over the sudden rush and unexpected persistence of the tribes. The Senecas, of New York, one of the "nations" of the Iroquois confederacy, joined their efforts to those of Pontiac, and hundreds of English traders and scattered settlers of the frontier, even east of the mountains, were butchered. Terror and confusion reigned along the whole border; for even the Creeks of Georgia laid aside the "Peace Pipe" and entered on the work of slaughter.

Consternation prevailed in the councils of the colonies, especially from Pennsylvania southward. If the rising under Pontiac should be successful, a cordon of fire would be drawn around the settlements, from the St. Lawrence to Georgia, for not an Indian heart beat on the continent that was not, at bottom, hostile to the English and alarmed at the display of strength which had expelled the French, whom the most of them loved so well. Two expeditions were prepared. One, under Col. Bradstreet, passed by way of Oswego and Niagara to Detroit; the other, under Col. Bouquet, pressed through from Eastern Pennsylvania to Fort Pitt and penetrated to the heart of the Indian country in Ohio.

But before the spring had fairly opened it became apparent to Pontiac that the task he had undertaken was beyond his power. The Indians were too scattered and possessed too few resources of support to act together in large numbers, for any considerable length of time. They had been able to maintain the siege of Detroit by the supplies pressed from the French inhabitants settled about it, and the wide range of forest, lake and river in its vicinity. But that was an exceptional case, they had failed there, trade was stopped, and they had long been accustomed to rely on the whites for arms, powder and ball for their own hunts and wars. They were, to crown all, incapable of a compact continuous union, even under a Pontiac. They were discouraged by the failure to get possession at once of the critical points, Detroit and Fort Pitt. The first heat of hope and passion

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was past; they could not now spare the whites, nor conquer them. Pontiac could no longer inspire them with the fire and fervor of the last year. They were ready on the first favorable occasion to treat for peace-with rage and despair, indeed, but they must have supplies; they must welcome the English traders; they must make a present submission or they would be crushed by the powerful armies of the whites and the miserable remnants of their tribes would be driven from their lands. Therefore no resistance was offered to the expeditions of this year (1764). Treaties were made by the two commanders and by Sir William Johnson with the more northern and eastern tribes, the captives were given up, military posts re-established, and trade revived.

Pontiac's only hope was now in the tribes of the West and in the French, who still held possession of the west bank of the Mississippi. During the next year, 1765, he exerted all his influence to get aid from them and to combine the prairie tribes, but in vain. The French were just turning over their forts and settlements to the Spaniards. Finding his cause hopeless the great chieftain accepted the inevitable fate of his race, went in person, in 1766, to Oswego, where envoys of all the tribes met Sir William Johnson, and concluded a treaty of peace. In 1769 he was murdered at Cahokia by an Illinois Indian, who, it is said, was hired to do the foul deed by an English trader. The whole nation of the Illinois was held responsible for it by the other Western tribes and were, soon after, almost exterminated by them, only a miserable remnant being left.

CHAPTER VI.

THE INDIANS MAKE WAR ON THE AMERICAN PIONEERS.

The southern Valley was divided with considerable definiteness between the tribes resident there. The Chickasaws and Choctaws held the east bank of the River, the Creeks, or Muskogees, southern Georgia and Alabama, and the Cherokees the upper Tennessee and the mountainous region southeast of it. If changes had taken place in modern days it had been an unknown length of time before. They had a recognized title to their lands. Kentucky, "the dark and bloody ground," in the thought of the Indian, was a Debatable Land, a common hunting ground, to which all loved to lay claim, and in which none had the hardihood to take up their residence and build their towns. They would have been the common prey of the warlike tribes north and south and could not hope to escape speedy annihilation. The Iroquois confederacy claimed a title to it because their war parties had sometimes safely crossed it in stealthy expeditions against the southern tribes and returned victorious to chant their own prowess at Onondaga Castle.

The Cherokees claimed it, for they had often beaten their enemies under its pleasant woods, or marched to the Ohio and surprised them at the "Licks," or salt springs. With equal right could the tribes north of the Ohio claim it, for none more often hunted in it or more frequently achieved the joy of the Indian's heart-a stealthy swoop across the river on a party of their foes and a rapid retreat to the safety of their own towns far in the interior, triumphantly displaying gory scalp locks on their spears, or at their belts. But these northern tribes had only the claim of present occupation to the lands where they built their towns. The Shawnees had

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withdrawn there from the south to escape the vengeance of the Chickasaws and Cherokees; the Delawares were fugitives from regions far to the east; and others were modern comers from the west or north, who dwelt in safety because the Iroquois had lately been too busy fighting the French and negotiating with the English to find time to destroy them or Even the distant Illinois trembled between the tribes of the Dakotah on the west and the Iroquois nations in the east.

drive them away.

The haughty confederacy of central New York assumed to own the third part of a continent through the terror of their arms and their bloody deeds, and lorded it over many tribes; but they never actually occupied the Valley proper. Their claim was several times secured by treaty, and the English Indian agents and colonial authorities bought up various rights from occupants or claimants, for comparatively trifling sums, given as presents to the chiefs, who were assumed to have the power of sale and transfer. The chiefs, however, had no more control over tribal lands than any other member of their communities, except as they might have more influence over their sturdily republican subjects. If the tribe refused to ratify the engagements they had made the transaction was null and void, according to Indian usage. Thus, treaties and purchases of territory were often illusory; not understood by the tribes as a final alienation of their lands, or, if consented to by these unpractical, grown-up children, the arrangement was repudiated when they had changed their minds. In 1768 Sir William Johnson, as commissioner for the British Government, bought, for fifty-two thousand dollars and some presents to the chiefs, a large territory south of the Ohio River and on its branches, in Pennsylvania and New York, from the Iroquois, the Delawares, Shawnees, Mingoes and others who had real or pretended claims. This did not prevent Indian outbreaks, Indian hunting on the ceded grounds, and constant hostility toward the inflowing explorers and settlers.

The Indians had very indefinite notions of such transactions, and only respected them so long as the impossibility of doing without traders and the conveniences of civilized life, which had replaced their primitive manufactures, was severely felt, and the fear of punishment was strong on them. Their bands of warriors had always been in the habit of roving at will; the individuals of the tribes did not easily conceive a binding force in their consent to a sale of lands such that they could not still roam over them and surprise any party interfering with their hunt, and often they had given no such consent. Their chiefs had pretended to bind them, but they recognized no such power in the chief. The forms of purchase satisfied the sense of justice of the whites, no matter how sharp the bargain or how small the consideration; but the Indian was unable to see it in the same light, or to feel the continuous and unalterable nature of the agreement. To this he could be brought only when he became civilized, drew his support from the cultivated products of the earth, and looked from the point of view of the thrifty husbandman rather than that of the roving hunter. The antagonism of interests and desires was almost complete. The French got over it in the readiest way by making themselves acceptable to the red man. AngloAmerican industry, and the vigorous spread of, and requirements of space for, settlements, as well as the less flexible character of that people, rendered the same degree of success impossible to them when attempted, as it sometimes was.

A government policy was followed, by both home and colonial authorities, aiming to restrain imposition and irregularities by individuals and companies in their dealings with the natives. Private contracts and purchases, whereby lands were alienated from the Indians, were forbidden. Titles could be valid only on tracts purchased by government, and settlements outside these were declared unlawful. Such laws were not always regarded, and their violation was a fruitful source of Indian war. Before and immediately after the French war,