Compendium of history and biography of the city of Detroit and Wayne County, Michigan, Part 3

Author: Burton, Clarence Monroe, 1853-1932
Publication date: 1909
Publisher: Chicago H. Taylor & Co.
Number of Pages: 858

USA > Michigan > Wayne County > Detroit > Compendium of history and biography of the city of Detroit and Wayne County, Michigan > Part 3

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In the meantime Sabrevois had been succeeded by M. Noyan. Pierre de Celeron de Blainville and Joseph LeMoyne de Longueil served in the order named as commandants, the latter serving for two successive terms (1743-49). During this time affairs, which had been allowed to progress but slowly till then, became so complicated as a result of Indian uprisings and plots to slaughter the settlers, that some notice appears to have been given the necessity of supplying needed support to the post. Following an attack made by the Chippewa tribe re- siding near the Mackinac straits, and the discovery of a conspiracy entered into by nearly, if not quite, all the braves living about Detroit, Governor Beauharnois dispatched a relief flo- tilla bearing supplies and a considerable number of soldiers and merchants. During the next year, 1748, the fortifications were materially strengthened, as it became evident to the French authorities that, in view of the impending struggle with the British, forebodings of which were even then noticeable, Detroit would be of considerable strategic value. A policy embracing a consistant effort to increase the population and the military strength of the settlement was initiated.

This took tangible form in sending out, during the ensuing year, of a considerable number of farmers as a reinforcement to the struggling little colony. With them the settlers brought the implements of husbandry, and upon their arrival an encouraging and serious effort was made toward cultivation of the fields about the post. The timber of the forest was felled, adding considerably to the producing acres about the fort, and that stronghold was strength- ened and enlarged till the settlement began to take on the air of a healthful and thriving community on the edge of the wilderness. Sabrevois, who was serving out a reappointment as commandant, was too feeble, however, to attempt to initiate methods sufficiently progres- sive to develop fully these added opportunities and the younger de Celeron was made his suc- cessor in 1751. He in turn was retired after serving three years, to give place to Jacques

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Pierre Daneau, who, during the next four years ( 1754-1758) proved himself an able officer. The effort put forth for the establishment of a definite relationship between the frontier French posts now began to bear fruit, and the governor general was enabled to strengthen still further the Detroit settlement by making it the depot or base of supplies for the outlying forts which had been established between Lake Ste. Claire and Fort Du Quesne, at the junc- ture of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers.

Desultory fighting was in progress between the English and French and the Indian tribes allied to each, far to the eastward, and Detroit's strategic advantages began to be un- deniably demonstrated as the French were enabled to hasten reinforcements and supplies to the eastern points from this base on the straits.

Peculiarly enough, though each of the opposing nations was ready at all times to fight for the territory each one claimed, neither was apparently willing to put forth more than a half-hearted effort to settle the dispute permanently, by instituting a sharp and effective cam- paign. Brave and capable officers served equally well, perhaps, their respective govern- ments, but were left for long intervals without support from abroad.

The interest across the Atlantic was but intermittent at best. Neither France nor Eng- land realized the value of the rich stake for which they gambled, though the new territory had been even then sufficiently explored to demonstrate its value in a general way.

From the time Cadillac beached his canoe on the site of the Detroit settlement, its for- tunes were indirectly involved in the game of national politics being played thousands of miles away. The momentary humors of the French king and the incidents occuring in Lon- don, penetrated the leagues of virgin forests in the New World, and left their marks indeli- bly imprinted upon the future of that straggling row of rude cabins far to the west. The eastern Indians, incited by the French, spread terror among the settlers in the Atlantic colo- nies by a succession of indescribable outrages. These were repaid by no less severe attacks on the western settlements by savages driven to frenzy by British rum and by well directed promises of reward from the English commandants.

From Queen Anne's war, in 1702, through King George's war and on until the termina- tion of what is known as the French and Indian war (1755-63) a most inhumane and dis- tressing period of guerrilla warfare prevailed. For this both the English and French were perhaps equally responsible. In nearly all the settlements, as in Detroit, every pioneer prayed, toiled and slept with his rifle close at hand. Children were threatened with the ven- geance of the Indians for every misdemeanor, and wives parted with their husbands in con- stant dread of the savage scalping knife. A hardy, courageous race of men was thus bred, innured to the hardships of the frontier and to the dangers of the wilderness. Their liveli- hood and their very existence were dependent upon force of arms and sheer courage alone, a circumstance which made but the more certain the inevitable clash which changed the des- tiny of the western posts.

By the ceding to the British of Nova Scotia, under the treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, the French gave their adversaries a dangerous advantage in the foothold the English thus se- cured in the territory close to the gulf of St. Lawrence. Up this avenue every French ship was forced to pass in reaching the up-river settlements at Quebec and Montreal. The strongest fortification then existing in America was that at Louisburg, on Cape Breton island. The French had hastened at an early date to strengthen this the then most valuable strategic point on the Atlantic, thus offering a formidable barrier to England's advance northward. With a base from which to operate in Nova Scotia, the English looked covetously upon the frowning fortress at Louisburg. In 1745 an expedition of farmers and fishermen was or-

DETROIT AND WAYNE COUNTY

ganized in the New England colonies, whose purpose it was to drive the French flag from this valuable island in the gulf. Undisciplined as they were, the British were no more sur- prised than were the French when, after a vigorous attack, the banner of the fleur-de-lis was hauled from its staff on the fort and Louisburg was in the hands of the English.

Upon the restoration of Louisburg to the French in 1748, under the treaty of Aix la Chapelle, there began for each flag a series of alternating victories and defeats. These were destined to continue through campaigns of indescribable hardship, till the final fall of Que- bec and the loss to France of her colonial prestige and of a territory richer by far in many natural resources than the mother country herself.

Following the fall of Louisburg, the French began to hold more tenaciously than ever whatever territory they could claim. Some sixty posts had been stretched in a thin line be- tween the St. Lawrence and the Gulf of Mexico. The garrisons, and the settlers about these forts, resisted the encroachments of the English from Virginia with persistent tenacity. For- midable steps were necessitated on the part of the Virginia authorities to enforce the secur- ing to Virginians of land grants made to then in the disputed territory. One of the French posts was located on the present site of Pittsburg. As many of the land grants included territory in the Ohio river valley, and as the French and their allies continued to forbid their definite location and occupancy, George Washington was sent to interview the French com- mandant and to offer a formal protest. This conference was unsatisfactory and the English constructed a fort on the Monongahela, which was promptly taken by the French, in 1754. Humiliated by their defeat, the English sent out an expedition under General Braddock, in an attempt to take the French Fort Du Quesne, but this effort was rewarded with a second crush- ing defeat, and it was not until 1758 that this inland fortress fell before a British attack.

Meantime there had come to Canada, as governor general, a man who promised through his relentless energy and dauntless courage, to sweep the enemies of Louis from the wilder- ness. This was Louis Joseph de St. Verain Montcalm, who took command of a scattered and undisciplined army in 1756. He captured two important British forts, and with but lit- tle more than three thousand men successfully repulsed an army of fifteen thousand under General Abercrombie, at Ticonderoga, between Lakes George and Champlain. This he accom- plished before retiring to Quebec to prepare the citadel there for an attack which he even then anticipated, and which ended in the fatal conflict that has made famous in the history of the western continent the far-sung Heights of Abraham. There, on September 13, 1759, the map of a continent was changed. The entire future fortune of the struggling little post miles away on the Detroit river was forever altered. Dear to the heart of every man is the story of that fight between the gallant young Wolfe and the no less admirable Montcalm,-a fight which resulted in the loss to each of his life; the loss to France of her colonies in the New World, and the winning for England of a glorious empire. Not quite a year later Mon- treal surrendered and all Canada was formally turned over to the victorious British.

CHAPTER II.

The Detroit Post Surrendered by the French Commandant-One Hundred and Forty-Eight Years of French Misdirection-New Era Ushered in with English Control-Detroit Menaced by Indian Unrest and Antagonism-Regime of Captain Henry Gladwin- Treaties with the Indians-Conspiracy Under Pontiac, and Attempt to Capture the Detroit Garrison-War with the Indians Under Pontiac-Lack of Supplies at De- troit-Murder of Captain Campbell-Indian Victory at Bloody Run-Pontiac Sues for Peace-Colonel John Bradstreet Made Commandant-Conditions Following Indian Uprising-First Money Circulated in Detroit-Philip Dejean Commissioned First Chief Justice-The Northwest Company-Passage of the Quebec Act-Local Discontent with Policy of English Home Government; Lieutenant Governors Ap- pointed-Nefarious Rule of Hamilton and Dejean at Detroit.

During the last years of the struggle between the banner of the fleur-de-lis and the royal standard of Great Britain, the post at Detroit had been materially strengthened and amply provisioned. It had become a formidable stronghold. It was never the scene of battle be- tween the opposing powers, but was surrendered by its last French commandant, Francois Marie Picote de Bellistre, upon the presentation to him by Major Robert Rogers of proof of the French surrender, without the firing of a single shot. With scant ceremony the colors of France were hauled from the staff at Fort Pontchartrain, where they had been raised by Cadillac fifty-nine years before, and the efforts of those years were thus declared failures. The story of French follies in seeking ever more and more revenue by the enriching of the few from the toil of the many-the evidence of the failure to encourage definite relations be- tween the scant population and the land-was told in the miles of impenetrable wilderness that stood as mute witnesses of one hundred and forty-eight years of misdirected effort in New France.

It is said of the treaty of Paris, under which half the western hemisphere was sur- rendered, that no other agreement "ever transferred such an immense portion of the earth's surface from one nation to another."

With the marching into the stockade at Fort Pontchartrain of the British troops under Major Robert Rogers and the passing out of the soldiers of France, there dawned upon the settlement at Detroit a new era. In it was destined to be born the embryo of a fresh stand- ard of ideas underlying the political, religious and personal freedom and equality of a great and glorious people. With the felling of the forests between the lakes and the sea, there were to spring from the virgin soil those first tender seedlings that were to be nourished by the rigors of the winters and by years of strife with the savages, until they could stand as hardy and impassable barriers against the advance of oppression.

At Detroit, as elsewhere on the frontier, the change was to the Indians an unwelcome one. Accustomed as they had been to treatment as equals by the French, they resented from the first what they considered to be the presumption of the British, whose unbending condescension roused them to retaliation. Both France and England had sought allies among the savages, and this had led to the division of the native tribes into two great factions. While the wars continued, they were diametrically opposed and fought each other as lustily

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as did their principals. With the surrender of the French, however, and with the beginnings of that Indian distrust of the victors which immediately followed all attempts at colonization, the Indians became reunited against a common white foe, who they saw was beginning at once to claim their hunting grounds as his own. The western Indians had ever been staunch friends of the French, and this new prejudice against the English but engendered a smolder- ing hatred that seriously menaced the Detroit settlement and eventually cost many a life. Captain Donald Campbell served until he was relieved by Captain Henry Gladwin, as the first English commandant. By his easy good will he made himself popular with the French settlers who remained at Detroit, as well as with the Indians in the surrounding territory. Under the influence of his natural tact, began the reconstruction of the business, social and military life of the post. Major Rogers, who received the surrender, mentions in his re- port that there were in Detroit at the time of the evacuation, approximately two thousand in- habitants.

Efforts were made to establish trade relations with the Indians and gain their friend- ship, but to these attempts the French, smarting under their recent defeat, offered what tacit opposition they could. Added to this, unscrupulous English traders sought the frontier posts and by the free use of rum set up a standard of dealing with the Indians whereby the latter were mercilessly fleeced and cheated in every possible way and thus more firmly than ever led to distrust the newcomers. Reports of unseeming activity on the part of the French and coincident uneasiness among the Indians were carried to the new seat of government at New York. The result was an attempt to secure treaties with the savages.

General Jeffrey Amherst, then in charge of the British affairs at New York, sent Sir William Johnson, who was considered the ablest of the Indian commissioners of his time, to the post at Detroit. With him came Captain Henry Gladwin, who was to succeed Captain Campbell as commandant. He led several hundred troops who served as an escort and guard for a large store of supplies. Treaties were made with most of the tribes about the post, with the Senecas of the Maumee valley and with the Chippewas to the northward. In spite of these efforts toward the establishment of friendly relations, however, the continuation of the unscrupulous methods of trading employed by certain of the English so inflamed the savages that they still believed the English would eventually dispossess them of their lands.

The most influential of the natives who entertained distrust and hatred against the Brit- ish was Pontiac, chief of the Ottawas. This was then the most intelligent and civilized of the Indian tribes in the vicinity of Detroit. From the very first of the English occupancy Pontiac had watched with disfavor their entrance into what he considered the God-given territory of his people. After a little more than two years of association with them he con- cluded they would forever be a source of danger to the sons of the forest.

While Gladwin was occupied with the administration of the affairs of the post and rest- ing in assurance of friendly relations with his savage neighbors, Pontiac's home at Peche island in Lake Ste. Claire, became the scene of great activity. Indian runners were con- stantly arriving and departing, bearing mysterious messages to and from the chiefs and the medicine men of the western tribes. The crafty Pontiac had evolved no less a plot than that which sought the absolute extermination of the English or their expulsion from the chosen hunting grounds about the western lakes. Systematically, and with a care that would have done credit to a trained political organizer, were the chief's plans laid. Pontiac realized fully that the greatest strength of the English posts lay in their ability to aid each other in case of attack and he accordingly proposed in the councils of his brothers a simultaneous attack on the isolated forts, which would preclude the possibility of any such interchange of support.

12.

DETROIT AND WAYNE COUNTY

Reports of the strength of each of the western forts were brought to the lodge at Peche island, that the chief might the more wisely direct his campaign. Incendiary mes- sages went forth, inciting the wrath of the subsidiary leaders and inflaming the young fight- ing men with a lust for English blood.

In April, 1763, a great council was called at Ecorse, just below Detroit, at which the chief's plans were fully made known to all the Detroit Indians and their complete enlist- ment insured. On the Ist of May Pontiac himself visited the fort at Detroit, to assure him- self of the exact conditions of its defenses. Even then the commandant entertained no suspi- cion of the infamous conspiracy which was to result in a practical siege of the post and prove itself, perhaps, the greatest crisis in the history of the settlement.

Four days later a second Indian council was held, and the final details of the attack were arranged.

In just what way the English were warned of the intended attempt to take the post is a matter of some doubt. Several more or less romantic accounts of the circumstance are current, but certain it is that the settlement owes its very existence to the fact that before Pon- tiac's plans could be put into execution Gladwin was made aware that a conspiracy was on foot. Since the Indians were held in a certain easy contempt by the British, they were usually allowed reasonable freedom inside the stockade, and it was on this circumstance very largely that Pontiac staked the outcome of his plans. Having been careful to impress his great friendship upon the commandant, he foresaw that with but comparatively few warriors once inside the fortifications, he could effect a sudden attack and in the ensuing confusion make the post an easy prize.

Sixty chosen warriors were supplied with rifles whose barrels had been sawed so short as to permit their being carried in safe concealment under the blankets of the attacking party. To further allay all suspicion, the chief was to pretend that the visit was made for the purpose of more securely cementing the friendship between his people and the White Father. Then, if the circumstances were auspicious, he was to present to Gladwin a belt of wampum, holding the gift in a reversed position. If, however, any untoward occurrence should make the advisability of the attack doubtful, the wampum belt was to be presented in the usual way and the attempt postponed.

One account has it that a certain chief, Mohican by name, who was opposed to Pontiac's scheme, came by stealth to the gate of the fort and personally warned Gladwin of his threat- ened peril. Another chronicler asserts that the wife of one of the French habitants detected a party of savages in the act of sawing off the gun barrels and, by the air of secrecy attending the performance, was aroused to such an extent that she informed one of the artisans of the fort, thus giving the alarm. Whoever the informant may have been, Gladwin faithfully maintained the confidence, as no authentic report has been found to exist among his papers. Many years after the conspiracy, an unsigned manuscript was discovered, presumably writ- ten by one of the priests at the mission opposite Detroit. This substantiates the Mohican ac- count, though a more popular legend has to do with an Indian maiden, Catherine by name, who is supposed to have formed an attachment for the commandant, and, in truly melodra- matic fashion, informed the gallant young captain of the plot of the sixty warriors. How- ever the warning may have been given, the British were fully prepared for any denoument, and when Pontiac and his men appeared the garrison was under arms.

Seated in the council chamber, the commandant and his staff received the visitors, but gave no sign that they suspected treachery, save that they appeared with a full complement of side arms. As he passed through the narrow streets, Pontiac saw at once that every

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soldier was equipped with musket and bayonet and that small squads, fully armed, had been deployed about the gates of the fort. The disappointment was a bitter one, but retreat was impossible. The visit had to be carried out or additional suspicion would be aroused. Glad- win listened with apparent good humor to Pontiac's oration of friendship until the chief was about to present the wampum belt. Then, at the sudden signal from the commandant, the roll of the drums was heard. The crisis had arrived. The English soon perceived that even the renowned chief could not preserve his usual stoical expression. The white men had played the game with a reckless bravery that completely overawed the savages. At the psy- chological moment Gladwin sprang from his chair and, pulling aside the blanket of one of the visitors, he exposed a hidden gun to the assembly. In a bitter arraignment of their treachery, the commandant assured the Indians that the vengeance of the White Father would be sudden and severe should any further instance of misconduct warrant their punishment, but that so long as they remained faithful to the conditions of their treaties, the friendship of the British would be ever generous. To further impress his tendency towards friendship and forgiveness, Gladwin served the conspirators with food and beer before dismissing them. The seeds of a great uneasiness were sowed among the whites by this verification of treacherous intentions and the humiliating experience of the proud chief only made the more bitter his hatred for the English and the more firm his intention of driving them from the land.

Repeated efforts on the part of Pontiac to regain the English confidence that he might make effective his original plans, met with failure. The garrison was kept almost con- stantly under arms in anticipation of an attack in force.

Goaded to a frenzy by this unexpected turn of affairs, the chief shortly gave up all sem- blance of friendship and openly attacked three settlers, who were put to the torture within sight of the fort. Following this, a settler, one James Fisher, his wife and two soldiers were massacred on Belle Isle and a herd of the garrison cattle, pastured there, was stolen. On the same day Pontiac moved his camp across the river to the Michigan shore, thus formally beginning a war destined to place Detroit in the position of a beleaguered citadel and to con- tinue for many days.

The situation at once became serious. It was even necessary to burn the buildings in the vicinity of the fort, that no cover might be afforded an attacking party. Supplies were piti- fully short inside the stockade, and as soon as the commandant saw that the savages were de- termined to continue their attacks, he decided to ask for a parley, and thus give his men an opportunity to replenish the stores. La Butte, the interpreter, was sent to Pontiac's camp to inquire into the reasons for the chief's actions. He returned with the report that the Indians might be pacified by the presentation of a few suitable gifts. Pontiac suggested that Captain Campbell and Lieutenant McDougall, both of whom had been upon especially good terms with the Indians before the outbreak, be sent to his camp for a council. Heedless of warnings from their comrades, the two men accepted the invitation and were immediately made captives. For a time the English were tempted to abandon the fort, but Gladwin was determined to hold out at all hazards and his men successfully stood off a large party of savages who opened fire shortly after taking the two captives. This gave the troops some encouragement, though much of the baggage of the garrison was placed on board the schooner "Gladwin," lying before the fort in the river, as a precaution against its capture. Orders were given that the ship was to sail at once to Niagara on the flying of a certain signal from the fort.

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Compendium of history and biography of the city of Detroit and Wayne County, Michigan, Part 3

Author: Burton, Clarence Monroe, 1853-1932 Publication date: 1909 Publisher: Chicago H. Taylor & Co. Number of Pages: 858

Author: Burton, Clarence Monroe, 1853-1932
Publication date: 1909
Publisher: Chicago H. Taylor & Co.
Number of Pages: 858