USA > Michigan > Cass County > History of Cass county, Michigan > Part 5
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The Jesuits had another mission upon the St. Jo- seph River, near the southern limits of the city of Niles. It was established prior to 1721, for Charle- voix mentions a visit which he made to it in that year. Further than this, there is no authentic information in regard to this missionary station, although there are some quite cireumstantial pretended accounts of it in
*Some writers have said that the mission was established by Claude Allonez during the first Miami occupancy of the country as early as 1705. Thia la very clearly an error. La Salle no where made any mention which would indicate that he found the place had ever been inhabited. Parkman says " Here be (La Sulei led bia followers and (1679 built a fort, and here is after years the Jesuite placed a mission."
"The Pottawatoniwe living io Cass and Van Buren Counties, and in Northern Indiana are, at this day, with scarcely an exception, members of the Roman Catholic Church.
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY. MICHIGAN.
existence, and many vague and entirely untrustworthy traditions afloat .* It is probable that the mission on the site of Niles was not continued for a very long period. No allusions are made in the official docu- ments of the time to its existence, though the mission of St. Joseph is frequently mentioned. But little remains to be said of the French occupation of the northern lake region. Nothing of great importance concerning the peninsula occurred during the period embracing the first half of the eighteenth century. The several missions were zealously supported, a vast traffic with the Indians was carried on, and, in 1749, quite a number of French agricultural settlers, en- couraged by grants of land, located on the banks of the Detroit. Their number did not, however, exceed twenty-five hundred in 1761; and there were no other points of settlement in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan except the military establishments and the missions. These were merely minute dots of civilization upon the border of an unknown wilder- ness, in which the savage roamed free, as he had for centuries before. France had won a vast though a transient dominion. It was destined that the Briton should rule the land the Gaul had found; that the standard of the lion should supplant the lilies and the cross. Already the forces were in operation which were to effect this result and to mold the future of a continent.
CHAPTER III.
CONTEST FOR POSSESSION.
Great Britain Succeeds France in Domination of the Northwest- Michigan Posts Occupied by the British-Treaty of 1763-Hatred of the Western Trihes Aroused-They are Craftily Encouraged in their Enmity by the French-Pontiac's Conspiracy-The Potta- watomles join the League-Siege of Detroit-Massacre of tbe Gar- rison at Fort St. Joseph-An Exploit of the Tribe of Topinahe- Indians Propitiated by the British-The Quebec Bill-Little Ac- complished During a Century of French and British Occupation- The Revolutionary War-Conquest of the Northwest by George Rogers Clark-Evacuation of Detroit.
THE contest between France and England for supremacy on American soil was appealed to the arbitrament of the sword and settled as have been so many other important issues, in blood.
The two great powers had transferred their hatred from the Old World to the New, and the course of circumstances was such as to develop an armed hostility. The war of 1754-60 practically terminated French dominion in America. Braddock's defeat was avenged by the British when Wolfe gained his great victory over the French upon the Plains of
Abraham in 1759. Quebec fell in the same year, and Montreal on the 8th of September, 1760. On the 29th of November, Detroit was surrendered to Capt. Robert Rogers and the red cross of St. George was raised for the first time upon the soil of Michi- gan.
The French were not immediately called upon to surrender their other points of possession in the West for the reason that the weather became so cold that it was impracticable for the English troops to make their way over Lake Huron. Early in August, 1761, however, three hundred men of " the Royal Ameri- cans "-His Majesty's Sixtieth Regiment-command- ed by Lieutenant Leslie, reached Michilimackinac and took possession in the name of the King of England. A few days later a smaller detachment arrived at the St. Joseph River and occupied the fort at its mouth, over which the Bourbon flag had floated for more than fifty years-during the second period of French occupation at this point.
The treaty by which France formally ceded to England all of her possessions in America was made in Paris in 1763. The peace which it was hoped this instrument would secure to the scattered inhabit- ants of the Northwest was rudely broken even before the treaty was promulgated-a fact for which the French in the New World were in a large measure accountable.
The change in the ownership of the soil was at- tended by no immediate good results, but on the contrary by many evil ones. Most of the French traders left the country with the French soldiers, and their places were quickly filled by Englishmen. Neither the English officers nor the commercial ad- venturers who accompanied their march into the West were calculated to win the friendship of the savages. The soldiers treated them with rude contempt, and as vagabonds. The same line of conduct which had estranged the Iroquois (the allies of the English since the time of Champlain) so that they refused to aid Braddock in 1755, very soon aroused the hatred of the Western tribes. Whatever cause of grievance they omitted was supplied by the traders. Many of these, according to Parkman, " were ruffians of the coarsest stamp, who vied with each other in rapacity, violence and profligacy. They cheated, cursed and plundered the Indians, and outraged their families, offering, when compared with the French traders, a most unfavorable example of the character of their nation."
The seeds of disaffection were widely sown. The Pottawatomies, the Chippewas and the Ojibways, were ready and eager to enter into the conspiracy proposed by the crafty and powerful Ottawa Chief Pontiac, who
* The last traces of a small circular earthwork are remvining at Niles, and the prevailing local opinion is that this so-called "fort," which somebody has given the name of " Fort Oola," was of French construction. The French built no earthworks in the Indian country ; their forts were all stock les. " Fort Oula," of which the full outlines were plaioly discernible when the pioneers came Into the country, undoubtedly belongs to the pre-historic period.
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY. MICHIGAN.
was also the leader and head of the confederacy, com- posed of the several tribes mentioned. Ifis plan was to unite the several tribes of the Northwest, and, by a preconcerted signal, fall upon all of the British posts simultaneously, massacre the garrisons and destroy the forts, and so prepare for the return of the French. The French Canadians craftily encouraged the savages by informing them that already the armies of King Louis were advancing to reclaim their lost possession.
In the autumn of 1762, Pontiac sent messengers to the various nations, disclosing his plan, and inviting them to join the league. The Pottawatomies who, at this time, had their principal population in the country along the St. Joseph and Kalamazoo Rivers, lent a willing assent to Pontiac's request. Emmissa- ries were dispatched to far-distant nations, and these, in turn, sent representatives to a great council, ap- pointed by the leader, at the River Ecorces, near De- troit, in April, 1763. The plan of the campaign in general was here arranged, and the details were per- fected at a subsequent gathering, held at a Pottawato- mie village. The posts to be assaulted were Niagara, Presque Isle, Le Boeuf, Venango, Du Quesne (now Pittsburgh) Ouiatenon, Detroit, Michilimackinac, Sault Ste. Marie, Green Bay and St. Joseph, a chain extending along more than twelve hundred miles of frontier. There was gathered together for this pur- pose a vast concourse of Indian warriors from the Michigan Peninsulas, from Lake Superior, from the region beyond Lake Michigan, from the Ottawa River of Canada, and even from the Lower Mississippi Valley. So perfect was Pontiac's plan, and so well carried out by the allied tribes, that nine of the posts fell into their possession, and only three escaped- Niagara, Pittsburgh and Detroit. The time set for the attack was May. On the 7th of that month, Pon- tiac and a number of lesser chiefs presented them- selves at the gates of Fort Detroit, and requested ad- mission, saying that they had come to hold a council with the commandant. Under the blanket of each was concealed a tomahawk and a gun, the barrel of which had been filed off short, that it might be more effectually hid. It was arranged that at a precon- certed signal, the warriors in the council house were to throw off their disguise and massacre the officers, and that as soon as the first shot was heard, the Indians outside the fort should rush in and massacre the entire garrison. The chiefs were admitted, but they were chagrined to find that knowledge of their treacher- ous scheme had been communicated to the command- ant, Maj. Gladwyn, and that the most thorough preparations had been made to prevent a surprise. The garrison was under arms, the cannoneers stood by their guns, and the officers who met them in the
council house had swords and pistols at their sides. After a short and hollow harangue with Maj. Glad- wyn, Pontiac and his companions, baffled in the accom- plishment of their dastardly design withdrew. It is traditionally asserted that the British officer in charge had been warned of his danger by an Ojibway girl, who lived at the Pottawatomie village, where the chiefs had been in conference.
The rage of the discomfited Indians was unbounded. They resolved to make an open attack, and on the 10th of May 800 warrlors surrounded the little fort, and assaulted it with all of the fierceness of which they were capable. The battle raged from dawn to dark, and it seemed as if the garrison must inevitably be overcome. The British, however, resisted success- fully, and, thwarted again, Pontiac determined upon besieging the fort and compelling its inmates to sur- render. The siege was continued five months, and during that time several assaults were made, which the garrison received as a great rock does the waves of the sea.
The Pottawatomies were present at the first attack of Detroit, and during the early stage of the siege, in large numbers. They fought under their chief, Ninavé, and were given a post of honor in the battle. After the unsuccessful attack, they were assigned to the de- struction of Fort St. Joseph, in their own country, and, with their thirst for blood intensified by their repulse at Detroit, the wolfish horde went trooping through the wilderness to accomplish the destruction of the weaker post. The day fixed upon for the mns- sacre of the little garrison was the 25th of May. On the morning of that day, the commandment of St. Joseph, Ensign Schlosser, was informed that a band of Pottawatomies had arrived from Detroit upon a visit to the members of the tribe in the vicinity. Probably he believed this story, and felt no uneasiness for the safety of the garrison. All accounts agree that he was taken completely by surprise. Not long after he had heard of the presence of the Indians in the neigh- borhood, Schlosser was visited by the chief Washashé and a few others of the tribe, who announced that they had come for a friendly talk with the white chief. While he was engaged in conversation with them, a Canadian (who lived in the little settlement founded, under the protection of the fort, in 1712) came to him with the startling intelligence that the stockade was entirely surrounded with Indians, and that their man- ner indicated impending trouble. He quickly gave orders to his men to fall in instantly, with their arms, and returned to the parade ground. During his brief absence, more Indians had assembled here, and quite a number of the Canadians had also come in. The latter the commandant endeavored to press into his
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY, MICHIGAN
service, but while he was talking to them, the dreadful war-whoop was heard, and a scene of carnage quickly ensued. The garrison numbered only fourteen men, and could offer no adequate resistance to the horde of savages by which they were surrounded. Eleven men were killed and scalped, and the remaining three. with Schlosser, were taken prisoners, securely bound, and afterward taken to Detroit, where they were finally exchanged for some Pottawatomies whom Maj. Glad- wyn had captured at the commencement of the siege. With the massacre of its garrison in 1763, the history of Fort St. Joseph (originally Fort Miamis) is practi- cally closed. There is no proof that the British again occupied it as a military post, although the forts at Green Bay and Michilimackinac, which suffered the same fate during the conspiracy of Pontiac, were sub- sequently re-established.
The trading-post at Fort St. Joseph was, at the time of the massacre, owned by one Richard Winston. He escaped death, as did also several others besides the Canadians. The trading-post passed out of exist- ence when the garrison fell, and was probably not re-opened .*
The massacre of the garrison at Fort St. Joseph. the only event of the Pontiac conspiracy in South- western Michigan, was the chief exploit of the Potta- watomie Indians. Soon after, they, with the Wyan- dots, pretended to withdraw from the league which Pontiac commanded. and sued for peace, which was granted them by Maj. Gladwyn at Detroit. In ac- cordance with their treacherous natures, however, they still continued inimical to the British, aided in the attack on the force of Capt. Dalzell, which was march- ing to the relief of Detroit, took part in the slaughter at Bloody Run, on the last of July, and, a month later, were among the savages who made an assault on the schooner "Gladwyn." In the last-mentioned engagement they suffered severe loss, and it was prob- ably their last fight during the siege.
The war had been a severe one for the British, bot disastrous to the plans of Pontiac. At its close, the English endeavored to bring about such a condition of affairs as would preclude the possibility of recurrence of hostilities. The French settlers in the West who had incited the Indians to war, and in some instances aided them in carrying it on, although they had sworn allegiance to the British crown. were treated with much greater magnanimity than their treachery merited. A policy of pacification toward the Indians of the Northwest was adopted, and the friendship of most of
the tribes was won by their late enemy. George Croghan, a man familiar with Indian character, was sent to the West to confer with representatives of the several nations. He reached Detroit August 7, 1765. The Indians were ready to accept the offers of peace, and the propitiatory presents which the emissary of Sir William Johnson brought to them. Parkman speaks particularly of a band of Pottawatomies who were present, and whose "wise man." after hearing Croghan's reasoning, (intended to soften their antipathy to the English, and to expose the falsehoods of the French), thus delivered himself : " We are no more than wild creatures to you, fathers in understanding ; therefore, we request you to forgive the past follies of our young people, and receive us for your children. Since you have thrown down our former father (the French), upon his back, we have been wandering in the dark like blind people. Now you have dispersed all this darkness which hung over the heads of the several tribes, and have accepted them for your children. we hope you will let us partake with them the light, that our women and children may enjoy peace. We beg you to forget all that is past. By this belt we remove all evil thoughts that are in your hearts. Fathers, when we formerly came to visit our fathers, the French, they always sent us home joyful, and we hope that you fathers will have pity on our women and young men who are in great want of necessaries, and not let us go home to our towns ashamed."
This craven, begging speech, delivered by a chief of the tribe which had massacred the garrison at St. Joseph, and had an active hand in nearly all of the atrocities of the Pontiac war, serves well to illustrate one phase of the Indian character-a phase exhibited in common by the Pottawatomies and all other tribes.
From the time of the British accession until 1774, civil law had no existence in the western portion of the great territory the French had been forced to relinquish. Martial law was exercised, and Detroit was the seat of the ruling power. In 1774. however, the British Parliament passed what was known as the " Quebec Bill." By this act, Michigan and all of the lands northwest of the Ohio, and between the great lakes and the Mississippi, was made a part of Canada. Sir Henry Hamilton was made Lieutenant Governor, and was in command at Detroit, which was the British headquarters for the Northwest from 1744 until 1779, when he was captured by Gen. George Rogers Clark. at Vincennes, on the Wabash.
One hundred years of French and British domi- nation witnessed little progress in the condition of the great Northwest. In 178, it was essentially what it had been a century before in the time of La
" Near the site of the old fort, an ther trading station was esta lished, soom after the u've of the Re utumary war, y Wu lam Bu tett, who carried It (= @*t. 1736 A brand under the charge of Joseph Bertrand, Was located A de aty mi w sp the river and Bear the tretern border of C'ans "'ounty Both bad a large trade with the Puottawaloque during the entire period of their exnet-
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY, MICHIGAN
Salle. It was to form a magnificent portion in the heritage of, and to be developed by, the young, strong. expansive nation born amidst the throes of the Revo- lution. The period of the war from 1775 to 1783 while crowded with results of the most vital impor- tance as affecting the future of this region, was not a period rich in events within it. There was one, how- ever, of immeasurable consequence. We refer to the conquest of the country by Gen. George Rogers Clark, of Kentucky, under the authority of the Com- monwealth of Virginia. The man who was to take 80 prominent a part in shaping the destiny of the great West, was in 1774 an officer in the army of Lord Dunmore, which marched against the Indians in Ohio, and in 1776 was a pioneer settler in Kentucky. He was a realization of the ideal soldier-cool, cour- ageous and sagacious. and perhaps at that time the most powerful and certainly the most picturesque character in the West. It was his foresight and prompt, efficient action, which, at the close of the Revolutionary war, made the lands between the great lakes, the Ohio and the Mississippi, a portion of the United States instead of leaving it in the possession of the British. He foresaw that even should the colonies be victorious in their war for independence, they might he confined to the Eastern side of the Alleghanies, unless the West was made a special field of conquest. He failed to interest the House of Burgesses in his scheme, but obtained from Patrick Henry, Governor of Virginia, the authority which he needed to carry out his plans, viz., commissions which empowered him to raise seven companies of soldiers, and to seize the British posts in the Northwest. In January, 1778. he was at Pittsburgh securing ammuni- tion and provisions ; in June, he was marching through an unbroken forest, at the head of a small, but valiant army, principally composed of his fellow pioneers from Kentucky. His march was directed toward the Illinois country. His able generalship and courage soon placed the garrisons of Cahokia, Kaskaskia and St. Vincent in his possession, and his equally great tact enabled him to win over the French inhabit_ ants to the American cause, and make of them warm allies. And thus the vast country afterward known as the Northwest Territory was won. Its cession by treaty to the United States. or rather the old confed- eration on September 3. 1783, " was due," says an eminent authority, "mainly to the foresight, the courage and endurance of one man who never received from his country an adequate recognition of his great service."*
The treaty was formally ratified by the American Congress on the 14th of January, 1784.
Notwithstanding the nature of the treaty provis- ions, the British for a number of years retained pos- session of several posts within the ceded territory- Oswegatchie | Ogdensburg, Oswego, Niagara, Presque Isle (Erie . Sandusky, Detroit and Macinac. They rebuilt an old fort on the Maumee in 1794, and did not evacuate Detroit until July 12. 1796, when the flag of the United States was first unfurled over the settlement which was to become the Michigan me- tropolis.
CHAPTER IV.
OUTLINE OF CIVIL HISTORY
Ordinance of 17 ;- Its Authorship-Michigan as a Part of the North- west Territory As Part of Indiana Territory-Michigan Territory Organ zed-Formation of State Government-Difficulties Attend- ing Ad ission to the U'u o -Disp ted Boundary-Toledo War- Michigan Receives the Upper Peninsula in lien of the Maumee Swamp-Removal of the Capital-Constitutional Covention of 1850-Lists of Territorial and state Governors-Population from 1.»; to 1850.
A S soon as the title to the Northwest was vested in the United States, Congress took measures to clothe it with law. The first endeavor was futile. In 1794, a committee, of which Thomas Jefferson was chair- man, reported to Congress an ordinance for the establish- ment and maintenance of government in the North- west Territory. It contained an article prohibiting slavery after the year 1800, which, however, was stricken out before it came to its passage. The ordi- nance remained practically inoperative, and the only good that was accomplished by its passage lay in the fact that it paved the way for a subsequent act of national legislation. On May 20, 1785, Congress passed the or- dinance providing for the survey and sale of Western lands |which is spoken of at length in a subsequent chapter).
It was not until the passage of the famous act known as the ordinance of 1787 that the civil law of the republic had anything more than a nominal existence in the region from which the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin have been formed.
Even in a work which gives the history of only a small fragment of the great territory covered by the ordi- nance of 1787, we deem it appropriate to say a few words concerning that great instrument. It was the foundation upon which five splendid commonwealths were to be built up. the fundamental law, the consti- tution of the Northwest Territory, and a sacred com- pact between the old colonies and the yet uncreated States to come into being under its benign influence. It forever proscribed slavery upon the soil of the ter- ritory it organized, and it is undoubtedly true that to this ordinance the people of the nation owe thanks for the final complete suppression of the "peculiar insti- C
*James A. Garfield in historical address delivered in 1873.
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
tution " within its borders, for it is probable that had
The situation of affairs not only made it possible to the system been allowed a foothold north of the Ohio, | secure the purchase for the Ohio Company, practically it would have grown to such proportions as to have at his own terms, but to so mold the organic law of the Territory in which the lands were situated, as to make that purchase desirable. It is only when the Ohio Company's purchase and the ordinance of 1787 are considered in connection with each other, that the latter can be properly understood .* successfully resisted all measures for its overthrow. But when the ordinance is considered simply as an act of legislation providing for the opening, develop- ment and government of the Territory, its value is not less apparent or admirable. It provided for succes- sive forms of Territorial government, and upon it were The settlement of Marietta was made upon the 7th of April, 1788. The Governor, Gen. Arthur St. Clair arrived there in July of that year, and during the same month the first territorial government in the United States was formally established. based all the Territorial enactments and much of the subsequent State legislation. It was so constructed as to give the utmost encouragement to immigration, and it offered the greatest protection to those who be- came settlers, for "when they came into the wil- derness, they found the law already there. It was im- pressed upon the soil while as yet it upbore nothing but the forest. Never, probably, in the history of the world, did a measure of legislation so accurately ful- fill and yet so mightly exceed the anticipation of the legislators."*
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