USA > Michigan > Oakland County > History of Oakland County, Michigan, with illustrations descriptive of its scenery, palatial residences, public buildings, fine blocks, and important manufactories > Part 4
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Immediately following the council, Cadillac, who had been granted a tract of land on the proposed site of the post by the king, started from Montreal with about one hundred men, accompanied by a Jesuit missionary, and arrived at the strait on the 24th of July, 1701, where he immediately began building a fortifica-
* The French vastly overrated heights and distances. The highest rocks along the Illinois are in La Salle county, and are perhaps one hundred feet high. The location of this work is at present unknown.
Sindl' ... Is the villan a
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HISTORY OF OAKLAND COUNTY, MICHIGAN. .
tion and establishing a permanent settlement. The fortification he named in honor of the prime minister, PONCHARTRAIN. It was a stockade, and inclosed the settlement on all sides. The name Detroit comes from the French word d'etroit, signifying the strait.
The lands in the immediate vicinity of the posts, Detroit, Mackinaw, St. Joseph, and Green Bay, were eventually more or less occupied by French set- tlers and converted or friendly Indians, who cultivated small strips or gardens. The posts and all adjacent settlements were under the absolute rule of the mili- tary commandant, which, however, was seldom very rigorous in its nature. The most important business interest of these various posts was the fur trade, which grew to large proportions and became very lucrative, and still constitutes a valu- able portion of the business of the great lakes and their tributary streams.
The settlements in southeastern Michigan gradually spread until they occupied a belt of country extending from the head of Lake Erie to the foot of Lake Huron, more or less densely inhabited, according to circumstances. Each hamlet and village had its resident priest and its primitive chapel, surmounted by the omnipresent cross, and furnished with the necessary bell to call the people to their religious devotions. Among these quaint and quiet surroundings for many years the zealous Jesuits propagated the tenets of their faith. Here gathered listening groups of painted savages, who readily conformed to all the outward ceremonies of the Catholic church, but upon whose minds Christianity really made no perma- nent impression.
When not engaged in the pursuits of hunting and fishing, or the more impor- tant business of the war-path, they were content to lounge about their dirty villages and listen with their habitual stolidity to the platitudes of the Romish priesthood, whose zeal and industry vainly endeavored to transform the tawny barbarian into a cultivated and respectable human being. After the lapse of more than two hundred years, it is a curious commentary upon their labors that their utmost efforts have not been able to make any serious or permanent impression upon the Indian race, or in any marked degree to preserve them from the inevitable fate of all inferior peoples.
A few representative men like Philip of Mount Hope, Red Jacket, Pontiac, Osceola, Little Turtle, and Tecumseh, have risen among them, who would no doubt even in a civilized community have been remarkable and prominent men ; but the great bulk of the race would never be taught the arts of civilization further than they were connected with war and the chase, but, faithful to their ancient traditions and savage progenitors, have perished from the earth; essen- tially the same as they were when Ponce de Leon encountered their yelling legions in the Everglades of Florida, or when De Soto felt the weight of their terrific onslaught among the forests of Alabama.
The Modoc and the Sioux are to-day the same fierce, treacherous, uncompro- mising. blood-thirsty miscreants, whose prototypes greeted the Pilgrims with a shower of arrows on Plymouth Rock, who stormed with fiendish yells the fortifi- cations of Montreal, and battled with Braddock and Bouquet amid the hills of Pennsylvania.
Large communities of the Hurons (or Wyandots), the Pottawatomies, and Miamis were located around Detroit and St. Joseph, and the Ottawas had a village on the Canada side, opposite Detroit, and very likely occupied the present county of Oakland. About the year 1704 the Ottawas were invited to visit Albany, New York, where they were persuaded by the English that the French in- tended to exterminate them and occupy their country. This cunning talk highly inflamed them against the French, and on their return they attempted to burn Detroit, but the garrison were on the alert and extinguished the flames. Soon after, their warriors having made a successful foray in the country of the Iroquois, they became emboldened and made hostile demonstrations in the vicinity of the fort. But M. Tonti, the commandant, sent the Sieur de Vincennes against them, who defeated them and rescued several Iroquois prisoners. In 1712 the Ottaga- mies, or Foxes, and the Mascoutins, both of whom probably had their principal abiding-place on the head-waters of the Illinois river and in southern Wisconsin, and were supposed to have been in league with the Iroquois, projected a plan for the destruction of the French posts and settlements ; but M. Du Buisson, then in command at Detroit, learning, through a converted Indian, of their designs, hastily prepared for the emergency by putting the fort in the best possible state of defense and sending warning messages to the friendly Indians.
ATTACK UPON DETROIT.
On the 13th of May, 1712, the savages began the attack with terrific yells. A brave defense was made by the little garrison, which consisted of only twenty soldiers, and the Ottawas, Pottawatomies, and Hurons, who were absent on hunt- ing excursions when the attack commenced, soon returning, the fight became more equal, and was maintained with the utmost desperation for a period of nineteen days, when the fierce warriors retreated up the river, hotly pursued by the French
and friendly Indians. Routed a second time from their intrenchments by the artillery of the French, they were dispersed with a loss estimated by M. Du Buis- son at over one thousand men, women, and children. The remnant fled to the vicinity of Green bay, where they were joined by the rest of their tribe. Forti- fying themselves again, they sent out their war-parties to plunder and destroy.
Exasperated at their continued incursions, the French fitted out a formidable expedition against them, under command of M. De Louvigney, consisting of a mixed force of French and Indians. The Indians were found intrenched at a place called by the French " Butte des Morts," or Hill of the Dead. Seeing the French commander preparing to surround them and sit down to a regular siege, the savages capitulated, and from thenceforward were no longer formidable.
About the year 1749 there was a large emigration from France, and it is said that, during this year, the French commandant at Detroit cut a military road from Detroit via the Maumee rapids to the Ohio river.
Detroit continued to be an important point until after the close of the cele- brated " old French war" of 1755-59. From its strong stockades issued many a plumed and painted band of savages, whose terrible war-whoop blanched the cheeks of many a mother and her children on the frontiers of the English colonies. Here, in the summer of 1759, was collected a mixed array of French and Indians from all the adjacent posts in Michigan and Illinois, and hurried forward for the relief of Fort Niagara, which was closely besieged by General Prideaux and Sir William Johnson. The French, under command of General D'Aubrey, appeared before the English lines on the 24th of July, but were met and completely defeated by Sir William Johnson, to whom Niagara soon after surrendered. General Pri- deaux was killed during the siege by the bursting of a coehorn. Quebec was captured in September by Wolfe's army, and Montreal fell in September of the following year.
DETROIT SURRENDERS TO MAJOR ROBERT ROGERS.
On the 12th of September, 1760, four days after the surrender of Montreal, Major Robert Rogers, a provincial officer, born in New Hampshire, and a fellow- soldier with Stark and Putnam, received orders from Sir Jeffrey Amherst to ascend the lakes with a detachment of rangers and take possession, in the name of his Britannic majesty, of Detroit, Michilimackinac, and other western posts included in the late capitulation.
He left Montreal on the following day with two hundred rangers in fifteen whale-boats. They passed the chapel of St. Anne's, where Canadian voyageurs, bound for the northwest, received absolution and paid their votive offerings. Stemming the surges of La Chine and the Cedars, they left behind them the straggling hamlet which bore the latter name and formed at that day the western limit of Canadian settlement. They gained Lake Ontario, skirted its northern shore amid rough and boisterous weather, and, crossing at its western extremity, reached Fort Niagara on the 1st of October. Carrying their boats over the portage, they launched once more above the cataract, and slowly pursued their voyage, while Rogers, with a few attendants, hastened on in advance to Fort Pitt to deliver dispatches, with which he was charged, to General Monckton. This errand accomplished, he rejoined his command at Presqu' Isle about the end of the month, and the whole proceeded together along the southern margin of Lake Erie. The season was far advanced. The wind was chill, the lake was stormy, and the woods on shore were tinged with the fading hues of autumn.
On the 10th of November they reached the mouth of Cuyahoga river, the present site of Cleveland. No body of troops under the British flag had ever advanced so far. The day was dull and rainy, and, resolving to rest until the weather should improve, Rogers ordered his men to prepare their encampment in the neighboring forest.
The place has seen great changes since that day. A busy city of more than a hundred and twenty thousand inhabitants has usurped the spot where the fish- hawk and the eagle, the wolf and the bear, then reigned in undisputed mastery.
FIRST APPEARANCE OF PONTIAC.
Soon after the arrival of the rangers a party of Indian chiefs and warriors entered the camp. They proclaimed themselves an embassy from Pontiac, ruler of all that country, and directed, in his name, that the English should advance no farther until they could have an interview with the great chief, who was already close at hand. In truth, before the day closed Pontiac himself appeared; and it is here for the first time that this remarkable man stands forth upon the page of history. He greeted Rogers with the haughty demand, " What is your business in this country ; and how dare you enter it without my permission ?" Rogers informed him that the French were defeated, that Canada had surren- dered, and that he was on his way to take possession of Detroit, and restore a general peace to white men and Indians alike. Pontiac listened with attention, but only replied that he " should stand in the path until morning." Having
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HISTORY OF OAKLAND COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
inquired if the strangers were in need of anything which his country afforded, he withdrew with his chiefs at nightfall to his own encampment, while the English, ill at ease and suspecting treachery, stood well on their guard through the night. In the morning, Pontiac returned to the camp with his attendant chiefs, and made his reply to Rogers' speech of the previous day. He was willing, he said, to live at peace with the English, and suffer them to remain in his country as long as they treated him with due respect and deference. The Indian chiefs and provincial officers smoked the calumet together, and perfect harmony seemed established between them.
Up to this time Pontiac had been in word and deed the fast ally of the French, but it is easy to discern the motives that impelled him to renounce his old adherence. The American forest never produced a man more shrewd, politic, and ambitious. Ignorant as he was of what was passing in the world, he could clearly see that the French power was on the wane, and he knew his own interest too well to prop a falling cause. By making friends of the English he hoped to gain powerful allies, who would aid his ambitious projects and give him an in- creased influence over the tribes ; and he flattered himself that the new-comers would treat him with the same studied respect which the French had always observed. In this and all his other expectations of advantage from the English he was doomed to disappointment.
A cold storm of rain set in, and the rangers were detained several days in their encampment. During this time Rogers had several interviews with Pontiac, and was constrained to admire the native vigor of his intellect no less than the singu- lar control which he exercised over those around him. On the 12th of November the detachment was again in motion, and within a few days they had reached the western end of Lake Erie. Here they heard that the Detroit Indians were in arms against them, and that four hundred warriors lay in ambush at the entrance of the river to cut them off. But the powerful influence of Pontiac was exerted in behalf of his new friends. The warriors abandoned their design, and the rangers continued their progress towards Detroit, now within a short distance.
SURRENDER OF DETROIT.
In the mean time, Lieutenant Brehm had been sent forward with a letter to Captain de Bellestre, the commandant at Detroit, informing him that Canada had capitulated, that his garrison was included in the capitulation, and that an Eng- lish detachment was approaching to relieve it. The Frenchman in great wrath at the tidings disregarded the message as an informal communication, and resolved to keep a hostile attitude to the last. He did his best to rouse the fury of the Indians. Among other devices he displayed upon a pole before the yelling multi- tude the effigy of a crow picking a man's head, the crow representing himself, and the head, observes Rogers, " being meant for my own." All his efforts were unavailing, and his faithless allies showed unequivocal symptoms of defection in the hour of need.
Rogers had now entered the mouth of the river Detroit, whence he sent for- ward Captain Campbell with a copy of the capitulation, and a letter from the Marquis of Vaudreuil, directing that the place should be given up, in accordance with the terms agreed upon between him and General Amherst. De Bellestre was forced to yield, and with a very ill grace declared himself and his garrison at the disposal of the English commander.
The whale-boats of the rangers moved slowly upwards between the low banks of the river, until at length the green uniformity of marsh and forest was relieved by the Canadian houses, which began to appear on either bank, the outskirts of the secluded and isolated settlement. Before them, on the right, they could see the village of the Wyandots, and on the left the clustered lodges of the Potta- watomies, while a little beyond the flag of France was flying for the last time above the bark roofs and weather-beaten palisades of the little fortified town.
The rangers landed on the opposite bank, and pitched their tents upon a meadow, while two officers with a small detachment went across the river to take possession of the place. In obedience to their summons the French garrison defiled upon the plain and laid down their arms. The fleur de lis was lowered from the flagstaff, and the cross of St. George rose aloft in its place, while seven hundred Indian warriors, lately the active allies of France, greeted the sight with a burst of triumphant yells. The Canadian militia were next called together and disarmed.
The Indians looked on with amazement at their obsequious behavior, quite at loss to understand why so many men should humble themselves before so few. Nothing is more effective in gaining the respect or even attachment of Indians than a display of power. The savage spectators conceived the loftiest idea of English prowess, and were beyond measure astonished at the forbearance of the conquerors in not killing their vanquished enemies on the spot.
It was on the 29th day of November, 1760, that Detroit fell into the hands of the English. The garrison were sent as prisoners down the lake, but the Canadian
inhabitants were allowed to retain their farms and houses on condition of swear- ing allegiance to the British crown.
An officer was sent southward to take possession of the forts Miami and Ouia- tenon, which guarded the communication between Lake Erie and the Ohio, while Rogers himself, with a small party, proceeded northward to relieve the French garrison of Michilimackinac. The storms and gathering ice of Lake Huron forced him back without accomplishing his object, and Michilimackinac, with the three remoter posts of St. Marie, Green Bay, and St. Joseph, remained for the time in the hands of the French. During the next season, however, a detach- ment of the Sixtieth Regiment, then called the Royal Americans, took possession of them ; and nothing now remained within the power of the French except the few posts and settlements on the Mississippi and the Wabash, not included in the capitulation of Montreal .*
The population of Detroit in 1761 was estimated by Major Rogers at twenty- five hundred, but this probably included the whole settlement along both sides of the river.
CHAPTER IV.
UNDER ENGLISH RULE.
DISAFFECTION OF THE INDIANS-THE DELAWARE " PROPHET"-PONTIAC'S WAR-SECOND SIEGE OF DETROIT-CHAGRIN AND DEATH OF PONTIAC- ENGLISH OPERATIONS IN THE WEST DURING THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR -GENERAL GEORGE ROGERS CLARK.
THE control of the Canadas had scarcely been transferred to the English when mutterings and rumors of discontent began to be heard. The treatment of the Indians by the English was in marked contrast to that of the French, who had always conducted their business relations as if the Indians were their equals, and paid them the greatest respect.
On the contrary, the English looked upon them with scorn and contempt. The fur-traders resorted to every possible subterfuge to cheat and defraud them, and around the posts and garrisons they were not only looked down upon in a haughty and supercilious manner, but were maltreated and ordered out of the way.
The French inhabitants, who hated the English, delighted in feeding the flame of growing discontent, until it finally culminated in one of the most form- idable outbreaks in the history of the American continent.
As early as 1761-62 plots were laid for the total destruction of the English posts and settlements ; but Captain Campbell, in command at Detroit, getting in- formation of them, they were thwarted for the time being.
By the Treaty of Paris, in February, 1763, France ceded all her Canadian pos- sessions to the English, and the people of England and the Colonies fondly hoped that their troubles and difficulties were at an end ; but they were doomed to a cruel disappointment. While everything seemed quiet upon the surface a volcano was seething and boiling under their feet, which burst forth in the spring of 1763 with unparalleled violence and ferocity. The Delawares, and at least a portion of the Six Nations, the Wyandots, the Shawnees, and all the western nations, were in the plot, and the blow fell simultaneously upon the frontiers, from Lake Superior to the Susquehanna. The leading spirit of this most formidable con- spiracy was Pontiac, the principal chief of the Ottawas, then about fifty years of age, and undoubtedly the ablest Indian statesman and leader at that time upon the continent.
1 :
At the head of the eastern Indians was the no less celebrated Seneca chief, Kyasuta or Guyasutha, whose home was on the Allegheny river.
Both Pontiac and Kyasuta were said to have been at the head of their warriors at the slaughter of Braddock's army on the Monongahela, eight years before. As a strategist and military leader Kyasuta stands deservedly high among celebrated Indians, as his operations during the siege of Fort Pitt and the desperate battle of Brush Run against the genius of the able and accomplished Bouquet amply testify.
A great prophet had arisen among the Delawares, who, like " Peter the Her- mit," preached a crusade against the whites. He claimed to have been called by the " Great Spirit" for this special purpose, and the Indians gathered from far and near to listen to his speeches and incantations, which wrought them to the highest degree of excitement and enthusiasm. The great Pontiac in like manner claimed to be in league with a higher power, who had appeared to him in a
* "Conspiracy of Pontiac."
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HISTORY OF OAKLAND COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
wonderful vision, and promised, if his instructions were faithfully fulfilled, to sweep the English from the continent. He sent the war-belt by his principal chiefs and warriors throughout all the western nations, and succeeded in uniting them in a grand league, which had well-nigh proved the destruction of all the border settlements, from the lakes of the west to the Allegheny mountains.
The long-meditated blow fell simultaneously, and suddenly as a crash of thunder from a clear sky. Every post from the mountains to Lake Superior was captured either by force or stratagem, and their garrisons massacred or taken prisoners, ex- cepting Niagara, Fort Pitt, and Detroit.
The posts of Michilimackinac, Green Bay, Miami, Ouiatenon, St. Joseph, San- dusky, Presqu' Isle, and others of lesser note, were taken and destroyed.
Kyasuta with a swarm of warriors besieged Fort Pitt, while Pontiac reserved for himself the task of reducing Detroit. The place was under command of Ma- jor Gladwyn,* a veteran soldier, who had served in Braddock's campaign, with a small force of eight officers and one hundred and twenty-two regular soldiers, to- gether with some forty fur-traders and engages. Two small armed schooners-the " Beaver" and the " Gladwyn"-were anchored in the stream, and the fort mounted several light guns.
Pontiac had laid a daring plan to surprise the fort. He was to come to the fort with sixty of his best chiefs and warriors, and demand admission under pre- tense of holding a council. Each warrior was to carry a rifle under his blanket, shortened by being filed or sawed off, so that it could be more easily concealed. Pontiac would make a speech, at the close of which he would offer a peace-belt, which would be the signal of attack. The chiefs would instantly spring to their feet and fire upon the officers, and the Indians, who were to collect around the fort, would attack the garrison. But " the best-laid plans o' mice and men gang aft aglee," and the wily chief was foiled in his calculations in a remarkable man- ner. An Ojibwa maiden lived in the Pottawatomie village who had formed a connection with Major Gladwyn, and was much attached to him. On the after- noon of the 6th of May, Catherine, as she was called, repaired to Gladwyn's quar- ters, bringing a pair of elk-skin moccasins, which the major had engaged her to make for him. "There was something unusual in her look and manner. Her face was sad and downcast. She said little, and soon left the room; but the sentinel at the door saw her still lingering at the street-corner, though the hour for closing the gates was nearly come. At length she attracted the notice of Glad- wyn himself, and calling her to him, he pressed her to declare what was weighing upon her mind. Still she remained for a long time silent, and it was only after much urging and many promises not to betray her that she revealed her momentous secret."+
Heretofore Gladwyn had treated with contempt the idea that the Indians meditated treachery, or even thought of breaking the peace; but the revelations of the Ojibwa girl at once opened his eyes to the imminent danger of his situa- tion. He was a tried soldier, full of courage and true Anglo-Saxon energy and determination, and, comprehending at a glance the situation, he took instant measures to meet the savages promptly on the threshold.
Thanking his faithful mistress and promising a large reward, he dismissed her to the village, and, calling his officers together, informed them of what he had heard. The fortifications of the place were extensive, and would require a much larger garrison than the one under his command for a successful defense against the powerful body of Indians which had gathered around it, variously estimated at from six hundred to two thousand.
There was great apprehension that the savages might by some sudden impulse make an attack that very night, and extraordinary precautions were taken. Half the garrison were ordered under arms, and all the officers spent the night upon the ramparts.
The following beautiful description of the situation is from the " Conspiracy of Pontiac," by Parkman :
" It rained all day, but cleared up towards evening, and there was a very fair sunset.
A canopy of clouds spreads across the sky, drawn up from the horizon like a curtain, as if to reveal the glory of the west, where lies a transparent sea of liquid amber immeasurably deep. The sun has set; the last glimpse of his burning disk has vanished behind the forest ; but where he sank the sky glows like a conflagration, and still, from his retreat, he bathes heaven and earth with celestial coloring. The edges of the cloudy curtain are resplen- dent with gold, and its dark-blue drapery is touched with blood-red stains by the floods of fiery radiance. The forests and the shores melt together in rich and shadowy purple, and the waters reflect the splendor of the heavens.
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