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CHAPTER VII.

PONTIAC'S WAR.

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Pontiac Indian method of drilling their warriors - Pontiac assembles a council - Pontiac's speech - His dream-The fort at Detroit Pontiac inspects the fort during a calumet dance - Pontiac's conspiracy on the fort at Detroit defeated—A general destruction of the forts and settlements by the Indians - Stratagems of the game of ball, between the Ojibways and Sacs, and destruction of Michilimackinac - Fall of Venango - Condition of the frontier settlements Colonel Henry Bouquet- His victory near Fort Pitt A council with the chiefs - Their apology for the warBouquet's reply — Orders the Indians to bring in all their prisoners before giving them the hand of friendship - Meeting of long-lost friends- Conclusion of the Indian war Assassination of Pontiac.

THE English colonies were illy prepared to meet the impending war. Those armies which had conquered Canada, had been broken up and dispersed. The rangers had been disbanded. The regulars had been sent home to England. There remained barely troops sufficient to garrison the posts in the Indian country. In the meanwhile, the deeply-rooted hatred of their oppressors was urging the Indians on precipitately to action, which would have much weakened the effect of the meditated blow, and have given the English time for preparation. But a master mind was busy restraining the impetuosity of the Indian character, and wielding a moral influence over the wild, discordant elements, to reduce them into a species of military order. An Indian chieftain, ruling over a large confederacy, with broad, comprehensive views of policy, is, indeed, an anomaly in the history of the wilderness.

PONTIAC'S CONFEDERACY.

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Pontiac, the great leader of the Indian confederacy, is reported to have been not above the average hight of men. But his muscular form is said to have been remarkable for its symmetry and vigor. His features were irregular. His complexion was darker than is common with the Indian. The expression of his face was bold, stern, determined. His whole bearing was imperious. At the commencement of the war, he is said to have been about fifty years old. Ordinarily, his dress consisted of a scanty cloth, girt about his loins. His hair was not shaven, but hung flowing over his shoulders. Upon great occasions, he appeared before his warriors, plumed and painted, and in a robe, and leggins, and moccasins richly ornamented, in the most impressive style of savage art. He was resolute, wise, and eloquent. His capacious intellect grasped everything within the range of Indian vision. He possessed uncommon force of character; and in subtlety, he was more than a match for the wiliest chieftains of his race. With all those qual

ities which distinguish great men, it was his misfortune to have been born an Indian. He was passionate, treacherous, and cruel. One of Nature's noblemen by birth, he had been reduced by circumstances and position to a savage. His splendid genius blazed for a while in the wilderness like a fallen star.

During the summer of 1762 the conspiracy against the English had ripened to perfection. The hour of vengeance was drawing near. The danger extended the whole length of the western border, and was imminent to all the middle provinces. Early in the fall, Pontiac had dispatched his ambassadors to the Indian tribes. He had his head-quarters in a small, secluded island, at the opening of Lake St. Clair. From that place he had sent his messages throughout the country of the Ohio and its tributaries;

through the vast region of the upper lakes; through the wild fastnesses of the Ottawa River; through the entire length of the Valley of the Mississippi. And all the tribes north of the Cherokee country, between the Alleghanies and the great plains on the Missouri, had joined in the conspiracy, including even the Senecas, one of the Iroquois nations.

Pontiac had directed that the blow should be struck in the month of May following. The precise time had been indicated by reference to the changes of the moon. The tribes had been counseled to make a general and an instantaneous rising. Each tribe had been charged with the destruction of the English garrison in its own neighborhood. Then they were to fling themselves in a mass on the defenseless colonists. Throughout the recesses of the forest the preparations for war had already been begun. The Indians, indeed, had no armies to drill in complicated tactics, no military stores to provide; but a deep personal interest in the approaching contest had to be awakened in every warrior. The success of an Indian campaign would be dependent on the intensity of the pas sion which should urge each one on to heroic deeds. Concert of action could be secured in no other way than by bringing similar influences to bear with nearly equal force on them all. That was the scope of the Indian tactics.

For that purpose, the Indian war-songs and the Indian war-dances had long ago been devised. These were peculiarly adapted to stimulate savage natures to the highest pitch of excitement. Mere animal courage always will kindle quickly, by contact with its like, into a fierce and furious flame. Could the English, in 1762, have pierced the gloom of the wilderness, they would have beheld the enacting of scenes of demoniac grandeur that would have startled them from their fancied security. Throughout the vast region of lakes and rivers, in all the valleys,

PREPARATIONS FOR HOSTILITIES.

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along the mountains, and the heavily-timbered plains, from north to south, from east to west, wherever the blood-stained hatchets of Pontiac had been accepted, the English would have beheld the gathering of the tribes for the rude discipline of savage warfare. In the night-time, fires would have been seen blazing beneath the leafy canopies, and sending out mingling streams of light and shadow into the woods around. And near each crackling heap of knots and brushwood, they would have seen a post, driven firmly in the earth, and so painted as to designate the enemy, against whom the direst of passions were to be wrought up to frenzy. Within the gaping circle of women and children, the warriors would have been seen, all painted and plumed, swaying with fierce exultation at the expected display of hatred toward the white men. Soon they would have beheld a savage, leaping and bounding impulsively within the ring, with brandished tomahawk, as if in the act of rushing on a foe, and the crowd, pressing and jostling each other, in the intensity of excitement more nearly about him; while he, loudly chanting the exploits of himself and his ancestors, with furious gesticulations, enacting the deeds he was reciting, becoming wholly frantic with passion, would strike at the post as he would strike an enemy, and tear the scalp from his imaginary victim. Then the swarms of warriors, unable longer to refrain from bursting into the arena, would have been seen jumping, and stamping, and rushing and leaping, their tomahawks gleaming, and their knives. flashing, hacking, and stabbing the air in the fury of battle, exciting themselves and each other to madness.

That was the Indian method of drilling their troops for war. Each warrior knew how to use his weapons well. But the midnight pantomimes of murder gave him the spirit to use them on the designated foe. When all

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his excitable nature had been concentrated into one single burning point, he was ready for the war-path. From that little island in Lake St. Clair had gone forth an influence that had kindled hundreds of those baleful night-fires; and from that same island had gone forth another influence, also, that had restrained the fiercest passions of an excitable people, until the hour for action had fully come. Under so accomplished a leader as Pontiac, and following implicitly his directions, the Indians, though on the eve of an outbreak, effectually concealed their design. With the deep dissimulation of the race, they had become more friendly in their intercourse with the English, in proportion as the spring was advancing. When the troops had first taken possession of the forts, the Indians had come thronging within the inclosures, to gratify their curiosity, and observe the ways of the enemy, against whom they had been so long at war. In a little while, however, having become disgusted with the treatment which they had received, they had withdrawn altogether to the woods. And the soldiers had been congratulating themselves at being well rid of the nuisances. But while the winter of 1762-3 was passing away, the Indians had begun to come back again, in a most desultory manner and from different quarters, straggling into the vicinities of the forts, and pitching their tents a little way off. The warriors, as before, would hang listlessly around near the sentries, or squat in groups in the corners of the paradegrounds, smoking and grunting, apparently undisturbed by the rude taunts and jeers of the soldiers, and would endure to be poked about with the butt-ends of muskets without even a show of displeasure. They would beg, importunately as ever, for tobacco, gunpowder, and whisky. Observing this humility of the Indians, the English officers had flattered themselves that the wilderness was