Such in clear and specific terms was the cold and selfish policy which the British crown and its ministers habitually pursued towards the American colonies; and in a few years it changed loyalty into hate, and brought on the American Revolution.[1431]
Before the royal proclamation of 1763 had been issued, or even drafted, a new and fierce Indian war, which is known in history as the Pontiac War, was raging on the frontier settlements. With the conquest of Canada and the expulsion of France as a military power from the continent, the English colonists were abounding in loyalty to the mother country, were exultant in the expectation of peace, and in the assurance of immunity from Indian wars in the future; for it did not seem possible that, with the loose system of organization and government common to the Indians, they could plan and execute a general campaign without the co-operation of the French as leaders.
This feeling of security among the English settlements was of short duration. A general discontent pervaded all the Indian tribes from the frontier settlements to the Mississippi, and from the great lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. The extent of this disquietude was not suspected, and hence no attempt was made to gain the good-will of the Indians. There were many real causes for this discontent. The French had been politic and sagacious in their intercourse with the Indian. They gained his friendship by treating him with respect and justice. They came to him with presents, and, as a rule, dealt with him fairly in trade. They came with missionaries, unarmed, heroic, self-denying men, who labored without pay for what they deemed the highest welfare of their dusky brethren. Many Frenchmen married Indian wives, dwelt with the native tribes, and adopted their customs. To the average Englishman, on the other hand, Indians were disgusting objects; he would show them no respect, nor treat them with justice except under compulsion. To him the only good Indians were dead Indians, and hence he shot savages as he would wild beasts.[1432] So long as the English had the French as competitors for the good-will of the Indian, they treated him with some measure of tact and justice; but when this competition was withdrawn, it was a sad day for both races. The fur trade, by which the Indians obtained their necessary supplies, had been mainly in the hands of the French; and when it was cut off, the Northern and Western Indians, as they had lost the use of bows and arrows, and needed firearms and ammunition in order to take their game, were often in distress for want of food. When the military posts in the West were in possession of the French, the Indians were habitual visitors, and they loitered about the forts. The French tolerated the custom, and treated the intruders with kindness, although their indolent and filthy habits greatly taxed the patience of the garrisons. When these posts came into possession of the English, the visitors were insulted and driven away, and they were fortunate if they were not clubbed.[1433]
The French had shown little disposition to make permanent settlements; but the English, when they appeared, came to stay, and they occupied large tracts of the best land for agricultural purposes. The French hunters and traders, who were widely dispersed among the native tribes, kept the Indians in a state of disquietude by misrepresenting the English, exaggerating their faults, and making the prediction that the French would soon recapture Canada and expel the English from the Western territories.
Pontiac, the chief of the Ottawas, was the Indian who had the motive, the ambition, and capacity for organization which enabled him to concentrate and use all these elements of discontent for his own malignant and selfish purposes. After the defeat of the French, he professed for a time to be friendly with the English, expecting that, under the acknowledged supremacy of Great Britain, he would be recognized as a mighty Indian prince, and be assigned to rule over his own, and perhaps a confederacy of other tribes.[1434] Finding that the English government had no use for him, he was indignant, and he devoted all the energies of his vigorous mind to a secret conspiracy of uniting the tribes west of the Alleghanies to engage in a general war against the English settlements. In the autumn of 1762 he sent messengers with war-belts to the tribes living north of the great lakes, to those in the Ohio and Illinois countries, and they went as far south as the mouth of the Mississippi. His scheme was to make a simultaneous attack on all the Western posts in the month of May, 1763; and each attack was assigned to the neighboring tribes. His summer home was on a small island at the entrance of Lake St. Clair; and being near Detroit, he was to conduct in person the capture of that fort.[1435]
On the 6th of May, 1763, Major Gladwin,[1436] in command at Detroit, had warning from an Indian girl that the next day an attempt would be made to capture the fort by treachery. When Pontiac, on the appointed morning, accompanied by sixty of his chiefs, with short guns concealed under their blankets, appeared at the fort, and, as usual, asked for admission, he was startled at seeing the whole garrison under arms, and that his scheme of treachery had miscarried. For two months the savages assailed the fort, and the sleepless garrison gallantly defended it, when they were relieved by the arrival of a schooner from Fort Niagara, with sixty men, provisions, and ammunition.
Fort Pitt, on the present site of Pittsburg, Pa.,[1437] was in command of Captain Ecuyer, another trained soldier, who had been warned of the Indian conspiracy by Major Gladwin in a letter written May 5th. Captain Ecuyer, having a garrison of three hundred and thirty soldiers and backwoodsmen, immediately made every preparation for defence. On May 27th, a party of Indians appeared at the fort under the pretence of wishing to trade, and were treated as spies. Active operations against Fort Pitt were postponed until the smaller forts had been taken.
Fort Sandusky was captured May 16th; Fort St. Joseph (on the St. Joseph River, Mich.), May 25th; Fort Ouatanon (now Lafayette, Ind.), May 31st; Fort Michillimackinac (now Mackinaw, Mich.), June 2d; Fort Presqu' Isle (now Erie, Pa.), June 17th; Fort Le Bœuf (Erie County, Pa.), June 18th; Fort Venango (Venango County, Pa.), June 18th; and the posts at Carlisle and Bedford, Pa., on the same day. No garrison except that at Presqu' Isle had warning of danger. The same method of capture was adopted in each instance. A small party of Indians came to the fort with the pretence of friendship, and were admitted. Others soon joined them, when the visitors rose upon the small garrisons, butchered them, or took them captive. At Presqu' Isle the Indians laid siege to the fort for two days, when they set it on fire. At Venango no one of the garrison survived to give an account of the capture.[1438]
On June 22d, a large body of Indians surrounded Fort Pitt and opened fire on all sides, but were easily repulsed. The next day they informed Captain Ecuyer[1439] that every other English fort had been taken, and that all the tribes were coming to take Fort Pitt. If he and his garrison would then leave, they would assure him a safe conduct to the English settlements; but otherwise they would be unable to protect him from the bad Indians who would soon arrive. The commander thanked them for their kind solicitude in his behalf, and informed them that he had plenty of men, provisions, and ammunition, and could hold the fort against all the Indians in the woods. He told them also that an army of six thousand English would soon arrive at Fort Pitt, and that another army of three thousand had gone up the lakes to punish the Ottawas and Ojibwas. "Therefore", he said, "take pity on your women and children, and get out of the way as soon as possible." The Indians departed the next day, and did not reappear until July 26th, when they repeated their old story of "love for the English", and grieved that "the chain of friendship had been broken." The following night they surrounded the fort, and with knives dug burrows in the river banks, from which they threw fire-arrows into the fort and shot bullets whenever they had sight of a soldier above the parapets. This sort of warfare was more dangerous to the besiegers than to the besieged. During five days and nights of ceaseless attack the losses of the Indians were more than twenty killed and wounded. In the garrison seven were slightly wounded, and none killed. The Indians then disappeared in order to intercept the expedition of Colonel Bouquet, which was approaching from the east with a convoy of provisions for the relief of Fort Pitt.