USA > Indiana > Allen County > Fort Wayne > Valley of the upper Maumee River, with historical account of Allen County and the city of Fort Wayne, Indiana, Volume I > Part 7
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On the 16th of May, Sandusky fell; on the Ist of June, Ouiatenon was captured, Michillimackinac on the 12th, and Presque-Isle, on the 15th of June. After Presque-Isle was taken, the little posts of Le Bœuf and Venango shared its fate; farther south, at the forks of the Ohio, a host of Delaware and Shawnee warriors were gathering around Fort Pitt, and havoc reigned along the whole frontier.
Father Jonois, a Jesuit missionary, had reached Detroit and conveyed to the garrison a letter from Capt. Etherington, at Michillimackinac, giving an account of the capture of that post. Soon after, a letter from Lieut. Jenkins, at Ouiatenon, telling of the capture of that post, was re- ceived by Maj. Gladwyn. Close upon these tidings, came the news that Fort Miami was taken.
Holmes had been carefully watching the Miamis, although his fears had been somewhat quieted by the conference concerning the bloody belt. But unknown to him, savage ingenuity and deception were at work, and the ensign was destined to fall a victim to the perfidy of the conspirators.
The 27th of May had come. All nature was radiant with the beau- ties of spring. The expanding foliage of the forest waved gracefully over and partly shut out from the blaze of the sunlight the sweet-scented
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wild flowers that grew profusely beneath the majestic oaks, maples and sycamores, that lined the margins of our beautiful rivers. An Indian girl,* with whom Holmes had for some time been intimate, and in w hom he placed much confidence, was compelled by the conspirators to come to the fort and tell Holmes that there was a sick squaw lying in a wig- wam not far from the fort, and express a desire that he should go and see her. Unsuspecting, and kindly desiring to relieve the supposed sick squaw, he was soon without the enclosure, and advancing with cautious steps in the direction of the hut indicated. Nearing a cluster of huts, which are said to have been situated at the edge of an open space, hid- den from view by an intervening spur of the woodland, the girl directed him to the hut wherein lay the supposed invalid. Another instant he fell bleeding to the ground, and the sudden crack of two rifles echoed over the little garrison. Startled, the sergeant thoughtlessly passed without the fort to ascertain the cause of the shots, when, with trium - phant shouts, he was seized by the savages. This, in turn, brought the soldiers within, about nine in all, to the palisades of the garrison, when a Canadian, of the name of Godfroy, accompanied by two other white men, stepped forth and demanded a surrender of the fort, with the assurance to the soldiers that if they at once complied their lives would be spared; but, refusing, they should all be killed without mercy. The garrison gate soon swung back upon its hinges, and English rule at this point for a time ceased to be.
Encouraged by the fall of this weak and almost ungarrisoned post, Pontiac renewed his efforts to unite the tribes and destroy the remaining western forts, particularly aiming at the capture of Detroit. But the campaign he had already made had led to a vigorous movement on the part of the English government for the chastisement of the Indians. The plan of this campaign contemplated two armies - one to be led by Colonel Bouquet, and the other by Colonel Bradstreet, the former to move towards Fort Pitt, and to the country of the hostile Shawnees and Delawares, along the Scioto and Muskingum rivers; while Brad-' street was to push forward to Detroit. The one led by Bradstreet / reached Detroit on the 26th of August, and relieved that long suffering and almost disheartened garrison, and the Indians gave up the hope of its capture.
Pontiac and his followers, sullen and intractable, left Detroit, and he again took up his abode, for the time, on the Maumee, a few miles be- low the site of Fort Wayne, whence he is said to have sent a haughty defiance to the English commander at Detroit. Many of the Indians about Detroit went with Pontiac, leaving there but a few remnant tribes, who, for the most part, exhibiting a desire for peace, were soon given
" Mrs. Suttenfield, lately deceased, stated that she became acquainted with this woman in 1815, when she had a son, a man of some years, who, the squaw said, was Saginash (English); and from the age of the man, the inference is drawn that he was a son of Holmes. After leaving here, the woman took up her residence at Raccoon Village. She lived to a great age, and was known lo many of the early settlers of Fort Wayne.
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a council at that point, on the 7th of September. Upon the condition - which they are said to have not understood at all, and which, not under- standing, they accepted - that they become subjects of the king of England, a treaty of peace was concluded with them. At this council were present portions of the Miamis, Pottawatomies, Ottawas, Ojib- was, Sacs, and Wyandots. Said Wasson, an Ojibwa chief, to the Eng- lish commander, on this occasion: "My Brother, last year God forsook us. God has now opened our eyes, and we desire to be heard. It was God's will you had such fine weather to come to us. It is God's will also that there should be peace and tranquility over the face of the earth and of the waters"- openly acknowledging that the tribes he repre- sented were justly chargeable with the war, and deeply regretted their participation.
Before quitting Sandusky, Bradstreet had sent Captain Morris, accompanied by a number of Canadians and friendly Indians, toward the country of the Illinois, to treat with the Indians of that portion of the west. Ascending the Maumee in a canoe, he approached the camp of Pontiac, and was met by about 200 Indians, who treated him with great violence, while they offered a friendly welcome to the Iroquois and Cana- dian attendants. Accompanied by this clamorous escort they moved to- ward the camp. At its outskirts stood Pontiac himself. He met the ambassador with a scowling brow, and refused to offer his hand. " The English are liars," was his first fierce salutation. He then displayed a letter, addressed to himself, purporting to have been written by the king of France, containing as Morris declared, "the grossest calumnies which the most ingenious malice could devise, to incense the Indians against the English." The old story had not been forgotten. " Your French father," said the writer, " is neither dead nor asleep; he is already on his way, with sixty great ships, to revenge himself on the English, and drive them out of America." It is evident that the letter had emanated from either a French officer, or more probably a French fur trader, who, for his own aggrandizement, sought to arouse the antipathy of the natives to the further encroachment of the English.
" The Indians led me," says Morris, " up to a person who stood ad- vanced before two slaves (prisoners of the Panis nation, taken in war and kept in slavery), who had arms, himself holding a fusee with the butt on the ground. 'By his dress and the air he assumed, he appeared to be a French officer: I afterwards found he was a native of old France, had been long in the regular troops as a drummer, and that his war name was St. Vincent. This fine-dressed, half-French, half-Indian figure desired me to dismount; a bear-skin was spread on the ground, and St. Vincent and I sat upon it, the whole Indian army, circle within circle, standing around us. Godefroi sat at a little distance from us; and presently came Pontiac, and squatted himself, after his fashion, opposite to me. This Indian has a more extensive power than ever was known among that people; for every chief used to command his own tribe, but eighteen nations, by French intrigue, had been brought to
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unite, and choose this man for their commander, after the English had conquered Canada; having been taught to believe, that, aided by France, they might make a vigorous push and drive us out of North America. * * Pondiac said to my chief: ' If you have made peace with the English, we have no business to make war on them. The war-belt came from you.' He afterward said to Godefroi: 'I will lead the nations to war no more; let 'em be at peace if they chuse it; but I myself will never be a friend to the English. I shall now become a wanderer in the woods; and if they come to seek me there, while I have an arrow left I will shoot at them.' He made a speech to the chiefs," continues Morris, " who wanted to put me to death, which does him honor; and shows that he was acquainted with the law of nations; ' We must not,' said he, ' kill ambassadors; do we not send them to the Flat- Heads, our greatest enemies, and they to us? Yet these are always treated with hospitality.'"
After relieving the party of all but their canoe, clothing and arms, they were permitted to resume their course without further molestation. Quitting the inhospitable camp of Pontiac, with poles and paddles, against a strong current, they continued their course up the beautiful Maumee, and in seven days from leaving Sandusky, in the morning they arrived within sight of Fort Miami, which, from the time of its capture, the previous year, had been without a garrison, its only occupants being a few Canadians who had erected some huts within the enclosure, and a small number of Indians. The open ground in the vicinity of the fort, at that time, was occupied by the wigwams of the Kickapoos, a large body of whom had lately arrived. On the opposite side, hidden by an intervening strip of forest, stood the Miami villages.
Having brought the canoe to a place of landing, a short distance be- low the fort, the attendants strode off through the strip of woods toward the village; and it is stated as most fortunate that Morris remained be- hind, for, scarcely had his attendants traversed the woods, than they were met by a band of savages, armed with spears, hatchets, and bows and arrows, seeking to destroy the Englishman. Morris' chiefs en- deavored to dissuade them from their purpose, and succeeded in so far as sparing his life. But coming up, in a few moments, to where Morris stood, they began to threaten him and treat him very roughly, and took him to the fort, where he was commanded to remain, and the Canadians forbidden to admit him to their huts. A deputation of Shawnee and Delaware chiefs had recently come to the Miami village, with fourteen war-belts, with a view of arousing the Miamis again to arms against the English; and it was to these that was mainly ascribed Morris' treatment. From this point they had proceeded westward, arousing to war all the tribes from the Mississippi to the Ohio, avowing that they would never make friends with the English - that they would fight them as long as the sun shone.
Morris had not long remained at the fort, when two Miami warriors came to him, and with raised tomahawks grasped him by the arms,
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forced him without the garrison, and led him to the river. Walking forward into the water with him, Morris' first thought was that the Indians sought to drown him, and then take his scalp; but instead they led him across the stream, then quite low, and moved toward the center of the Miami village, on the west side of the St. Joseph. Nearing the wigwams, the Indians stopped and sought to undress him; but finding the task rather difficult, they became quite angry and Morris himself, in rage and despair, tore off his uniform. Then tying his arms behind him with his sash, the Indians drove him forward into the village. Speedily issuing from the wigwams to receive the prisoner, the Indians gathered about him like a swarm of angry bees, giving vent to terrific yells - " sounds compared to which, the nocturnal howlings of starved wolves are gentle and melodious." The largest portion of the villagers were for killing him; but a division arising between them, as to what was best to do with him, then was developed a vociferous debate. Finally the Canadians, Godfroy and St. Vincent, who had followed him to the village, came forward and interceded with the chiefs in behalf of their prisoner. A nephew of Pontiac was among the chiefs, a young man, possessing much of the bold spirit of his uncle, who heroically spoke against the propriety of killing the prisoner; and Godfroy insisted " that he would not see one of the Englishmen put to death, when so many of the Indians were in the hands of the army at Detroit." A Miami chief, called the Swan, is also represented as having protected the prisoner, and cut the sash binding his arms. Morris, beginning now to speak in his own defense, was seized by a chief called the White Cat, and bound to a post by the neck; at which another chief, called the Pacanne, rode up on horseback, cut the band with his hatchet, giving Morris his freedom again, exclaiming "I give this Englishman his life. If you want English meat, go to Detroit or to the lake, and you will find enough of it. What business have you with this man, who has come to speak with us?" The determined words of Pacanne had the desired effect. A change of feeling began to show itself; and the prisoner, without further words, was driven out of the village, whither he made his way to the fort. On his way, it is stated, an Indian met · him, and, with a stick, beat his exposed body.
His position was yet most critical; for while the Canadians in the fort were disposed to protect him, they were yet loath to lay themselves liable to distrust, and the same warriors who had taken him to the village were now lurking about, ready to embrace the first opportunity to kill him; while the Kickapoos, near by, had sent him word that if the Miamis did not kill him, they would whenever he passed their camp. On considering whether he should proceed on his journey to the Illinois, his Canadian and Indian attendants strongly urged him to go no farther; and on the evening of this day they held a council with the Miami chiefs, wherein it became more evident that his situation was most perilous. Messages were continually reaching him, threatening an end to his life, should he attempt to fulfill his mission, and a report was also
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conveyed to him that several of the Shawnee deputies were returning to the garrison expressly to kill him. Under these circumstances, he speedily pushed his bark toward Detroit, where he arrived on the 17th of September.
The expedition under Bouquet penetrated to the center of the Dela- ware towns, and into the most extensive settlements of the Shawnees, about 150 miles from Fort Pitt. With a large body of regular and pro- vincial troops, he soon humbled these tribes, and compelled them to deliver all the prisoners in their possession. During the frontier struggles, for some years prior to Bouquet's campaign, hundreds of families along the borders had been massacred and many carried away to the forest by the Indians; and when Bouquet started on his expedition to the interior, he was eagerly joined by many who, years before, had lost their friends. Among the many prisoners brought into the camp (over 200 in all), husbands found their wives, and parents their children, from whom they had been separated for years. Women, frantic between hope and fear, were running hither and thither, looking piercingly into the face of every child. Some of the little captives shrank from their forgotten mothers, and hid in terror in the blankets of the squaws that had adopted them. Some that had been taken away young, had grown up and married In- dian husbands or Indian wives, now stood utterly bewildered with con- flicting emotions. A young Virginian had found his wife; but his little boy, not two years old when captured, had been torn from her, and had been carried off, no one knew where. One day, a warrior came in lead- ing a child. At first, no one seemed to own it. But soon the mother knew her offspring, and screaming with joy, folded her son to her bosom. An old woman had lost her grand-daughter in the French war, nine years before. All her other relatives had died under the knife. Searching with trembling eagerness, in each face, she at last recognized the altered features of her child. But the girl had for- gotten her native tongue, and returned no answer, and made no sign. The old woman groaned, and complained bitterly, that the daughter she had so often sung to sleep on her knee, had forgotten her in her old age: Soldiers and officers were alike overcome. "Sing," said Bouquet to the old lady, "sing the song you used to sing." As the low, trem- bling tones began to ascend, the wild girl seemed startled, then listening for a moment longer, she burst into a flood of tears. She was indeed the lost child, but all else had been effaced from her memory, save the recollection of that sweet cradle song. The tender sensibilities were for- eign, as a general rule, to the Indian heart; indeed, they held such emotions in contempt; but when the song of the old lady was seen by them to touch the captive's heart and bring her again to a mother's arms, they were overcome with sympathy. Many captive women who returned to the settlements with their friends soon afterward made their escape, and wandered back to their Indian husbands, so great was the change that had taken place in their natures.
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The British having subdued the tribes of the northwest, and com- pleted definite treaties with them at Niagara, contemplated a further move to the west and north, with the purpose of securing the country and posts along the Illinois and Mississippi. Of this Pontiac soon be- came aware, and leaving his place of seclusion on the Maumee, with four hundred of his chiefs, about the close of autumn he passed up to Fort Miami and after a short stay to the Wabash, and on to the Mississippi, arousing the tribes at every point to prepare to meet and destroy the English. Having gained the French settlements and other places where the French traders and habitans were to be met, and where the flag of France was still displayed, he received encouragement from the French fur traders and engagés, who dreaded the rivalry of the English in the fur trade. They insisted that the king of France was again awake, and his great armies were coming; "that the bayonets of the white-coated warriors would soon glitter amid the forests of the Mississippi." But Pontiac seemed doomed to disappointment and failure; and after repeated efforts, having visited New Orleans to gain the aid of the French gov- ernor of Louisiana, he returned to the west.
Determining to try the virtue of peace proposals in advance of the army, Sir William Johnson sent forward two messengers, Lieut. Fraser and George Croghan, to treat with the Indians on the Mississippi and Illinois. After many hardships, and the loss of their stores, through the severity of the winter, they reached Fort Pitt, whence, after some delay, Fraser, with a few attendants, made his way down the Ohio for a thousand miles; then coming to a halt, he met with very rough treat- ment from the Indians. A short time afterward, in the month of May, 1765, Croghan, with some Shawnee and Delaware attendants, moved down the Ohio as far as the mouth of the Wabash, where the party was fired upon by the Kickapoos and several of the attendants killed. Crog- han and the remainder were taken prisoners, but finally proceeded to Vincennes, where, finding many friendly Indians, they were well received, and the Kickapoos strongly censured. From that point they went to Ouiatenon, arriving there on the 23d, where also Croghan found many friendly Indians. Here he made preparations for a council, and was met by a large number of Indians, who smoked the pipe of peace with him. Soon receiving an invitation from St. Ange to visit Fort Chartres, further down, Croghan, accompanied by a large number of Indians, left Ouia- tenon for that point, and had not journeyed far when he met Pontiac and a large body of chiefs and warriors. Pontiac shook the hand of Croghan, who at once returned with the party to Ouiatenon, where a great concourse of chiefs and warriors were gathered.
Pontiac complained that the French had deceived him, and offered the calumet and peace-belt, professing concurrence with the Ouiatenon chiefs in their expressions of friendship for the English. At the conclu- sion of this meeting, collecting the tribes here he had desired to meet, he soon took up his line of march, followed by Pontiac and a large num- ber of chiefs, and set out toward Detroit, crossing over to Fort Miami
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and the village adjacent. Having kept a regular journal of his mission, from which the foregoing is principally drawn, he wrote at this point:
"August Ist (1765). The Twigtwee village is situated on both sides of a river called St. Joseph. This river where it falls into the Miami [Maumee ] river, about a quarter of a mile from this place, is 100 yards wide, on the east side of which stands a stockade fort somewhat ruinous .* The Indian village consists of about forty or fifty cabins, besides nine or ten French houses, a runaway colony from Detroit dur- ing the late Indian war; they were concerned in it, and being afraid of punishment, came to this point, where ever since they have spirited up the Indians against the English. * * The coun- * * try is pleasant, the soil is'rich and well watered. After several confer- ences with these Indians, and their delivering me up all the English prisoners they had, on the 6th of August we set out for Detroit, down the Miamis river in a canoe."
Arriving on the 17th of August, he found many of the Ottawas, Pottawatomies and Ojibwas, and in the same council hall in which Pontiac had poured out his impassioned oratory to seduce the Indians into his great conspiracy, Croghan convened the relenting tribes, and addressing them in their own style, succeeded in extracting terms of peace in September, and a promise from Pontiac that he would visit Oswego in the spring to conclude the final terms of a treaty with the commandant, Sir William Johnson. Croghan then returned to Niagara.
About the period of the first snow, the Forty-second regiment of Highlanders, a hundred strong, having moved down the Ohio from Fort Pitt, commanded by Capt. Sterling, arrived at Fort Chartres. The fleur de lis of France was soon lowered, and, in its stead, the English planted their standard. When spring came, Pontiac, true to his word, left his old home on the Maumee, for Oswego, where he soon arrived, to make a great speech, and " seal his submission to the English" forever.
With his canoe laden with presents he had received at the great coun- cil of Oswego, he proceeded toward the Maumee, where he is said to have spent the following winter, living in the forest with his wives and children, and hunting like an ordinary warrior. In the spring of 1767, considerable discontent was manifested among the tribes "from the lakes to the Potomac." The Indians had been disturbed in the posses- sion of their lands, and began the commission of atrocities along the frontier. Pontiac had strangely kept out of the way. That he had been party to the agitation along the border, was not known, but many had their suspicions. For two years subsequently, few, if any, but his immediate friends, knew of his whereabouts. In the month of April, 1769, however, he again visited the Illinois, and though his object was unknown, the English were excited by his movements. He soon after- ward went to the French settlement at St. Louis, where he was
* It is worthy of notice that an English guinea dated 1765, the year of Croghan's visit, was found on the site of this old fort, and is now in possession of the writer. It is probably a speci- men of the first British gold used to purchase Americans.
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murdered. The account of his death is, that he was killed by an Illinois Indian, of the Kaskaskia tribe; that having feasted with some of the Creoles of Cahokia, opposite the site of St. Louis, he became drunk, and while he was entering an adjacent forest, the murderer stole upon him and dispatched him with a tomahawk. It was said that the assassin had been instigated to the act by an Englishman of the name of Will- iamson, who had agreed to give him a barrel of whisky, with a prom- ise of something besides, if he would kill the Ottawa chieftain. Says Gouin's account: "From Miami, Pontiac went to Fort Chartres, on the Illinois. In a few years, the English, who had possession of the fort, procured an Indian of the Peoria nation to kill him. The news spread like lightning through the country. The Indians assembled in great numbers and attacked and destroyed all the Peorias, except about thirty families, which were received into the fort." Thus, the death of Pontiac was revenged. His spirit could rest in peace.
EPOCH OF SAVAGE TRIUMPHS.
Revolutionary period .- The British flag had no sooner waved in supremacy over the western frontier, than its lustre began to wane, and the power it represented began to lose its prestige on the American continent.
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