peace. They told smooth stories. They had always loved the English, but
Pontiac had compelled them to go to war. Now they were sorry they had
obeyed him and longed to be at peace with their English brothers.
Gladwin understood their deceit, but as he was in need of winter
supplies, readily granted them a truce. The various tribes broke up
their camps and separated for the long winter hunt.
Pontiac and his Ottawas still held their ground without flinching.
"Surely," thought the proud-hearted chief, "our French father will send
us help before long."
One day, near the close of October, a messenger did come from the
French. The letter he brought was from M. Neyon, the commandant of Fort
Chartres, in the Illinois country. Pontiac had written to him asking for
aid. What had he answered? He had told the truth. He had told Pontiac
that the French in America were now the subjects of the English king,
and so could not fight against his people.
When the great chief heard this he did not put on his war paint and lead
his warriors against the defenseless French who had so long dealt
falsely with him. He sat alone for a long time, thinking. The next day
he sent a letter to Major Gladwin saying that he was now ready to bury
the hatchet, and begging the English to forget the past.
Major Gladwin thought that the French were more to blame than the
Indians in the war, and was willing to be at peace with his red
neighbors. So he sent Pontiac a favorable reply. A few days later the
stern-faced chief turned his back on Detroit, and began his march to the
Maumee River, followed by his faithful braves.
XII. ALL ALONG THE FRONTIER
The plan of Pontiac had been to take the forts all along the frontier by
strategy and then destroy the defenceless English settlements.
We have seen that while there were many French farmers living outside of
the walls of Detroit there were very few English. And, in truth, in
1763, there were not many English settlers east of the Alleghany
Mountains. Most of the forts that had been taken from the French, except
those on the Mississippi River, were garrisoned with English. Within
reach of the protection of these forts, lived some British traders and
trappers, and a few venturesome settlers. But the Mohawk Valley in New
York, and the Susquehanna, in Pennsylvania, really formed the western
limit of extensive English settlement.
Pontiac's war belts had stirred up the Indians all along the border. In
the summer of 1763, while he and the Ottawas and Ojibwas were besieging
Detroit, the Delawares and Shawnees were laying waste the Pennsylvania
frontier.
Backwoodsmen, trappers or travelers, venturing into the wilderness were
shot down without warning. Men, women, and children were miserably
slain. Isolated farmhouses were attacked, their inmates scalped, the
cabins burned. Churches and schools added to the blaze that swept the
wilderness from the Great Lakes to the Ohio. One after another the
smaller forts were taken by the Indians.
Panic seized the settlers. Women left the kettle on the hearth, men the
plow in the furrow, and fled. Some crowded for refuge into the nearest
fort. Others feared to stop until they had reached Lancaster or even
Philadelphia.
The terrible butcheries committed by the Indians so maddened the
frontiersmen that they forgot their civilization and resorted to methods
as inhuman as did the Indians. Peaceable, friendly Indians were
massacred by bands of ruffian borderers, organized for vengeance as well
as protection. Even men in high places forgot their usual humanity. The
commander-in-chief of the army, Sir Jeffrey Amherst, and Colonel Henry
Bouquet planned to send smallpox among the Indians by giving them
infected blankets. They even talked of fighting them with bloodhounds
instead of soldiers. The Governor of Pennsylvania issued a proclamation
offering a reward for Indian prisoners and Indian scalps.
Fort Pitt, one of the most important posts on the frontier, held out
against the attacks of the Delawares and the Shawnees. When the
commander-in-chief of the army learned of the distress of the fort he
sent a strong force under Colonel Bouquet to relieve it.
In August, when crossing the Alleghany Mountains, Bouquet's army was
assailed by a horde of Indians that had been lying in wait for them at
Bushy Run. The battle which followed was hot. The British were
courageous, but they fell in large numbers under the fire of the
Indians, who fled before every charge, only to return like infuriated
wasps at the moment the English fancied they had repulsed them. Night
brought relief from the galling fire. But the battle was not over.
The English were held penned up on the road without water till dawn,
when the charge was renewed with such zest that for a time it looked as
if there were no escape for the forces of Bouquet. The unusual boldness
of the Indians suggested to him a stratagem.
[Illustration: REDOUBT AT FORT PITT]
He feigned a retreat. Thus encouraged the Indians rushed upon the
British with war whoop and scalp cry. The forces of Bouquet divided; the
Indians filled the breach. Then at the word of command the troops closed
on them, charging with bayonets. Many of the Indians entrapped in this
way fell; the rest fled.
After that the English made their way to Fort Pitt without serious
interruption. In the battle of Bushy Run the loss on both sides was
heavy for an Indian battle. The English lost eight officers and over one
hundred soldiers; the Indians, several chiefs and about sixty warriors.
Though the English loss was greater than that of the Indians, it could
be more easily made up. For that reason, and because the English had
succeeded in reaching Fort Pitt, the expedition was regarded as a
splendid victory for the palefaces.
As winter advanced the Indians were obliged to desist from war and go
into the forest in small companies to hunt. During the winter that
followed the rebellion, the Indians had no help from the white people,
and the bitter hardships they suffered did much to put them into a
pacific frame of mind.
Sir William Johnson, the king's sole agent and superintendent of Indian
affairs, understood the red men better than most of his countrymen did.
He lived among them on a great estate in the Mohawk Valley. He spoke
their language and often dressed in Indian suit of slashed deerskin.
In his opinion it was wasteful and unwise to fight with the Indians. He
said the English were largely to blame for the Indian war because of
their injustice and their want of policy in dealing with the savages. He
advocated following the example of the French, and winning the good will
of the Indians by flattery and presents. He believed that under that
policy the Indians would become so dependent on the white man that they
could be easily subdued.
Early in the spring of 1764 he sent messages to the various tribes,
warning them that two great armies of English soldiers were ready to
start into the western forest to punish the enemies of the English, and
inviting all who wished to make peace to meet him at Niagara.
Accordingly, early in the spring, the fields around the fort at Niagara
were dotted with Indian encampments. Among the savages were friendly
Indians who had come to claim their reward; enemies who, through want or
fear, were ready to make a temporary peace, and spies, who wanted to see
what was going on.
For many a long day Sir William Johnson sat in the council room at the
fort making treaties with various tribes. All day the fumes of the
peace-pipe filled the hall, and threats and promises were made, and
sealed with long strings of wampum.
It would have taken much less time to make one treaty with all the
Indians, but Sir William Johnson sought to discourage the idea of a
common cause, which Pontiac had done so much to arouse among the
Indians. He treated each tribe as if its case were quite different from
that of every other tribe.
Some Indians were so bold that they would not even pretend to be
friendly. The Delawares and the Shawnees replied to the Indian agent's
message summoning them to Niagara, that they were not afraid of the
English, but looked upon them as old women.
The armies to which Sir William Johnson had referred were under the
command of Colonel Bouquet and Colonel Bradstreet. The latter went by
way of the Lakes to relieve Detroit, offer peace to the northern
Indians, and subdue those who refused to submit. Bouquet, with a
thousand men, penetrated the forests further south to compel the fierce
Delawares and Shawnees to submission. Both succeeded.
[Illustration: COUNCIL WITH COLONEL BOUQUET]
Bradstreet found the northern Indians ready to come to terms. He has
been criticised for requiring the Indians to sign papers they did not
understand and make promises that they did not fulfill. He did not see
Pontiac, but sent a deputation to find him and confer with him.
Colonel Bouquet, on the other hand, was stern and terrible. In council
he addressed the Indians as chiefs and warriors, instead of "brothers."
He refused to smooth over their wrong doing or listen to the excuses
they offered for going to war. He charged them openly with the wrongs
they had done, and required them to surrender all their white prisoners
and give him hostages from their own race.
Many of the captives had lived among the Indians so long that they had
forgotten their white relatives and friends. They left the Indian life
and Indian friends with tears, and would have remained in captivity
gladly. But Colonel Bouquet would make no exceptions.
His stern measures subdued the warlike tribes completely. In the fall of
1764 Bouquet returned to the East to receive honors and rewards for his
services.
XIII. THE LAST OF PONTIAC
While other Indians were promising to bury the hatchet, Pontiac, the
soul of the conspiracy, made no promises and smoked no peace-pipe.
Surrounded by hundreds of warriors the chief camped on the Maumee River.
His messengers brought him news of what was going on, and until the
white men had taken their soldiers from the land he was content to wait
and plan.
Captain Morris, who had been sent to Pontiac's camp by Colonel
Bradstreet, was coldly received by the great chief. Pontiac, indeed,
granted him a hearing, but he bent upon his guest dark looks and refused
to shake his hand. He made no flowery speeches, but declared that all
the British were liars, and asked what new lies he had come to tell.
After some talk Pontiac showed the captain a letter which he supposed to
have been written by the King of France. It told the old story of the
French army on its way to destroy the English. Captain Morris did his
best to persuade him that the report was false. He was much impressed
with the influence, knowledge, and sense of Pontiac--an Indian who
commanded eighteen nations and was acquainted with the laws that
regulated the conduct of civilized states.
Pontiac would make no official promises of peace, but he was so much
discouraged by the communications Captain Morris brought, that he said
to one of the followers of the latter: "I shall never more lead the
nations to war. As for them, let them be at peace with the English if
they will; for me, I shall be at war with them forever. I shall be a
wanderer in the woods, and if they come to seek me I will fight them
single-handed." With much bitterness of soul did Pontiac learn that the
forts he had taken with so much effort and loss of Indian blood, had
been retaken by the enemy; that the war spirit he had with so much labor
aroused had been put to sleep.
But his hopes were not easily dashed. There were the letters from the
French. The English said they were false, but the English were his
enemies. The French were his friends. Enemies might deceive each other,
but friends must trust each other.
His confidence in the French was encouraged by the fact that several of
the forts in the Illinois country were still occupied by French
garrisons.
Pontiac resolved to make another effort to rouse his people. He set his
squaws to work on a wampum war belt, broad and long, containing symbols
of the forty-seven tribes which belonged to his confederacy. When the
belt was done he sent a delegation of chiefs to the south with it. These
messengers were instructed to show the war belt and offer the hatchet to
all the tribes along the Mississippi River as far south as New Orleans.
They were then to visit the French Governor at New Orleans and invite
him to assist them in war against their common enemy.
Pontiac, in the meantime, went about among his old French friends asking
for their help, and among the Illinois Indians urging them with threats
and promises to join him in making war against the English. He met with
some success, but his dreams were rudely broken by the return of his
chiefs with the news that the Governor of New Orleans had indeed yielded
to the British, and by the arrival of a company of British from Fort
Pitt, offering terms of peace to the Illinois Indians. Daily Pontiac's
allies deserted him, and accepted the terms of the English.
Again the day had come when it seemed to Pontiac wise to let his hatred
of the English sleep. He sent his great peace-pipe to Sir William
Johnson and promised to go to Oswego in the spring to conclude a treaty
with him.
True to his promise, in the spring of 1766, Pontiac, greatest war chief
and sachem of the Ottawas, presented himself in the council chamber of
Sir William Johnson. There was nothing fawning in his attitude; he
conducted himself with the dignity of a fallen monarch. "When you speak
to me," he said, "it is as if you addressed all the nations of the
west." In making peace he submitted not to the will of the British but
to that of the Great Spirit, whose will it was that there should be
peace. He made it clear that in allowing the English to take the forts
of the French the Indians granted them no right to their lands. When he
promised friendship for the future, he called his hearers to witness how
true a friend he had been to the French, who had deceived him and given
him reason to transfer his friendship.
It would be hard to say how sincere Pontiac was, or how readily he would
have let go the chain of friendship he had been forced to take up, had
opportunity offered. He went back to his camp on the Maumee River, and
there among his own people tried to live the life of his fathers. Little
was heard of him for a year or two, but whenever an outbreak occurred
among the Indians there were those who said Pontiac was at the bottom of
it.
In the spring of 1769, anxious to see his French friends once more, he
made a visit to St. Louis. He was cordially received and spent several
days with his old acquaintances. Then he crossed the river with a few
chiefs to visit an assembly of traders and Illinois Indians.
After feasting and drinking with some of the Illinois, Pontiac sought
the quiet of the forest. He wandered through its dim aisles, living over
again the hopes and ambitions of the past, which his visit with the
French and the Illinois had vividly recalled. He had forgotten the
present and was again the mighty warrior who had made the hearts of the
palefaces quake with fear. Little he dreamed that behind him stood an
assassin with up-raised tomahawk.
The murderer of the great chief was an Illinois Indian who had been
bribed to do the deed by an English trader.
During his life Pontiac had tried to overcome the tribal feeling of the
Indians, and to unite them as one people. Over his grave the old tribal
instinct awoke. The Illinois rallied about their kinsman to protect him;
the Ottawas flew to arms to avenge their chief--such a sachem, such a
chief, could not be forgotten. Wrong to him could not be forgiven. The
fury of the Ottawas was not slaked until they had avenged the death of
their chief, through the destruction of the powerful tribes of the
Illinois.
THE STORY OF TECUMSEH
BY
FRANCES M. PERRY
THE STORY OF TECUMSEH
I. EARLY YEARS
The great Indian leader, Pontiac, died in 1769, disappointed in his
attempt to unite the Indians in a confederacy strong enough to withstand
the white race. But the struggle between the red man and the white was
not ended.
At about the time of the old chief's death a child was born among the
Shawnee Indians who was to take up the cause of his people with equally
great courage and intelligence. This child was called Tecumseh, which
means shooting-star.
The tribe to which Tecumseh belonged had not yielded to the temptations
offered by the white man. Although many of the tribes north of the Ohio
River, through the influence of alms and whisky, were fast losing their
savage virtues and becoming spiritless beggars, idle, drunken,
quarrelsome, the Shawnees were still strong and warlike.
Several of the Shawnee tribes lived together in a large village on Mad
River, not far from the place where Springfield, Ohio, now stands. There
they had built for themselves rude huts made of sapling logs. Around
these lodges, on the fertile land along the river were corn fields,
where the Indian women worked while the men hunted or went to war.
In this village, on a bluff near the river, stood Tecumseh's first home.
His father was chief of a small tribe and was highly respected for his
courage and good sense. His mother, the daughter of a chief, was a woman
of strong character.
As Tecumseh was the son of such worthy parents, and as he was one of
three brothers born on the same day, he was regarded even in babyhood
with uncommon interest. The superstitious Indians believed that the
three little boys would become extraordinary men. Two of them, Tecumseh
and his brother, Laulewasikaw, fulfilled the largest expectations of
their friends.
The child, Tecumseh, was a bright-eyed, handsome little fellow, at once
winning and masterful in manner. His favorite pastime was playing war.
The boys he played with always made him chief and were as devoted to him
as ever Indians were to a real chief.
It is no wonder that at this time the Shawnee children played war; for
their elders were almost constantly fighting with the settlers.
Tecumseh's childhood was far from a peaceful, happy one. He learned
early the oppressive gloom and the wild excitement that accompany war.
He was called upon, now to take part in the fierce rejoicing that
followed an Indian victory; again, to join in the mournful wailing of
the women when the dead warriors were brought from the battlefield.
But his experience of war was not limited to celebrating and mourning
distant victories and defeats. The enemy did not spare the village in
which he lived. He knew that when the braves were on the warpath the
children must stay near their mother's lodge. For, several times runners
had come in hot haste bidding the squaws flee with their pappooses to
the forest and hide there till the palefaces had passed. It made little
Tecumseh's heart beat hard to think of the excitement and terror of
those days.
[Illustration: INDIAN WARRIORS]
Even in time of peace Tecumseh was accustomed to suffering and
discontent. Food and clothing were so scarce that the Indians were often
in want of enough to eat and wear. Children died from the effects of
hunger and cold, and men and women grew gaunt and stern. Frequently the
hunters came home empty-handed or bringing only small game.
They attributed all their troubles to the "Long Knives," as they called
the white men, who, they said, had stolen their hunting grounds. So when
Tecumseh was but a child he hated the palefaces, and was glad when his
tribe made war against them.
In 1774 the Ohio Indians learned that the Virginians were coming into
their country to destroy their villages. Accordingly, all able-bodied
warriors took up their weapons and went with the proud chief, Cornstalk,
to meet the enemy. Tecumseh's father and eldest brother, Cheeseekau,
were among the number.
After anxious waiting, those who had stayed behind were gladdened by the
good news that for the present their homes were safe. But many of those
homes had been made desolate by the battles waged in their defense.
Cheeseekau came home from the war alone. His father had fallen in
battle.
The mother and her children ceased their wailing and for the time forgot
their loss, as they sat by the fire with Cheeseekau and heard the young
warrior talk of his first battle. He said that he wished to die on the
battlefield, as his father had done, for an Indian could hope for no
better end. He told what a good fight the Indians had made and how brave
their leader had been.
"All over the field," he said, "you could hear Cornstalk shout to his
men 'Be strong! Be brave!' The warriors had more fear of Cornstalk's
hatchet than of the Long Knives' guns. They did not dare to run. Some
tried it. But Cornstalk buried his tomahawk in the head of the first,
and the rest turned back to fight the palefaces. When the battle was
over Cornstalk called a council and said: 'The palefaces are coming
against us in great numbers. We can not drive them back. What shall we
do? Shall we fight a while longer, kill a few more of them, and then
yield? Shall we put to death our women and children and fight till we
die?' No one spoke. Then he said: 'I see you will not fight. I will go
and make peace with the white men.' And he made us a good peace.
Cornstalk is the greatest chief we have had since Pontiac."
Then followed stories of the great Pontiac, who had tried to make the
Indian tribes stop fighting with one another and unite their strength
against the white man. Thus, before Tecumseh could talk plainly, he
heard about the heroes of his race, and learned what was expected of a
good Indian.
From this time the youthful warrior Cheeseekau took his father's place
as head of the family. He not only provided the family with food and
clothing, but also looked after the education of his younger brothers.
Tecumseh was his favorite, and he strove to teach him all that was
needful to make him a brave warrior and a good man.
II. YOUTH
During Tecumseh's boyhood the Revolutionary war was being fought. The
Indians took the part of the British. It was natural that they should
feel a more bitter hatred for the colonists who had actually taken their
lands and fought against them, than they had for the distant mysterious
"king," whom they had been taught to call "father," and to regard as a
superior being. Besides, they little doubted that the king who had
already beaten the French could subdue his own rebellious subjects. And
they looked forward to the reward he would give them for their aid when
the war was over.
The victories of the colonists were familiar topics of discussion among
the Indians. They spoke with increasing uneasiness of the deeds of
Washington, Putnam, and Greene. But the name to them more terrible than
all the rest was that of George Rogers Clark. With sinking hearts they
heard of his victories on the frontier.
In the summer of 1780 scouts brought word to the Shawnees on Mad River
that this dreaded soldier was approaching with his army. Though alarmed,
the Indians determined to do what they could to save the cabins and fort
which they had built with much toil, and the growing corn upon which
they depended for their winter food.
Three hundred warriors assembled in the village. They held a hurried
council and decided to advance to meet Clark's army and surprise it with
an attack at daybreak. But if there was a surprise where Gen. Clark
was concerned, he was usually the man to give it. Accordingly, the
Indians learned with dismay that their plan could not be carried out,
for General Clark's army by forced marches had reached and was already
surrounding their village. The Indians had built a fort, but now they
were afraid to use it and took refuge in their log huts. They began to
cut holes in the walls, so that they might fire on the enemy.
When General Clark heard this, he said: "Hold on a minute, and I'll make
holes enough for them." With that he ordered up his cannon and caused it
to be fired into the village.
The Indians were so terrified that all who could do so fled into the
woods and swamps. The rest fell an easy prey to the soldiers, who killed
many warriors, made prisoners of the women and children, burned the
houses, and cut down the corn.
[Illustration: GEORGE ROGERS CLARK]