the Ohio and Lake Erie, Pontiac and his agents were trying to make trouble for the British among the Indians of the Mississippi.

French settlement on the Mississippi began at the village of Kaskaskia, eighty-four miles north of the mouth of the Ohio. Six miles still farther north was Fort Chartres, a strongly built stone fort capable of accommodating three hundred men. From here, at some distance from the river, ran a road to Cahokia, a village situated nearly opposite the site of the present city of St Louis. The intervening country was settled by prosperous traders and planters who, including their four hundred negro slaves, numbered not less than two thousand. But when it was learned that all the territory east of the great river had been ceded to Britain, the settlers began to migrate to the opposite bank. The French here were hostile to the incoming British, and feared lest they might now lose the profitable trade with New Orleans. It was this region that Gage was determined to occupy.

Already an effort had been made to reach Fort Chartres. In February 1764 Major Arthur Loftus had set out from New Orleans with four hundred men; but, when about two hundred and forty miles north of his starting-point, his two leading boats were fired upon by Indians. Six men were killed and four wounded. To advance would mean the destruction of his entire company. Loftus returned to New Orleans, blaming the French officials for not supporting his enterprise, and indeed hinting that they were responsible for the attack. Some weeks later Captain Philip Pittman arrived at New Orleans with the intention of ascending the river; but reports of the enmity of the Indians to the British made him abandon the undertaking. So at the beginning of 1765 the French flag still flew over Fort Chartres; and Saint-Ange, who had succeeded Neyon de Villiers as commandant of the fort, was praying that the British might soon arrive to relieve him from a position where he was being daily importuned by Pontiac or his emissaries for aid against what they called the common foe.

But, if the route to Fort Chartres by way of New Orleans was too dangerous, Bouquet had cleared the Ohio of enemies, and the country which Gage sought to occupy was now accessible by way of that river. As a preliminary step, George Croghan was sent in advance with presents for the Indians along the route. In May 1765 Croghan left Fort Pitt accompanied by a few soldiers and a number of friendly Shawnee and Delaware chiefs. Near the mouth of the Wabash a prowling band of Kickapoos attacked the party, killing several and making prisoners of the rest. Croghan and his fellow-prisoners were taken to the French traders at Vincennes, where they were liberated. They then went to Ouiatanon, where Croghan held a council, and induced many chiefs to swear fealty to the British. After leaving Ouiatanon, Croghan had proceeded westward but a little way when he was met by Pontiac with a number of chiefs and warriors. At last the arch-conspirator was ready to come to terms. The French on the Mississippi would give him no assistance. He realized now that his people were conquered, and before it was too late he must make peace with his conquerors. Croghan had no further reason to continue his journey; so, accompanied by Pontiac, he went to Detroit. Arriving there on August 17, he at once called a council of the tribes in the neighbourhood. At this council sat Pontiac, among chiefs whom he had led during the months of the siege of Detroit. But it was no longer the same Pontiac: his haughty, domineering spirit was broken; his hopes of an Indian empire were at an end. 'Father,' he said at this council, 'I declare to all nations that I had made my peace with you before I came here; and I now deliver my pipe to Sir William Johnson, that he may know that I have made peace, and taken the king of England to be my father in the presence of all the nations now assembled.' He further agreed to visit Oswego in the spring to conclude a treaty with Sir William Johnson himself. The path was now clear for the advance of the troops to Fort Chartres. As soon as news of Croghan's success reached Fort Pitt, Captain Thomas Sterling, with one hundred and twenty men of the Black Watch, set out in boats for the Mississippi, arriving on October 9 at Fort Chartres, the first British troops to set foot in that country. Next day Saint-Ange handed the keys of the fort to Sterling, and the Union Jack was flung aloft. Thus, nearly three years after the signing of the Treaty of Paris, the fleurs-de-lis disappeared from the territory then known as Canada.

There is still to record the closing act in the public career of Pontiac. Sir William Johnson, fearing that the Ottawa chief might fail to keep his promise of visiting Oswego to ratify the treaty made with Croghan at Detroit, sent Hugh Crawford, in March 1766, with belts and messages to the chiefs of the Ottawa Confederacy. But Pontiac was already preparing for his journey eastward. Nothing in his life was more creditable than his bold determination to attend a council far from his hunting-ground, at which he would be surrounded by soldiers who had suffered treachery and cruelty at his hands—whose comrades he had tortured and murdered.

On July 23 there began at Oswego the grand council at which Sir William Johnson and Pontiac were the most conspicuous figures. For three days the ceremonies and speeches continued; and on the third day Pontiac rose in the assembly and made a promise that he was faithfully to keep: 'I take the Great Spirit to witness,' he said, 'that what I am going to say I am determined steadfastly to perform… While I had the French king by the hand, I kept a fast hold of it; and now having you, father, by the hand, I shall do the same in conjunction with all the western nations in my district.'

Before the council ended Johnson presented to each of the chiefs a silver medal engraved with the words: 'A pledge of peace and friendship with Great Britain, confirmed in 1766.' He also loaded Pontiac and his brother chiefs with presents; then, on the last day of July, the Indians scattered to their homes.