PART III

THE STORY OF THE GREAT LAKES

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO

ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO

MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED

LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA

MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.

TORONTO

[Illustration: Portrait of Robert Cavelier de La Salle]

THE STORY OF THE GREAT LAKES

BY

EDWARD CHANNING

PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY

AND

MARION FLORENCE LANSING

EDITOR OF THE “OPEN ROAD LIBRARY”

_WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS_

New York

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1909

_All rights reserved_

COPYRIGHT, 1909,

BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped. Published March, 1909.

_Norwood Press

J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.

Norwood, Mass., U.S.A._

PREFACE

For three hundred years the Great Lakes have been the centre of an

immensely varied and interesting history. They were originally the home

of savages; they were discovered and explored by Frenchmen; they became

the scene of a century-long struggle for possession by Indians of many

tribes and white men of three nations; and they have been finally

occupied and developed by Americans. In every epoch they present a rich

field for study.

No minute and exhaustive chronicle has been attempted in this volume,

but important events, with the customs and life of each period, have

been brought together and presented. Changes have come with such

rapidity that the conditions of fifty years ago seem remote to-day. In

this swift progress the heritage of the past must not be forgotten. The

picturesqueness of the early life, the courage and hardihood of the

explorers and settlers, and the tale of thrilling adventures and noble

deeds should be treasured, as should the achievements of the builders

of cities and captains and soldiers of industry of our own day.

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS,

November, 1908.

CONTENTS

PART I

DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION

CHAPTER PAGE

I. The Great Lakes 3

II. Champlain on the Great Lakes, 1615–1616 10

III. The Jesuit Mission to the Hurons, 1626–1650 25

IV. The Pageant of Saint Lusson, 1671 39

V. The Building of the _Griffon_, 1678–1679 49

VI. La Salle on the Great Lakes, 1679 61

VII. A Hapless French Governor, 1682–1684 73

PART II

THE STRUGGLE FOR POSSESSION

VIII. The Founding of Detroit, 1701 87

IX. Niagara and the Loss of Canada, 1759 101

X. The Conspiracy of Pontiac, 1763–1764 113

XI. The Adventures of a Trader, 1761–1764 135

XII. Wayne’s Indian Campaign, 1794 151

XIII. The Great Lakes in the War of 1812 165

XIV. The Conquest of Lake Erie, 1813 179

XV. General Lewis Cass and Reorganization 1813–1832 191

XVI. The Black Hawk War, 1832 201

PART III

OCCUPATION AND DEVELOPMENT

XVII. Gateways of the Great Lakes, 1600–1900 217

XVIII. The Story of a Road, 1600–1900 228

XIX. Before and after the Turnpike, 1796–1811 242

XX. The Erie Canal, 1825 251

XXI. The Great Lakes in 1840 266

XXII. The Coming of the Railroad to Lake Erie,

1836–1853 283

XXIII. Lincoln and Douglas in Chicago, 1858–1861 299

XXIV. The Great Lakes in the Civil War, 1864 317

XXV. Three Great Industries of the Lakes 330

XXVI. Shipping on the Lakes 356

XXVII. The Development of the City 374

A BRIEF LIST OF BOOKS 385

INDEX 393

MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS

MAPS

PAGE

Huron--Erie--Ontario 12

From Lake Michigan to the Mississippi 202

Gateways of the Lakes 223

By Trail and Turnpike to Lake Erie 232

By Canal and Railroad to Lake Erie 284

ILLUSTRATIONS

La Salle _Frontispiece_

The “Soo” Canal _facing page_ 8

Niagara Falls as sketched by Hennepin ” 52

La Barre and Grangula ” 76

A View of Niagara Fort ” 104

Black Hawk ” 204

Through the Locks at Lockport ” 256

Chicago in 1831 ” 278

An Early Lake Superior Copper Mine ” 348

Iron Ore at a Lake Superior Port ” 352

The Old and the New, General Cass’s Canoe

and a Modern Freight Steamer ” 360

Grain Elevator and Lumber Jam ” 370

PART I

DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION

CHAPTER I

THE GREAT LAKES

Standing in Lake Park, Chicago, beside the statue of General Logan,

the supporter of Douglas and, later, of Lincoln, one has behind

him the most marvellous city of modern times, and before him the

southwesternmost of the Great Lakes. In front, glitter the waters over

which La Salle journeyed three centuries ago. As in those days, they

respond to the play of wind and weather, now calm as a sheet of glass,

and now swept by sudden gales into turbulent waves and breakers; but

the aspect of the land is such that were La Salle to visit it he would

not recognize the spot. In place of a wilderness with an occasional

group of low-lying Indian wigwams he would see a mighty city of

buildings towering one hundred and fifty feet above the street and

reaching down from twenty-five to fifty feet below ground. In place of

a few canoes with their loads of furs and crews of savages, emerging

from the narrow mouth of the Chicago River, seven thousand freighters

and steamers with an aggregate tonnage greater than that floated in

any other port in the world touch annually at the wharves along her

splendid harbor front. These vessels and thousands of trains, running

on tracks whose mileage is more than a third of that of the whole

railway system of the United States, bring to her stockyards, her grain

elevators, and her markets the herds and flocks of the western plains,

the crops of the wheat-fields of the Northwest, and the merchandise of

Europe and of Asia.

Chicago is the greatest distributing centre of this region, but the

ports of Lake Erie handle many important industries whose traffic never

enters Lake Michigan. The copper of the upper Michigan peninsula,

the iron ore of the Wisconsin and Minnesota ranges, the coal of Ohio

and Pennsylvania, and many a minor industry have had their share in

building up the modern empire of the Great Lakes. The body of water

about which this empire has risen is made up of five lakes: Superior,

Huron, Michigan, Erie, and Ontario, which together form the greatest

inland waterway of the world. These lakes have an area of more than

half that of the Black Sea or the Caspian, while Lake Superior is

the largest body of fresh water on the globe. The four upper lakes

are so nearly level that one canal with a single lock has given them

a navigable length of over fourteen hundred miles. Lake Ontario,

however, is effectively separated from the others by Niagara Falls and

its attendant rapids. Other great inland bodies of water are directly

connected with the ocean by navigable straits. The Mediterranean Sea is

entered from the Atlantic by the Strait of Gibraltar, the Black Sea is

connected in its turn with the Mediterranean by the Dardanelles and the

Bosphorus; but Niagara closes direct navigation between the Great Lakes

and the sea.

Canals have done much in the last hundred years to alleviate the

natural inaccessibility of the lake system. Eighty-five years ago the

Erie Canal gave a water route from the eastern end of Lake Erie to

the Hudson River and thus to the Atlantic Ocean. Five years later the

Welland Canal passed round Niagara Falls and connected Lake Erie with

Lake Ontario, and a third canal soon connected Lake Erie with the Ohio

River. To-day a second era of canal building is upon us. The Welland

Canal has been widened, making it possible for boats of moderate

draught to go from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario and thence by numerous

small cuts around the rapids of the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic. The

Erie Canal is being enlarged, and engineers dream of a time when it

will be made sufficiently wide and deep for sea-going vessels to pass

from the Atlantic Ocean to Lake Erie. The Hennepin Canal at Chicago

will open a route from Lake Michigan by the Illinois and Mississippi

rivers into the Gulf of Mexico. Each state bordering on the Great Lakes

as well as every province of the Dominion of Canada is to-day planning

extensions of this canal system.

On the lonely shores past which La Salle and later explorers voyaged

have been built villages, towns, and cities. This region is to-day the

clearing-house of the commerce of the central plain of North America.

From the western terminals of the lake routes railways pass over the

plains and mountains of the Northwest to the Pacific; from their

eastern ports stretch lines to the seaboard cities of the Atlantic.

The farms of the Northwest send yearly one hundred and fifty million

bushels of wheat, six hundred million bushels of oats, and a billion

bushels of corn to Chicago and Buffalo and thence to the eastern

states and Europe. Coming from the west, the transcontinental roads pay

tribute at Chicago and then choose between the route north of Lake Erie

via Detroit, or south via Cleveland. They unite at Buffalo and follow

the Mohawk Valley to the Hudson and then to New York or Boston; or they

pass the Alleghanies farther south and reach the coast at Philadelphia,

Baltimore, or Norfolk. In any case, by land or water, from the north

or from the west, these products come to the Great Lakes, and are

carried from their ports to the factories and markets of the East,

or to steamers bound for Europe. This combination of land and water

transportation makes the Great Lakes the keystone of American industry.

We have spoken of the four upper lakes as united commercially into one

great sea. Before Lake Superior could be entered from the others one

formidable obstacle had to be overcome. Between Lake Superior and Lake

Huron was a ledge of rocks half a mile long over which the waters ran

in swirling rapids, forming the Sault (or Rapids of) Ste. Marie. At

this point the famous “Soo” Canal has been constructed with a single

lock which is the largest and costliest in the world, though it will

soon be surpassed by those at the entrance of the Panama Canal. This

canal was built in 1855, when the presence of iron and copper deposits

in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota was first discovered. To-day

the tonnage passing yearly through it runs up into figures that are

almost beyond belief; but these figures form the best single index of

the traffic of the Great Lakes. In the seven open months of 1907 there

passed through the “Soo” one hundred million tons of freight valued

at four hundred and fifty million dollars. This tonnage is nine times

that of the Suez Canal. The mines whose discovery made necessary the

cutting of the “Soo” Canal supply a large part of this freight. Of

iron ore alone they send thirty-three million tons to the foundries

and furnaces of Pittsburg and other centres, where the raw material is

manufactured into articles of iron and steel which form the basis of

modern civilized existence. From the deposits of the upper Michigan

peninsula comes yearly one-seventh of the world’s supply of copper.

These figures give some idea of the importance of the Great Lakes in

the economic development of the United States. Three hundred years

have seen this region converted from a wilderness peopled by Indian

tribes to the uses of modern civilization. This time might well be

shortened, since at the beginning of the nineteenth century the Great

Lakes and bordering lands were still occupied by the red man and a

few small villages and trading stations of the whites. It is indeed

wonderful what changes a century has witnessed.

[Illustration: The “Soo” Canal. Copyright, 1904, by Detroit

Photographic Co. Photograph of ships in a canal taken from shore.]

CHAPTER II

CHAMPLAIN ON THE GREAT LAKES

On the 28th of July, 1615, Samuel de Champlain paddled out of the mouth

of the French River into the waters of Georgian Bay, an arm of Lake

Huron; or, as he named it from its great expanse, the “Mer Douce,” or

“Freshwater Sea.” With him was a young interpreter, Étienne Brulé,

who had been sent by Champlain when a mere lad to winter in the Huron

country, and to learn from the Indians their languages and customs. As

a member of this Huron party, in 1610, he had been the first white man

to look upon the waters of Lake Huron, the central of the five Great

Lakes. Now Champlain himself had come, journeying from Montreal with a

trading party of Indians. Some of the Indians had slipped away before

the rest of the expedition was ready, taking with them a missionary.

Father Joseph Le Caron had, therefore, made the journey a few days

before his leader, but at last Champlain had reached the marvellous sea

of Indian story, and was on the point of exploring the region of the

Great Lakes.

He found the lands bordering the lakes occupied by three groups of

Indians: the Iroquois, who were closely banded together into a league

known as the Five Nations; the Hurons, who were related to them, but

were always at war with them; and the Algonquins, who belonged to one

great family, but were now divided into many widely scattered and

independent tribes.

The Five Nations of the Iroquois were joined in a loose but effective

confederacy. Originally they had formed one great tribe, but internal

dissension had split them into five,--the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas,

Cayugas, and Senecas. Legend states that Hiawatha had counselled union

and had thus brought about the League of the Iroquois, which was the

most important Indian organization north of Mexico. The confederation

was governed by fifty sachems, ten from each nation, who made up a

grand council. Unanimity was required in all decisions, but when these

were once arrived at the tribes were obedient. The Iroquois lived in

a wide strip of country extending from Lake Erie and Lake Ontario

eastward across central New York. They called this section of country

“The Long House” from its resemblance in shape to one of their oblong

dwellings.

[Illustration: Map of Lakes Huron, Erie, and Ontario, also depicting

connecting waterways and a number of smaller lakes in the region.]

The Algonquins occupied the greater part of the country from the

St. Lawrence to Lake Superior and the Mississippi, and included the

Illinois, Wisconsin, Chippewa, Ottawa, and other tribes of the lake

region. In the centre of the Algonquin country, in a narrow district

extending eastward from Georgian Bay toward Lake Ontario, lived the

Huron nation, a strong and prosperous tribe. Between them and the

Iroquois there was constant enmity, and for a time after the coming of

the whites it was by no means certain which group of Indians would come

out victorious. It was while this contest was at its height that Samuel

de Champlain came to the St. Lawrence and in 1608 founded Quebec. It

was to the Huron settlements he was journeying in the summer of 1615.

Champlain was born in southern France and had already won fame as an

explorer. He had visited the West Indies, Mexico, and Central America,

and had suggested the building of a ship canal at Panama. He had

coasted the shores of New England and had been one of the first French

colonists at the Bay of Fundy. After the founding of Quebec he had

traversed the lake which now bears his name and had journeyed far and

wide in the surrounding region. In these expeditions he had allied

himself with the Indians of the St. Lawrence and had supported them in

their battles with the Iroquois.

In the summer of 1615, yielding to the clamors of the Hurons gathered

at Montreal for their yearly traffic with the French, Champlain agreed

to accompany them on an inroad into the Iroquois country. He departed

for Quebec to make needful preparations, but when he returned after a

delay of a few days he found that the impatient Indians had set out for

their villages, taking with them Father Joseph Le Caron, a Recollect

friar who had come out with him from France that spring as a missionary

to the Indians. Champlain embarked immediately with ten natives,

Brulé, and another Frenchman on the journey to the Huron villages. He

approached Lake Huron by the hard northern route, travelling up the

Ottawa River, along the portage path to Lake Nipissing, across which

he sailed, and down the French River. Indian tribes along the way

encouraged the voyagers, telling them that the Lake of the Hurons was

at hand. At length they came out from between the banks of the river

into the waters of the lake. For more than a hundred miles they coasted

southward along its eastern shores, working their way in and out among

countless islands, till they reached the lower end of Georgian Bay.

There they landed and proceeded by a well-beaten trail into the heart

of the Huron country.

From the moment when he entered the first Huron village Champlain

recognized that this was an Indian community different from any that

he had heretofore seen. He had come upon one of the most remarkable

savage settlements on the continent. The people lived in permanent

villages protected by palisades of crossed and intersecting trunks of

trees. Not only was the land naturally fertile, but in the clearings

between the stretches of heavy forests were cultivated fields of maize

and pumpkins, and gay patches of sunflowers from the seeds of which the

Indians made oil for their hair. To Champlain coming from the roving

Algonquins of the St. Lawrence and the barren country along the Ottawa,

where the Indian population lived by hunting and fishing, the social

advancement of this group of tribes seemed very great.

The Hurons welcomed him with eager hospitality and took him from

village to village, entertaining him with lavish feasting and

celebration, for he was the champion who was to lead them to victory

against their hated foe the Iroquois. At the principal Huron village

Carhagouha, a settlement of two hundred bark lodges enclosed in a

palisade thirty-five feet high, Champlain found Father Le Caron.

The priest had feared that his leader would not follow the Hurons, or

that if he did he would be captured by the Iroquois. When he looked up

one morning and saw Champlain standing in the doorway of his dwelling

his joy knew no bounds. He showed him the bark wigwam which the

Indians, to prove the joy that they felt at his coming, were building

for him. They had offered at first to lodge him in one of their common

cabins, but Father Le Caron had remonstrated with them, representing

that “to negotiate with God affairs so important, involving the

salvation of their whole nation,” he needed a place where he could

be alone, far from the tumult of their families. So they had brought

poles and bark and erected this lodge at the edge of the forest. Here

he had raised an altar, and here on the 12th of August was celebrated

the first mass ever held in the country of the Hurons. Curious Indians

crowded about as the priest stood before his rude altar and led the

devotions of the kneeling band of Frenchmen with Champlain at their

head. For the first time the solemn chant of the “Te Deum Laudamus”

rang out on the listening air, and a volley of muskets proclaimed

the planting of a cross outside the priest’s lodge. The symbol of

Christianity had been raised in the country of the heathen!

Before they set out on the war-path the Huron chiefs insisted on a

weary succession of feastings and dancings, rejoicing in their serene

conviction of victory to come. Champlain spent the time going from

village to village, gratifying his insatiable curiosity over everything

which he saw. At last the savage war-party was ready to set out. They

crossed Lake Simcoe and paddled, making the necessary portages, down

the chain of intervening lakes to the river Trent, which flowed into

Lake Ontario. The country through which the long line of canoes passed

was singularly beautiful. Champlain found it hard to believe that

the groves of walnut trees, whose branches were twined with hanging

grapevines, had not been set out by the hand of man to form a beautiful

artistic picture. The party stopped once and encamped for a grand

deer-hunt, and then proceeded on its way, well-stocked with provisions

for the first days in the enemies’ country. Out upon Lake Ontario the

frail canoes ventured, and crossed it in safety, landing on the eastern

side of the lake, thirty miles or so from Oswego.

Now a change came over the warriors. Silently they hid their canoes

in the woods, and with stealthy and rapid steps they filed in silence

through the borders of this hostile country. For four days they

marched inland through the forest, crossing the Oneida River at the

western end of the lake, and on the 9th of October some of their scouts

brought in a captured fishing party of eleven Iroquois, men, women,

and children. A Huron chief took possession of the prisoners and began

to torture them, cutting off a finger of one of the women. Champlain

met this method of celebration with angry protest, declaring that it

was not the act of a warrior to treat helpless women with cruelty. The

chief agreed, since it was displeasing to Champlain, to do nothing more

to the women, but added that he would do to the men what he pleased. It

was a curious position in which Champlain had placed himself, aiding

one group of savages against another, nor did he find it to his liking.

The next day the war-party came out into a clearing in the forest,

from which they could see the Iroquois fort. A number of Iroquois were

gathering corn and pumpkins in the adjoining fields. With a rush the

impetuous young Hurons who were in advance screamed their war-cry and

fell upon them. The Iroquois seized their arms and defended themselves

with such success that their assailants began to fall back. Only the

timely aid of Champlain and the Frenchmen with their terrifying

muskets saved the invaders from defeat.

Champlain saw that this irregular way of fighting, each person

according to his whim, would result in utter ruin. The Hurons withdrew

into the forest to encamp for the night, and there he addressed them

angrily, showing them their foolishness and instructing them in the

best methods of war. He found the Iroquois village to be far more

strongly defended than any that he had seen among the Indians. Four

rows of palisades, made of trees thirty feet high, supported a kind of

gallery, which was provided with wooden gutters for quenching fire and

piled high with a goodly supply of stones to hurl at the enemy. This

was a stronghold that could not be captured by the haphazard methods of

the Hurons. Champlain set the Indians to work the next morning building

a wooden tower, high enough to overlook the palisades and large enough

to shelter four or five marksmen. In four hours the work was done, and

two hundred of the strongest warriors dragged it forward to a position

from which the musketeers could pour a deadly fire into the crowded

galleries. The rank and file of the Hurons were meanwhile equipped

with huge wooden shields to protect themselves against the arrows and

stones of the enemy. As the deadly bullets fell among them the Iroquois

rushed headlong from the gallery, and the result of the battle would

have been very different had the Hurons followed out Champlain’s

well-conceived plans; but they were ungovernable. With reckless fury

they threw away their shields, and yelling their war-cry so shrilly

that no command could be heard, they poured out into the open field,

discharging their own arrows but exposing themselves meanwhile to a

rain of stones and arrows from the Iroquois. One Huron, bolder than

the rest, ran forward with firebrands to burn the palisade, and others

followed him with the dry wood which they had gathered for the purpose.

But they set the fire on the leeward side of the fort, where the wind

was against it, and torrents of water poured down from above soon put

it out. In vain Champlain shouted commands and made every effort to

restore order. He soon decided that his shouting would only “burst his

own head” and have no effect on any one else. So he and his Frenchmen

set to work picking the Iroquois off the rampart with their shots.

After three hours of this kind of fighting the Hurons fell back.

Only eighteen men had been wounded, but among them were two chiefs and

Champlain himself. He had received one arrow in the knee and another in

the leg. He urged the Indians to renew the attack, but they refused.

From extreme overconfidence the warriors had passed to the deepest

discouragement. The next day a violent wind offered them an opportunity

to set fire to the fort, but the Hurons sat silent in their camp. For

five days they waited to see if the five hundred allies which Brulé and

twelve Hurons had started a month ago to fetch would appear. During

this time they ventured out occasionally for imprudent skirmishes,

each time running back under the cover of the French musket fire, amid

taunts from the Iroquois on the palisade that the Hurons had very

little courage to require French assistance. Then they hastily began

to retreat, carrying their wounded in the centre, while the Iroquois

harassed the flanks and rear of the company. The wounded, Champlain

among them, were packed in rude baskets made on the spot, and bound on

the backs of stout warriors. Champlain gives a vivid picture of the

suffering he endured, while he was thus “bundled in a heap, and doubled

and strapped together in such a fashion that it was as impossible to

move as for an infant in swaddling-clothes.” The torment from the

cramped position and constant jolting was so much worse than even the

pain of his wound that as soon as he could possibly bear his weight on

his leg he got out of “this prison.”

Snow and hail overtook the party on their dismal march to the lake.

They were relieved to find their hidden canoes safe, and embarked once

more on Lake Ontario. In his vain efforts to get the Indians to renew

the attack after their first defeat, Champlain had come to see that he

had lost some of his peculiar influence over them. They had fancied

that his presence would ensure victory. Now they saw him wounded, and

by Indian weapons. Their superstitious reverence for the “man with the

iron breast” was weakened. Here on the shores of Lake Ontario he was to

experience a very practical consequence of his loss of prestige. The

Hurons had promised him an escort to Quebec; but each warrior found a

reason why he should not be able to lend his canoe for the journey. The

chiefs who had made the promises had little control over their men,

and Champlain found that he must winter with the natives. The great

war-party broke up. Some went to hunt deer and bears, others to trap

beavers, others to fish in the frozen lakes and streams, and still

others returned to their villages. One of the chiefs offered Champlain

the shelter of his cabin, which he was glad to accept, and he settled

down to get what comfort and information he could from his forced visit.

Fifty pages of Champlain’s minute and wonderfully illustrated account

testify to the fact that he was not idle during the winter months. He

records many interesting customs of his Indian hosts. He watched their

deer-hunts, visited their villages and those of neighboring tribes,

was umpire in their disputes, and at last turned his face homeward in

the early spring. With him went Darontal, his Huron host. At Quebec

Champlain was welcomed as one risen from the dead, for the Indians had

long since brought in word that he had been killed. A solemn service

was held, and all united in rendering thanks to God for protecting the

travellers in their many perils and dangers. Upon this service and the

various acts of welcome Darontal gazed in bewildered astonishment.

Champlain showed him all the marvellous details of civilization. With

the usual Indian stolidity he observed everything carefully and calmly;

but at last his wonder broke down his reserve. Before he departed he

told Champlain that he should never die contented until he had told

his friends of the French way of living and seen them adopt it. With

valuable presents and a warm invitation to come again with some of his

friends, Darontal paddled back to his lodge in the woods with a story

that must have taken months in the telling.

This was Champlain’s last long trip of exploration. For the remaining

years of his life the needs of the colony at Quebec held him fast.

His writings, sold in the book-stalls of France, inspired others to

cross the seas and to continue the exploration and settlement of the

wilderness.

CHAPTER III

THE JESUIT MISSION TO THE HURONS

From 1615, when Father Joseph Le Caron celebrated the first mass among

the Hurons, for fourteen years a few intrepid priests braved the

difficulties of savage life, and endeavored at various times to set up

missions in the populous Huron villages south of Georgian Bay. They

suffered almost incredible hardships, and in 1629 Jean Brébeuf was the

only one who was left in the region. He was recalled to Quebec, but

five years later, a year before Champlain’s death, he set out with

two Jesuit companions to found, in the villages where Champlain had

wintered eighteen years before, the greatest Jesuit mission in the

history of New France.

No man in the annals of Church history has shown greater personal

heroism than Father Jean Brébeuf. He was tall and strong, well fitted

to withstand the hardships of his chosen calling and to impress the

Indians with his power. The square cap and surplice which he donned

when he assembled them for instruction, in order, as he naïvely writes,

to “give more majesty” to his appearance, were never less needed.

With natural dignity he combined the power of a life consecrated with

the utmost fervor to God and his Church. Never during long years of

service did he waver in his devotion nor shrink from anything that lay

before him in his work. From his reports sent home to his superiors

it is evident that he made a deep impression on the Indians. In these

detailed accounts of his experiences and of the savages among whom he

worked we get a clear idea of the man. We see him on the long canoe

journeys, sharing in the labor of paddling and portages, till even he,

who already knew, as he says, “a little what it is to be fatigued,”

was so weary that his body could do no more. But he tells us how at

these very times his soul experienced a deep peace such as it had never

known before. In the most matter-of-fact way he accepts and records the

continual hardships, never complaining of his lot, but writing with

rare modesty because his whole attention is centred on the work instead

of on himself. From his vivid pictures we learn, however, the truth

of one of his casual statements. “Truly,” he says, “to come here much

strength and patience are needed; and he who thinks of coming here for

any other than God will have made a sad mistake.”

In 1634 Father Brébeuf and his companions started on the northern

journey by the Ottawa River and Lake Nipissing to the Huron country.

They accompanied a party of Hurons who were returning from their

annual summer trading visit to Quebec. This nine-hundred-mile trip

took thirty days. Brébeuf kept count and found that they carried their

canoes thirty-five times on portages one, two, and even three leagues

long, covering the distance three and four times to transport even

their small amount of baggage, and that they dragged the canoes through

rapids at least fifty times, plunging into the icy water and cutting

their feet on the rocky bottom. At night they slept on the bare earth

or on hard rocks, stung by clouds of mosquitoes. Their only food was a

small portion of Indian corn coarsely broken between two stones, which,

though better than fasting, was regarded by the Jesuits as “no great

treat.” Yet, denying themselves the ordinary necessaries of life, these

priests transported the precious vessels for the mass over all this

weary way.

The other Jesuits suffered even more than Brébeuf. Their goods were

stolen; they were separated from the rest of the Huron party, and

deserted midway in the journey. It was weeks before the worn-out

travellers rejoined their superior in the Huron village. After a few

experiences like this in reaching the mission these wise priests

composed a set of instructions to the brethren who should follow them

on this Ottawa route. This code of behavior is highly characteristic of

the methods of the French Jesuits. In every detail,--from not keeping

the Indians waiting when they were ready to embark and not asking too

many questions, to being careful that in the canoe the brim of the

priest’s hat did not annoy those who sat nearest him,--these Jesuit

fathers aimed “not to be troublesome, even to a single Indian,” and to

“love them like brothers with whom you are to spend the rest of your

life.” In this spirit lay the success of all French effort among these

savage peoples.

At length Brébeuf landed on the southern shores of Georgian Bay,

only to be deserted at the last moment by his Huron guides and left

standing in the midst of his baggage on the lonely shore. He knew the

place well, for he had lived three years in a neighboring village.

This settlement had, however, been destroyed and its inhabitants had

built their huts on another spot several miles away. Brébeuf hid his

goods in the woods and set out alone by one of the gloomy forest paths,

which brought him, to his great relief, to the new village. At sight of

him some one cried out, “Why, there is Echom come again,” and at once

every one ran out to salute and welcome him, calling, “What, Echom,

my nephew, my brother, my cousin, hast thou then come again?” His

goods were fetched from the shore, and Brébeuf was established in the

house of a leading chief. As soon as his brother priests had arrived

the Indians set about building a house for the Jesuits. Bad crops and

famine had afflicted the people of late, and they rejoiced doubly at

the coming of Brébeuf, feeling sure that now the crops would no longer

fail. They wished, therefore, to provide for his staying in their

village instead of that of their neighbors.

The house which the missionaries had built for them was a constant

wonder to the Indians. It was thirty-six feet long and twenty wide, and

looked from the outside like any Huron bark house. But within, the

“black-robes” had made innovations which were the marvel of all their

visitors. They divided the house into three apartments, separated by

wooden doors such as the natives had never seen. The first room served

as antechamber and storm door to keep out the cold. The second was that

in which they lived. It was at once kitchen, carpenter shop, place for

grinding wheat, dining room, parlor, and bedroom. Beneath high wooden

platforms, on which they placed their chests of goods, the missionaries

slept on sheets of bark or beds of boughs covered with rush mats, with

skins and their clothing for covering. The third part was their little

chapel where they set up their altar, pictures, and sacred vessels, and

celebrated mass every day.

The house itself attracted scores of visitors, but when the clock and

the mill were set going the astonishment of the Indians knew no bounds.

No guest came who did not beg to be allowed to turn the mill, and as

for the clock, they sat in expectant silence by the hour, waiting

for it to strike. They all thought it some living thing, and when

it began to strike they would look about to make sure that all the

“black-robes” were there and that no one was hidden to shake it. They

named it “Captain of the Day,” and inquired for it as they would for

a person, wishing to know what its food was and how many times it had

spoken that day. The first time they heard it they asked what it said,

and the clever Jesuits told them two things. “When he strikes twelve

times, he says, ‘Come, put on the kettle.’” This speech they remembered

particularly well, for their own scanty meals were usually in the

morning and evening, and they were very glad during the day to take

a share of the Fathers’ repast. “But when he strikes four times, he

says, ‘Go out, go away, that we may close the door,’” the Jesuits told

their guests, and immediately they rose and went out, leaving the weary

Fathers free from the constant noise and chatter.

The missionaries gathered the Indians for instruction on every possible

occasion, teaching the children their prayers in Huron rhymes and

preaching and explaining the faith to their elders. The converts, save

those baptized on the point of death or in some fear of deadly peril,

were few, but the worthy Fathers persisted and won the gratitude of the

people by their help in time of famine and their kindly ministrations

to the sick. Other Jesuits joined them and founded additional missions

in neighboring villages. The Indians never understood these mysterious

white men, but regarded them with superstition, holding them answerable

for bad weather, famine, and the like, and on the other hand honoring

them when all was prosperous. The medicine men and sorcerers were

constantly against them, and in 1637 Father Isaac Jogues, one of the

leading Jesuits, heard the rumor that the white men were reported to

have bewitched the nation and must therefore be cut off. The assembly

of Huron chiefs met, and the Jesuit fathers addressed them as usual

on their unfailing topic, the joys of heaven and the fires of hell,

the latter being always the only part of the instruction that seemed

to make any impression on the stolid audience. For the time being the

Fathers escaped; but they were still in great peril. Brébeuf wrote a

letter of farewell to his superior at Quebec, and no Jesuit left the

house without the expectation of having a tomahawk crash into his head

before he returned. The unflinching courage of the Fathers won the

Indian respect. The Jesuits even went so far as to give, according to

the usual Indian custom for one on the point of death, a farewell

feast to all the savages, an act which was regarded as a declaration

that they knew their peril and faced it boldly. From that time forth

their supporters rose in defence of them. For the moment the danger was

averted and the Jesuits walked abroad once more. From now on, however,

their persecution as sorcerers continued at intervals in different

places, rising now and then to a storm of superstitious frenzy.

During the next five years the Jesuits extended their missions

among the Hurons till almost every town had resident priests. They

established on the shores of the river Wye a central station, which by

1648 had grown into a prosperous community with buildings which would

accommodate sixty persons. Pioneers went out to neighboring nations.

Brébeuf and a companion journeyed to the Neutral Nation which lived

north of Lake Erie and west and south of Lake Ontario, but were met

with strong opposition stirred up by the superstitious Hurons, who

conceived that it would be an easy and safe method of getting rid of

the priests to have their neighbors kill them. The two escaped after

great hardship and danger. Isaac Jogues and Charles Garnier went with

attendants to the Tobacco Nation, which lived two days’ journey

distant to the southwest, but were as rudely repulsed. Jogues was a

young man of indomitable will to whom hard tasks seem always to have

been assigned because of his complete self-surrender and consequent

power. To him fell, nevertheless, in the autumn of 1641 the pleasant

duty of visiting a tribe in the far west who had invited the priests to

come to them. At Lake Nipissing in September the Jesuits met certain

savages called Ojibways, who urged the “black-gowns” to visit them in

their homes, and gave directions for the journey. In accordance with

this invitation Jogues and Raymbault, with a small Huron escort, set

sail on Lake Huron and after a voyage of seventeen days reached the

rapids where dwelt their friends at the location of the modern Sault

Ste. Marie. Here they found about two thousand savages who welcomed

them cordially and looked and listened with awe as the priests

celebrated mass and explained their doctrines. They invited the Fathers

to take up their abode with them, saying that they would “embrace them

like brothers and profit by their words,” but the Jesuits could not be

spared from their other work. Jogues listened with interest to tales

of a great lake beyond the Sault, which it took nine days to cross, and

of a great river beyond, where dwelt mighty nations, “who,” the Fathers

reported to Paris, “have never known Europeans or heard of God.” They

could not stay, but sailed away, naming the place of their sojourn Ste.

Marie after the mission from which they came. They were not the first

white men to visit this strait. Nicolet, a voyager and trader, had

travelled with Brébeuf in 1634 as far as the Huron mission and had then

pushed on alone to the foot of these rapids and thence along the shores

of Lake Michigan, greeted everywhere by crowds of wondering savages.

It was left, however, to these pioneer missionaries to give to this

important waterway the name which it still bears.

Jogues returned to the Huron mission and wintered there, starting

in the spring of 1642 for Quebec with the Huron traders to bring

supplies to the mission, which was in a state of destitution. As he

was returning up the St. Lawrence River he and his companion, Goupil,

were captured by the Iroquois, who led them to the Mohawk towns. There

most of the Hurons of the party were killed, and Jogues and his white

companion were tortured and terribly mutilated. Goupil lost his life

in the Iroquois camp, but Jogues was finally rescued by Dutch allies of

the Mohawks and sent to Europe. From there he returned to New France

and was tortured and killed by the Iroquois in 1646.

Isaac Jogues was the first Jesuit to fall in the progress of that

warfare which was to bring to a tragic end the Jesuit mission to the

Hurons by wiping out the towns in which the missionaries labored. The

journey from Quebec to the Huron country was now fraught with peril

from the marauding bands of Iroquois warriors. Two years after the

first capture of Jogues an expedition led by Brébeuf relieved the needs

of the missionaries by bringing supplies. That same year another Jesuit

on his way to the mission was taken by the Iroquois, but in 1645 a

temporary peace rekindled the hopes of the Fathers. Three years later

the warfare broke out with renewed fury, and it soon became evident

that the Huron nation was doomed. Large bands of Hurons, deserting

their towns, fled into the interior. The Jesuits aided those who

remained to defend their homes, but town after town was taken and one

after another Jesuit fell into the hands of the Iroquois and suffered

martyrdom with cruel tortures. The story of the tragic death of Jean

Brébeuf, the founder of the mission, is one of wonderful strength and

endurance amid most revolting tortures. The few remaining Jesuits

withdrew with the terrified Indian survivors to an island in Lake

Huron, which they were able for a time to defend, but the Iroquois

lay in an ambuscade and captured the fugitives whenever they went

ashore. At the earnest entreaty of the chiefs of the doomed nation the

Jesuits gathered the remnant of their people and abandoned with them

the desolated country which had been for thirty-five years the seat of

missionary labors. Sadly they proceeded on the long journey to Quebec,

passing everywhere deserted villages which had been partially destroyed

by fire. Once they were attacked by the Iroquois, but at length reached

Quebec in safety. The Iroquois had driven the Hurons from their

homes to perish by famine and pestilence until the whole nation was

practically wiped out, and the most important field of Jesuit missions

was turned into a solitude and a desolation. The future for French

missions looked dark indeed, and for a time western exploration was

also abandoned.

Within four years hope of better success in converting the heathen

appeared in an unexpected spot. The crafty Iroquois, attacked by their

southern neighbors, sent overtures of peace to Quebec and invited to

their villages the once hated Jesuit priests. Father Le Moyne was the

first to respond, and others followed, eager to convert this savage

people. The first mission was brought to a speedy end by the uprising

of the Iroquois against the remaining Hurons and their former white

allies in 1658, but by 1665 the government of New France was strong

enough to mete out deserved punishment to the marauding parties of

Iroquois warriors, and by 1668 a mission was established in each of the

Five Nations.

CHAPTER IV

THE PAGEANT OF SAINT LUSSON

With the destruction of the Huron missions western exploration ceased

for a few years. In 1660 Father Ménard passed through the Sault Ste.

Marie and spent a winter ministering to the Indians on the southern

shore of Lake Superior. In the following summer he set out on an inland

journey from the lake and was never heard from again. In the same year,

however, two fur-traders, Radisson and Groseilliers, coasted along the

shore of Lake Superior and Lake Michigan and were followed by many

Jesuit missionaries whose names have become famous. Two principal

mission stations were established, one at Sault Ste. Marie, the other

at La Pointe at the western end of Lake Superior. At these places

missionaries and traders heard many tales of a great river to the south

and of rich copper deposits in the lake region, which in turn led to

more exploring expeditions.

At Sault Ste. Marie, in 1671, there was a picturesque ceremony when

Daumont de Saint Lusson, agent of Louis XIV, took possession of the

interior of North America in the name of his king. For months the

French and the Indians had been preparing for this pageant. Messages

had been sent to all the Indian tribes living within one hundred

leagues of Ste. Marie, urging them to attend, and Nicholas Perrot, a

Canadian voyager and interpreter, had visited many of the tribes in

person to make sure of their coming. With a large Indian following,

he paddled up the Strait of Mackinac from Lake Michigan and landed at

the foot of the rapids. Saint Lusson was already there with fifteen

men. The French leaders were housed at the mission station, while

the savages made themselves comfortable in temporary lodges erected

along the stretch of shore and in the fields. Gradually tribe after

tribe from the north and the west arrived, and on the 14th of June,

when fourteen tribes or their representatives had come, Saint Lusson

announced that the ceremony would take place.

The Frenchmen, led by Saint Lusson, assembled in the village, and

crowds of curious Indians gathered about the small group of white

men. The French soldiers had brought out their gayest uniforms and

had polished their swords and muskets till they shone in the sunlight.

Coureurs de bois--runners of the woods--and other Indian traders

stood about in their rough picturesque costumes. At the head of the

line walked four Jesuits arrayed in the impressive vestments of the

priesthood. The names of these four men stand to-day as they signed

them at the foot of the instrument which records this act of taking

possession. They were a group of priests noteworthy in the history of

the lakes. At one end stood Father Claude Dablon, the Superior of the

Missions of the Lakes; next him came Gabriel Druilletes, a veteran

missionary, whose experience with the Indians exceeded probably that

of any Frenchman in Canada, and who had been sent by the government

years before on a mission to the English colonists on the Atlantic to

invite their coöperation against the Iroquois. Father Claude Allouez

had followed Father Ménard in the Lake Superior country and founded the

La Pointe Mission, and Father Louis André was establishing a station

among the Ottawas at Manitoulin Island. Father Allouez had been obliged

to leave the young Jesuit missionary Marquette in charge at La Pointe.

Had he been with his brother priests, the circle of famous names would

have been complete.

Led by these four men, the line of Frenchmen--a motley company of

soldiers, priests, explorers, and traders--marched up the hill to a

height which had been selected because it overlooked the surrounding

country. On either side of the column and behind it hovered the vast

throng of dusky Indians. As the Frenchmen halted and grouped themselves

about a huge cross of wood that lay on the ground, the Indians fell

into position behind them and stood silent, waiting to see what the

“white faces” would do. When all was quiet, Father Dablon, as Superior

of the Lake Missions, stepped forward and blessed the cross with all

the ceremonies of the Church. At a sign from Saint Lusson the holy

wood was lifted, and as the foot of the standard fell into the opening

prepared for it, the Frenchmen sang with all their hearts the ancient

hymn of their church:--

“The royal banners forward go,

The Cross shines forth in mystic glow:

* * * *

Fulfilled is all that David told,

In true prophetic song of old;

How God the heathen’s King should be,

For God is reigning from the tree.”

As they looked from the mighty cross to the horde of assembled savages

the Frenchmen felt that to-day as never before these words were

fulfilled. The uncomprehending Indians, who gazed at the pageant with

wondering delight in its pomp, little knew how the minds of these

white men were filled with the vision of a time, of which this was the

forerunner, when these red-skinned savages should be followers of the

heavenly King of the French and the obedient retainers of their earthly

monarch.

Beside the cross was erected a cedar pole to which was nailed a metal

plate engraved with the royal arms of France. As this was being raised

the Frenchmen chanted the twentieth Psalm, “In the name of our God

we will set up our banners,” and one of the Jesuits, even “in that

far-away corner of the earth,” as the record says, offered a prayer for

the French king in whose name all this was being done. Thus side by

side the standards of the two monarchs were raised in the wilderness,

and Saint Lusson, stepping forward amid an expectant hush, with

a sword in one hand and a sod of earth in the other, took formal

possession of the soil with these words:--

“In the name of the most high and redoubtable sovereign, Louis the

Fourteenth, Christian King of France and Navarre, I now take possession

of all these lakes, straits, rivers, islands, and regions lying

adjacent thereto, whether as yet visited by my subjects or unvisited,

in all their length and breadth, stretching to the sea at the north and

at the west, or on the opposite side extending to the South Sea. And I

declare to all the people inhabiting this wide country that they now

become vassals of His Majesty, and bound to obey his laws and follow

his customs. He will protect them against all enemies. In his name I

declare to all other princes and sovereigns and potentates of whatever

rank,--and I warn their subjects,--that they are denied forever seizing

upon or settling within the limits set by these seas; except it be the

pleasure of His Most Christian Majesty, and of him who shall govern

in his behalf; and this on pain of incurring his resentment and the

efforts of his arms. Long live the King!”

As the last words fell from his lips the Frenchmen responded with a

loud shout, “Vive le Roi! Long live the King!”; guns were fired, and

the Indians shouted and yelped with delight. “The astonishment and

delight of those people,” says the chronicler, knew no bounds, “for

they had never seen anything of the kind.” If words and the planting

of symbols could do it, the king of France had taken possession of

the continent of North America, extending his dominion to the shores

of seas of which he had no knowledge. But the dream of the French was

not fulfilled. To-day a rival people, which then occupied only a small

strip of the Atlantic seaboard, has swept away almost every trace of

the empire thus proclaimed.

In order to impress upon the Indians more clearly the meaning of this

august ceremony, Father Claude Allouez had been appointed to set

forth the glory of the monarch to whom they were that day submitting

themselves. He had spent many hours listening to flowery Indian

harangues, and was familiar with the style of speech which suited their

comprehension and met with their approval. What the Indians gathered

from his curious address we do not know. After reading the part of it

which has been preserved we cannot wonder that, as the record tells,

“they had no words with which to express their thoughts.”

As soon as the wild uproar of shouts and musketry was hushed Father

Allouez stepped forward on a slight eminence and began his speech.

With a few words he dismissed the usual subject of his priestly

discourses, the cross and its significance, and turned to the other

post on which, as he explained to them, were fastened the armorial

bearings of the great “Captain of France.” To him all the captains

whom they had seen were mere children, or little herbs which one

tramples underfoot as compared to a great tree. Even Onontio,--the

governor of New France,--whose name was a daily terror to that mighty

nation, the Iroquois, was but one of ten thousand captains who lived

beyond the seas. When this great captain said, “I am going to war,”

all obeyed him. Those ten thousand captains raised companies of a

hundred warriors each, disposing them according to his orders, on sea

or land. Those who were needed at sea embarked on great ships which

held four or five hundred or even a thousand men, while their Indian

canoes held only four or five, or at best ten or twelve. Thus did this

king with his vast numbers of followers prepare for war, and when he

came to attacking the enemy he was more terrible than thunder, and the

earth trembled beneath him, while air and sea were set on fire by the

discharge of his cannon. He had been seen in the midst of his warriors

covered with the blood of his enemies whom he killed in such numbers

that he set flowing rivers of blood. But all this was now long past.

No one dared to make war on him; all nations had submitted to him and

begged humbly for peace.

In this warlike guise Father Allouez presented Louis XIV till the

Indian admiration was fully aroused and all were “astonished to hear

that there was any man on earth so great and rich and powerful.”

The day closed with a “fine bonfire,” lighted toward evening, around

which the Frenchmen sang the “Te Deum,” thanking God on behalf

of “those poor peoples,” who did not know enough to do it for

themselves,--that they were the subjects of so great and powerful a

monarch. The Indians departed to their homes, traders and coureurs

de bois disappeared into the forests, the Jesuits returned to their

self-sacrificing life of ministry, and adventurous French pioneers set

out across lake and wood to explore and claim the vast wilderness thus

appropriated by France. The pageant of Saint Lusson was over, and Sault

Ste. Marie relapsed into its usual life; but thus early in the history

of the Great Lakes this place had been singled out as a strategic spot.

CHAPTER V

THE BUILDING OF THE _GRIFFON_

The next noteworthy event in the story of the Great Lakes is the

building and the launching of the _Griffon_, and the voyage of La Salle

from the Niagara River to the southern end of Lake Michigan. Robert

Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle, or La Salle as he is usually called, came

to Canada in 1666, when he was three or four and thirty years of age.

Outwardly cold and reserved, he was inwardly consumed with a burning

desire for adventure. After his arrival, he set to work to study the

Indian languages, in which he soon became proficient; and it was his

delight to invite Indians to his cabin, and to draw from them tales

of the far-off regions in which they dwelt, and especially of those

wonderful rivers, the Ohio and the Mississippi, by the exploration

of which he hoped to provide a new passage to China and Japan. An

exploring trip which he took in 1669 gave him the practical experience

which was later to be of value. La Salle was a man of strong prejudices

and personal dislikes, who took little pains to overcome the jealousy

of those who were envious of him; but he gained one strong friend and

patron, Count Frontenac, the governor of New France, who recognized a

kindred spirit in this bold, enterprising young man.

To a person of La Salle’s disposition, the lands to the south of the

Great Lakes offered alluring prospects of immediate gain. Instead of

the barren soil, gloomy forests, and harsh climate of the lower St.

Lawrence Valley, this new country was largely open and abundantly

supplied with meadows, brooks, and rivers. The soil was so fertile that

everything which could be produced in France could be easily raised,

and there was an abundance of fish, game, and venison. Colonists would

find it easy to supply their own needs, and could engage in profitable

cattle raising, for flocks and herds could be left out all winter. La

Salle also reported that there was a species of native wild cattle,

called the buffalo, whose wool was better than that of any sheep in

France. He sought Louis XIV, king of France, and asked permission to

found colonies and to conduct the fur trade and explorations on the

regions bordering on the Great Lakes. The French king did not wish to

found new colonies, for those already in existence had proved very

expensive, but he was willing that La Salle should “labor at the

discovery of the western parts of New France,” provided that he pay

all the expenses of the enterprise himself, and bring the matter to a

conclusion within five years. With this permission and such money as

he could raise, La Salle returned to New France, and in the autumn of

1678 set out to put his plans into execution. Detailed and interesting

reports of his voyage on the waters of the Great Lakes have been

preserved in the entertaining account of the journey which was written

by Father Louis Hennepin, an adventurous missionary who delighted in

telling stories about himself and his doings. He was also something of

a prophet in foreseeing the time when there would be an “inconceivable

commerce” on the Great Lakes, and their shores would be lined with the

shops and dwellings of the whites.

Up to this time the French missionaries and the fur traders had gained

the interior by way of the Ottawa River, or the Toronto, and Georgian

Bay. La Salle decided to build a sailing-vessel on the shore of Lake

Erie, in which he could transport his men to the stations he intended

to establish, and also carry his trading goods to the Indians, and

bring back the furs which he obtained in exchange for them. He already

had a fortified post at Fort Frontenac on the northeastern shore of

Lake Ontario; but he could not build his ship at this point, because

the natives told him that formidable cataracts interrupted the

navigation between Lakes Ontario and Erie. He sent an advance company

to establish a station at the head of Lake Ontario, and to seek a

convenient site on Lake Erie for the construction of the ship. With

this expedition went Father Hennepin, whose graphic account of what he

saw and of what he experienced is one of the most interesting in the

annals of American exploration. The voyagers reached the mouth of the

Niagara River in safety. When the current became too strong for them

to go farther in their canoe, they landed and pushed forward through

the snow. As they made their way along the edge of the river, they

heard more and more clearly the roar of falling waters; and, at length,

there burst upon their sight the falls of Niagara, or the “Thunder

of Waters,” as the Indians called it,--that “vast and prodigious

cadence of water which falls down after a surprising and astonishing

manner, insomuch that the universe does not afford its parallel, those

of Italy and Switzerland being but sorry patterns.” Hennepin describes

this wonderful cataract as made up of two great cross-streams of

water and two falls with an island between, and declares that when

this “prodigious quantity” of water comes to fall, there is a din and

a noise more deafening than the loudest thunder; the rebound of the

waters was so great that a cloud arose from the foam and hung over the

abyss, even when the sun was at its height. He could not say enough

of this “most beautiful, and at the same time most frightful cascade”

which he saw for the first time on this December day in 1678.[1]

[1] Lake Ontario is 326 ft. lower than Lake Erie and about 30 miles

distant. For 18 miles the Niagara River flows peacefully along, then

suddenly the channel narrows and the waters rush down 53 ft. in half

a mile, and then drop over a cliff 160 ft. in two separate falls, one

600 and the other 200 ft. wide. Seven thousand tons of water are thus

discharged every second into a narrow gorge whose nearly perpendicular

walls rise 200 ft. on either side. Down its steep slope the imprisoned

waters dash in a succession of boiling rapids, white with foam, forming

in one loop of the channel a curious whirlpool. Issuing from this gorge

at Lewiston, the river flows tranquilly on to Lake Ontario.

[Illustration: Niagara Falls as sketched by Hennepin. The Falls are

seen from the Canadian side of the river, the viewer facing roughly

southeast. The American Falls are to the left, the Canadian Falls to

the right.]

While Hennepin and his party were exploring the Niagara, La Motte,

the leader of the expedition, had selected a site for a fortified

house about two leagues above the mouth of the river and not far from

the present town of Lewiston. He set his laborers to work, but their

task was hard, because the frozen ground had to be thawed with boiling

water before it was possible to drive down stakes for a palisade. As

the carpenters labored at their tasks, distrustful and jealous Indians

from a neighboring Seneca village of the Iroquois loitered about,

watching them with sullen looks, and intimated in a way that could

not be disregarded their unwillingness to allow the work to go on.

And well they might! Niagara was the key to the four upper lakes from

which the Iroquois fur trade could be controlled, and this fort was

being built expressly to hold in check those vigorous tribes, and put

an end to their trade with the English and the Dutch in the furs which

they obtained from the Indians of the western territory. La Salle had

realized that difficulty would probably arise, and had instructed La

Motte to go to the great village of the Senecas and endeavor to gain

their consent to the French plans for building the fort and the ship.

This La Motte now decided to do. After five days’ journey through the

snowy forests, he and his companions reached the town which was beyond

the Genesee and southeast of Rochester, not far from the present town

of Victor, New York. The weary travellers were conducted to the wigwam

of the principal chief, where women and children flocked to gaze upon

the whites. An old man, according to custom, went through the village

announcing their arrival, and younger savages washed their feet and

then rubbed them with bear’s grease.

The next afternoon, La Motte was summoned to confer with forty-two

old men who made up the Indian council. These chiefs, clad in robes

of beaver, wolf, or black squirrel, squatted upon the ground; but,

writes Hennepin, “the senators of Venice do not appear with a graver

countenance and perhaps do not speak with more majesty and solidity

than these ancient Iroquois.” La Motte’s interpreter harangued the

assembly, stating that the French wished to build a great wooden

canoe and to erect a fort on the banks of the Niagara River. He

endeavored to convince the natives that this enterprise would be for

their advantage, as it would enable the French to sell them goods at

lower prices than the Dutch and English traders. He enforced every

reason with wampum belts, and gifts of axes, knives, coats, and

scarlet cloth,--for the best arguments in the world were not listened

to by the Indians unless accompanied by presents. The shrewd, savage

politicians received the gifts, but were not convinced. Their replies

were general and evasive and gave no satisfaction. When the council

was over, they proceeded to torture an Indian prisoner, and La Motte

with his men left the camp in disgust to go back and await the arrival

of La Salle from Fort Frontenac. La Salle and Tonty, his ever faithful

friend and follower, with men and supplies for the expedition arrived

at the Seneca town not long after the departure of La Motte and his

men. La Salle succeeded in “so dexterously gaining their affection”

that the Indians consented to permit him to carry arms and ammunition

by the Niagara portage, to build a vessel above the cataract, and

to establish a fortified warehouse at the mouth of the river. Armed

with this permission, he proceeded to the encampment of La Motte. The

rejoicing at this success was short lived, for a few days later report

came that a vessel which La Salle had left at the mouth of the Genesee

River had been ship-wrecked on the southern shore of Lake Ontario. Of

all the equipment for his enterprise with which this vessel was laden,

only the anchors and cables for the new ship were saved; but La Salle

with his unvarying fortitude went on with the work as if nothing had

happened.

La Salle selected a spot on the banks of the Niagara River above the

falls at the mouth of what is now called Cayuga Creek, where the

water was quiet, being sheltered by an island from the current of the

river--a little village near that spot still bears his name. Hither the

little company of thirty men, heavily laden with tools and provisions,

journeyed laboriously through the snow on one of the last days of

January, 1679. Two Mohegan hunters, who were with the party, set about

making bark wigwams for the men and a chapel for Father Hennepin, who

had travelled the twelve miles with his portable altar lashed to his

back. The ship carpenters went to work at once, and in four days the

keel of the vessel was ready. La Salle invited Father Hennepin to drive

the first bolt, “but the modesty of my religious profession,” he says,

“compelled me to decline this honor.” So La Salle himself drove the

first nail in the ship.

Fortunately the majority of the Iroquois warriors had gone on the

war-path beyond Lake Erie; but although those who had remained at home

were less insolent because of the absence of the rest, yet they did

not fail to visit the shipyard frequently, loitering sullenly about

and exhibiting their displeasure. One of them, pretending to be drunk,

attacked the blacksmith, and tried to kill him; but the blacksmith

vigorously defended himself with a red-hot bar of iron. This, together

with the severity of the reprimand administered by Father Hennepin, who

always represents himself as indispensable on every occasion, induced

the savages to depart for the moment. The work went rapidly on, and

as the great “wooden canoe” began to show its proportions the Indians

became more and more alarmed. A few days later a squaw told the French

that they meant to burn the vessel on the stocks, and had not a very

close watch been kept they would undoubtedly have done so.

These frequent alarms, the steady cold, and the shortage of supplies

owing to the loss of La Salle’s vessel and the enmity of the Iroquois,

who refused to sell them food, discouraged the shipbuilders. They would

certainly have deserted had not La Salle and Hennepin taken great pains

to reassure and cheer them on. Toward spring La Salle set out on foot

for Fort Frontenac to procure food and supplies and to attend to his

personal affairs. His presence was needed there because his enemies

had persuaded his creditors that the undertaking was a rash one, and

had instigated them to seize all his goods, although Fort Frontenac

alone was more than sufficient to pay his debts. During La Salle’s

absence from Niagara one of the workmen endeavored to stir up the

others to desert. “This bad man,” announces Hennepin, “would infallibly

have perverted our carpenters, had not I confirmed them in their good

resolution by the exhortations I made them after divine service.”

The Mohegan hunters brought in deer and other game, warmer weather

arrived, and cheerfulness once more prevailed. The shipbuilders went

on with their work more briskly, and in the early spring of 1679,

before La Salle returned, the vessel was ready to be launched. Father

Hennepin blessed the ship and christened it the _Griffon_, for on the

prow La Salle had placed a roughly carved figure of this mythical

monster, taken from the coat of arms of Count Frontenac. The assembled

company sang a hymn of praise; three cannon were fired; and amid loud

acclamations from both French and Indians, the _Griffon_ glided into

the Niagara River. All haste had been made to get her afloat, even

before she was entirely completed, to save her from the plots of the

Indians, who were determined to burn her. But the men did not wait for

her to be finished to put her to use. They immediately quitted their

bark wigwams, swung their hammocks under her decks, and that very

night, rejoicing in their security from the Indians, all slept soundly

on board the ship.

The Iroquois warriors, returning from a hunting trip, were mightily

surprised to see the vessel afloat, and shouted, “Otkon! Otkon!” which

means “most penetrating wits,” to the triumphant Frenchmen. For they

could not understand how in so short a time the white men could build

so large a canoe,--although the craft was of only about forty-five

tons. With her five cannon she was to the savages a wonderful moving

fortress, and inspired in them a wholesome fear and admiration for the

French.

CHAPTER VI

LA SALLE ON THE GREAT LAKES

In the summer of 1679, La Salle returned from Fort Frontenac to Niagara

to find the _Griffon_ finished and ready for her first voyage. By the

completion of this vessel his enterprise was fairly launched. Behind

him at Montreal were enemies and creditors; before him stretched the

waters of the Great Lakes, and beyond was the unexplored wilderness.

The men had been unable to sail the _Griffon_ up the Niagara River to

the mouth of Lake Erie because of the strong adverse current. Now, with

the help of a strong wind and with tow-ropes in the most difficult

places, La Salle brought the vessel through the turbulent water to the

calm outlet of the lake. There the crew celebrated their safe passage

with religious services and cannonading and then set sail on the

unknown waters.

To deter his men from the voyage, La Salle’s enemies had declared that

the lake was full of rocks and sands. For the first day and night,

therefore, the men kept their sounding-lines busy, but navigation

proved to be easy. On the fourth day after leaving Niagara, they

reached the mouth of that wide river called by the French “The

Strait,”--Détroit. Here the current was so strong that they came to

anchor to wait for a favorable breeze. Soon a brisk wind arose and the

_Griffon_ ploughed her way through the rapids between Grosse Isle and

the mainland, pioneer of the mighty vessels which to-day make that

strait one of the great commercial highways of the world. On both

sides stretched fine open fields dotted with fruit trees, and walnut

and chestnut groves, and beyond in the distance were lofty forests.

All were “so well-disposed,” says Hennepin, “that one would think

Nature alone without the help of art could not have made so charming

a prospect.” Flocks of turkeys and swans circled about, and from the

deck of the ship herds of deer could be seen roaming the meadows. The

_Griffon_ was soon well stocked with meat, and the returning hunters

united in heaping praises on this beautiful spot where fruit and game

of every kind abounded, and where even the bears were not so savage

as in other places. Hennepin urged La Salle to make a settlement on

this “charming strait,” but La Salle coldly reminded him of the great

passion which he had professed a few months before for the discovery of

a new country, and the priest was silenced. Amid the later hardships of

the journey all must have looked longingly back to this time of ease

and plenty at the strait of Detroit.

On the 12th of August, the _Griffon_ passed by the site of the present

city of Detroit. Had they come here ten years before, the explorers

would have found on the bank of the river a large stone, rudely

fashioned in the likeness of a human figure and bedaubed with paint,

which the Indians worshipped as a manito, or god. But in 1670 French

priests, making the first recorded passage through the strait, had come

upon this image, and “full of hatred for this false deity,” had fallen

upon it with their axes, breaking it in pieces and casting it into the

water. Beyond Detroit the river widened into a beautiful little sheet

of water. As it was St. Claire’s day, Hennepin’s proposal that the name

of the founder of his order be given to this lake was carried out, and

it received its present name.

When the _Griffon_ had crossed the lake, the men saw before them

wide marshes through which the swift-moving river had many a winding

channel. They had come to the St. Clair Flats, a fan-shaped delta of

seven channels, on which has been built to-day a popular summer resort.

They set to work sounding one passage after another, only to find them

shallow and almost barred with shoals. But at last they came upon an

excellent channel about a league broad, with no sands and a depth

everywhere of from three to eight fathoms of water through which the

vessel sailed easily toward Lake Huron. At the mouth of the river,

however, they were forced to drop anchor and remain for several days.

A north wind had been blowing, driving the water of the three upper

lakes into the strait. This had increased so much the usual force of

the current that it was as violent as that of the Niagara, and entirely

impassable for a vessel like the _Griffon_. Even when the wind turned

southerly, La Salle could make no headway against this current until he

sent ashore a dozen men who hauled and towed the vessel along the beach

for half an hour, dragging her out of the narrow mouth of the channel

into the wave-tossed waters of the lake. Once more all returned

“thanks to the Almighty for their happy navigation,” and set sail on

the 23rd of August on Lake Huron.

The favoring winds soon died down, and La Salle lay becalmed for two

days among the islands of Thunder Bay. Starting from there at noon on

his way northward, he was caught in a furious westerly gale. For hours

the little vessel tossed and drifted over the raging waters of the

lake, lying at the mercy of wind and wave. Even La Salle gave up hope

and told his men to prepare for death. All fell on their knees except

the pilot, who devoted the time instead to cursing and swearing against

his employer for having brought him there to perish in a “nasty lake,

and lose the glory he had acquired by long and happy navigations on

the ocean.” But Pilot Lucas and his brave commander were not destined

to perish in that storm. Hennepin vowed an altar to St. Anthony of

Padua, prudently agreeing to set it up in Louisiana if they should

reach there. The storm-clouds rolled away, the waters grew quiet, and

the sun shone out on the wooded cliffs of the islands of Bois Blanc

and Mackinac, and the dense forests of Michigan. The vessel anchored

behind the point of St. Ignace, in the harbor of Michilimackinac,

the settlement which was at once the centre of Jesuit missions and of

Indian traders.

The sound of the _Griffon’s_ cannon brought out a varied throng from

the wigwams and cabins on shore. Shouting Indians gazed with wonder

at this huge wooden canoe; lawless French traders, swarthy from long

years in the wilderness, to whom the distance of this trading post

from civilization was its strongest recommendation, lounged idly out

of their cabins, gazing with resentment at this invader of their trade

and country; while black-robed Jesuit priests hurried to the shore

to welcome the newcomers. Indians, traders, and Jesuits united in a

show of welcome to La Salle as he landed, finely dressed and wearing a

scarlet cloak bordered with broad gold lace. All marched to the little

bark chapel in the Ottawa village, and united with the voyagers in

hearing mass and giving thanks for their safe passage.

At this settlement La Salle found four of fifteen men whom he had sent

ahead the autumn before to buy furs, and to go to the tribes along the

Illinois River, making preparations for his coming. Most of these men

had been enticed from his service, and had wasted the goods given them

to exchange for furs, using them for their own personal gain. Troubled

over his affairs in Canada La Salle had meant to return from this point

to Montreal, leaving Tonty to conduct his party to the Illinois River.

But he soon felt the hostile spirit at the trading post, and realized

that his presence was necessary to keep his men from being drawn away.

Even the swarms of Indians who hovered in their canoes about the vessel

regarded it with wonder and jealousy rather than friendliness, and La

Salle feared that the Illinois tribes would be tampered with by his

enemies.

He determined to push on at once, and embarked early in September. The

vessel proceeded across Lake Michigan, called by the French and Indians

Lake Illinois from the name of the tribes who inhabited its southern

shores, and cast anchor at the entrance of Green Bay. Here matters

took a turn for the better. As the vessel lay tossing about behind

a point of the bay, an Indian chief came out in his canoe to greet

the Frenchmen. When he learned that La Salle was a friend of Count

Frontenac and bore his commission, the Indian told him of his own warm

friendship for Frontenac, for whom he would gladly lay down his life,

and welcomed La Salle with the greatest cordiality. He reported, too,

the presence of Frenchmen near by, and La Salle found the faithful

remnant of his advance party waiting with a cargo of furs which they

had collected. Eager to satisfy his clamorous creditors, he determined

to send back the _Griffon_, in charge of the pilot and five men, with

this load of furs. On the 18th of September, the _Griffon_ fired a

parting shot and started for Niagara, to return as soon as she had

discharged her cargo; and La Salle, with Hennepin and fourteen others,

embarked in four canoes for the south.

The canoes had hardly started when a sudden September storm swept

across the lake. The waves washed into the heavily laden canoes,

darkness fell, and it was only by constant shouting that the men kept

their boats together and got to shore. For four days the storm raged

with unabated fury. As La Salle and his men waited from day to day

in their cheerless encampment, living on pumpkins and Indian corn

presented them by the friendly Indian chief and the meat of a single,

porcupine brought in by a hunter, the thought of the _Griffon_ haunted

them. Their worst fears proved afterward to have been fulfilled; she

was never heard of again. With her sank the cargo which was to have

restored La Salle’s credit in Montreal; and with her, too, perished the

high hopes that had been set upon this first vessel on the upper lakes.

Although La Salle feared the worst, he did not turn back. As soon as

the lake grew calm the four canoes set out again, coasting southward

along the shore of Wisconsin. But the elements were against them.

Storm after storm drove them ashore, where they spent wretched days

and nights among the rocks and bushes, crouched around driftwood fires

with nothing to shelter them from snow and rain but their blankets. As

they went southward, steep, high bluffs ran so close to the lake that

it was hard to find a landing-place. Yet the violence of the wind was

so great that they were compelled at evening to drag their canoes to

the top of the bluffs in order not to leave them exposed all night to

the waves which would have dashed them to pieces. In the morning, in

order to reëmbark, two men had to go into the water to the waist and

hold a canoe upright until it was loaded, pushing it out or drawing

it back as the waves advanced or retreated. Food gave out and the men

paddled from morning till night with nothing to eat but a daily handful

of Indian corn and hawthorn berries which they picked on shore and

devoured so ravenously that they made them ill. Exhaustion and famine

stared them in the face, but relief was in sight.

One morning as the men were paddling along near the site of Milwaukee,

they saw upon the shore a cloud of ravens and eagles hovering over

something. They hastened on land and found the body of a deer which had

been killed by a wolf. This was the beginning of better things. As the

little fleet advanced toward the south, they found the country ever

fairer and the weather more temperate. There was an abundance of game,

of which there had hitherto been an exceptional lack. They passed the

Chicago River and circled the end of the lake, landing at the mouth of

the St. Joseph. Here La Salle waited for Tonty to join them, employing

the time in building a fort. On the third of December the party sailed

up the river, bound for the villages of the Illinois. On a later trip

in 1682 La Salle reached the Illinois settlements by a shorter route,

crossing from his fort to the river Chicago, and journeying from its

waters into a northern branch of the Illinois River.

In four months La Salle had traversed the length of Lake Erie, had

passed through the strait of Detroit, up Lake Huron, through the

Straits of Mackinac, and down Lake Michigan; from the sites of Buffalo

and Cleveland he had sailed past Detroit and Milwaukee even to Chicago,

and had then journeyed inland to the Illinois River. He had lost his

vessel and her crew, as well as all his furs; he had met with hostility

from French and Indian alike; he had been deserted by most of his

advance party, and had held his own crew only by his presence and the

dominating force of his personality; he had suffered endless hardships

and privations: but nothing had shaken his purpose. In later years he

followed the Illinois and the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico and

led a colony to the limits of the present state of Texas, where he

was murdered by one of his men. In history, La Salle stands out as

a man whose courage and persevering fortitude in the face of almost

insuperable obstacles mark him as one of the greatest explorers the

world has ever known. We do well to join with Hennepin in saying,

“Those who shall be so happy as to inhabit that noble country cannot

but remember with gratitude those who discovered the way by venturing

to sail upon unknown lakes.”

CHAPTER VII

A HAPLESS FRENCH GOVERNOR

Like all strong men Frontenac made many enemies. He was recalled in

1682, and General La Barre, a man of about sixty, was sent out in his

place. La Barre had made a good record in the West Indies, but was

entirely unable to handle the difficult problems which met him in New

France. In an evil hour for the French, the Iroquois had conquered

the southern neighbors with whom they had long waged wars that had

occupied much of their time and strength. Now, they were free to turn

on the Indian allies of Canada of whose commercial gains through the

fur trade with the French they had long been envious. Frontenac before

his departure had found the Iroquois unusually arrogant and unruly,

although they had come to regard him as the greatest of all “Onontios,”

as they named the governors of New France. The Dutch and the English

had meanwhile made more or less successful advances to the Iroquois,

who now fully realized their own importance from the efforts of both

French and English to gain their support.

For two years La Barre struggled on, entangling rather than helping

the situation. At length an Iroquois chief was murdered in a village

of French Indians, and the crisis came. In the early spring of 1684,

French canoes were plundered by the Senecas and La Barre felt that he

must assert his power, or the Indians would lose their respect for the

French. After making great preparations, he started with his soldiers

and frontiersmen for the Seneca country by way of the St. Lawrence to

Fort Frontenac and thence across Lake Ontario. The opposing current

of the river was so strong that frequently the men could make no

progress by paddling, but were obliged to tow the canoes or push them

along with poles. Every few miles were rapids around which the canoes

were transported and through which the flatboats were pulled with

the greatest effort. The mosquitoes were “insufferably troublesome,”

hovering over the men in such clouds that they could hardly see their

way,--so one of the soldiers wrote. At Fort Frontenac, the men fell

ill of a malarial fever which killed many and disabled more. La Barre

repented more than once of entering upon an expedition that he now saw

would be disastrous.

Whatever his former warlike purposes, La Barre was now eager for peace.

He sent Le Moyne, a veteran interpreter whom the Iroquois called the

“Partridge,” to the Onondagas asking them to meet him on the southern

side of the lake, twenty miles or so north of Oswego. Le Moyne

returned in a few days with the famous Onondaga chief, “Big Mouth”; in

French this is “La Grande Gueule,” which the soldiers shortened into

“Grangula.” Big Mouth had recently been conferring with the English,

whose arbitrary demands had offended his pride; he was now in a haughty

mood that boded ill for the French.

The Indian chief was accompanied by a train of thirty young warriors.

As soon as he disembarked, General La Barre sent him a present of bread

and wine, and thirty salmon-trouts. At the same time he gave him to

understand that he was pleased at his arrival, and would be glad to

have an interview with him after he had rested himself. To conceal

from Big Mouth the weakness of the French forces Le Moyne represented

to him that the most of the soldiers had been left behind at Fort

Frontenac, and that the troops which he saw were the general’s guards;

but one of the Iroquois knew a little of the French tongue. Strolling

noiselessly about the tents by night he overheard the talk of the

soldiers and learned the true state of affairs.

It was two days after his arrival before Big Mouth gave notice to La

Barre that he was ready for an interview. The council was held on an

open spot between the two encampments. From the picture drawn by one

of the French soldiers we see the arrangement. La Barre was seated in

state in an armchair with his Jesuit interpreter beside him and the

French officers ranged on his right and left. The two lines of French

soldiers formed two more sides of the square. Opposite La Barre sat the

Indians with Big Mouth, their spokesman, in front, and between them in

the centre of the square was placed the great Calumet or Pipe of Peace.

The stem of this huge pipe was about four feet long, and the body or

bowl about eight inches high. The bowl was of handsome red stone, well

polished, and the stem of a strong reed or cane, trimmed with yellow,

white, and green feathers. In shape it resembled a huge hammer more

than anything else. The Indians used these calumets for negotiations

as we use a flag of truce, holding them peculiarly sacred. To violate

the rights of this venerable pipe was regarded among them as a flaming

crime that would draw down mischief upon their nations. About this

calumet were piled the wampum belts to be presented by the speakers.

[Illustration: Map of La Barre and Grangula]

La Barre opened the council, speaking boldly and with apparent

assurance. He made no allusion to his original purpose of making war

on the Senecas, but announced that the king, his master, had sent him

there with a guard to meet the principal chiefs of the Five Nations at

an appointed council fire. The Five Nations had made infractions upon

the peace concluded between them and the French. Should Big Mouth be

willing, as their representative, to make reparation and offer promises

for the future, the great French monarch desired that La Barre and Big

Mouth should smoke together the calumet of peace.

La Barre recounted the three offences of the Iroquois. They had robbed

and ill-used French traders; for this he demanded reparation. They had

brought the English to the lakes which belonged to the French, thus

diverting trade from the latter; this he would forget, provided it did

not happen again. They had attacked the Illinois, and still held many

in captivity. “These people are my master’s children,” said La Barre,

“and must therefore cease to be your slaves.” They must be sent home at

once. He enforced each statement with a wampum belt, and ended every

request with an announcement, as bold as though he had the whole French

army at his back, that should these demands not be complied with, he

“had express orders to declare war,” even going so far once as to say,

“in case of your refusal, war is positively proclaimed.” He would

gladly leave them in peace, should they prove “religious observers of

the treaties,” but if not he added, concluding with a statement which

he knew to be false, he would be obliged to join the governor of New

York, who had orders from his king to assist La Barre in burning the

five villages and cutting off the Iroquois.

While La Barre’s interpreter translated this speech, Grangula sat

silent and attentive, gazing steadily at the bowl of his pipe. After

the harangue was finished he rose and walked round inside the square

made by the French and savages, five or six times. Then he returned

to his place, and drawing himself to his full height began to speak.

“Onontio, I honor you,” he said, “and all the warriors that accompany

me do the same. Your interpreter has made an end of his discourse, and

now I come to begin mine. My voice glides to your ear, pray listen to

my words.”

He thought that the French captain must have started out from Quebec

with some strange idea that the Five Nations had been wiped out by fire

or flood. Nothing else, he implied, could make him set out against so

powerful a federation with such an army. The Indian chief ironically

assured the French general of the continued prosperity of the Five

Nations, congratulating him that he brought the calumet of peace,

rather than the bloody axe that had been so often dyed with the blood

of the French. Then he spoke out boldly and directly, telling La Barre

that he knew better than to believe the Frenchman’s pretence that he

did not have any other purpose in approaching the lake than to smoke

the pipe of peace with the Onondagas. He saw plainly that the Onontio

meant to “knock them on the head,” if the French arms had not been so

much weakened. The French soldiers were to be congratulated that the

Great Spirit had visited them with sickness, for only thus had their

lives been saved from Indian massacre. Even the women and old men and

children would have attacked the French camp without fear, had not

Akouessan (Le Moyne) appeared at the Onondaga village announcing that

he was an ambassador of peace, not of war.

With this bold and telling introduction, in which he revealed to the

French his full comprehension of their weakness and of their deceit,

Big Mouth proceeded to consider the accusations of La Barre. The

pillage of French traders he justified on the ground that they were

carrying arms to the Illinois, and for this he flatly refused to give

satisfaction, declaring insultingly that even the old men of his tribe

had long ceased to fear the French. They had conducted the English

to the lakes to traffic with French allies, just as the Algonquins

conducted the French to the Five Nations to trade with them. Moreover,

he claimed that they had a perfect right to do as they pleased in

this matter. “We are born free-men,” he declared proudly, “and have

no dependence either upon the Onontio [governor of Canada], or the

Corlaer [governor of New York]. We have power to go where we please,

to conduct whoever we will to the places we resort to, and to buy and

sell where we think fit.” If the French chose they might make slaves

of their allies, robbing them of the liberty of entertaining any other

Indians, but the Five Nations would brook no such interference. The

Iroquois attacked the Illinois because they invaded their territory,

hunting beavers on their lands. Big Mouth met the reproof of La Barre

with a bold stroke in return. He declared that in defending their

own lands against the Illinois they had done less than the English

and French, who without any right, had usurped the grounds they now

possessed, dislodging from them several nations in order to make way

for the building of their cities, villages, and forts.

Big Mouth closed his address with a warning. A year ago the hatchet

had been buried in the presence of Count Frontenac at his fort, and

the tree of peace had been planted. It was then stipulated that this

fort should be used as a place of retreat for traders, and not a refuge

for soldiers. Big Mouth warned the French to take care lest so great a

number of soldiers as he now saw before him “stifle and choke the tree

of peace,” and hinder it from shading both countries with its leaves.

The Iroquois were ready to dance under its branches the dance of peace,

and never dig up the hatchet to cut it down, unless the governors of

Canada and New York, jointly or separately, should invade the country

given by the Great Spirit to their ancestors. The Indian orator

presented two wampum belts and sat down.

As soon as he had done, Le Moyne and the Jesuits interpreted his

answer to La Barre, who thereupon retired to his tent and stormed and

blustered till somebody came and represented to him that good manners

were not to be expected from an Iroquois. It was little wonder that

La Barre raged. The Indian chief had seen through his artifices,

had yielded to none of his demands, and had contrived to assert the

complete independence of his own tribes and their contempt for the

French.

Big Mouth entertained some of the French officers at a feast, which

he opened for them by dancing an Indian dance. There was another

council in the afternoon, and the terms of peace were settled upon in

the evening. These terms were in the usual form of Indian treaties.

A “word” of the Iroquois was answered by a “word” of the French

accepting it, and all disputed points were taken up in a series of such

“words.”

The Iroquois offered to the French a beverage devoid of bitterness to

purify whatever inconvenience they had experienced on their voyage,

and to dispel whatever bad air they had breathed between Montreal

and this council fire,--a beverage of which the malarial French were

certainly in dire need. They reminded the French of the deep ditch dug

the year before, into which all unkind things that might occur were to

be cast, and requested the French to throw into it the Seneca robbery,

to which the French agreed. Again the tree of peace was set up, each

side solemnly adjuring the other to sustain and strengthen it. The

French agreed to depart at once, and then,--and not till then,--did the

Iroquois consent to renew the former treaty, “dispelling all the clouds

that had obscured the Sun from their sight.”

Thus ended the grand expedition of La Barre. No real satisfaction had

been gained by the French, but a weak truce had been made, and the

Iroquois had taken the opportunity to assert boldly their independence

of French and English alike, whom they treated as invaders of their

rightful possessions.

Big Mouth and his men returned to their homes, and the French set out

for Montreal. The few healthy men that remained manned the General’s

canoes and took charge of the flat-bottomed boats in which the soldiers

were carried. Of the dangers attendant on shooting the rapids in these

boats one of the soldiers draws a vivid picture, declaring that he and

his companions wished themselves back in the canoes that had brought

them up, when they shot down such precipices of water as had never been

heard of before. The main current wound its way in and out past eddies

and rocks, dashing along as fast as a cannon ball, and the men steered

as well as they could along this zigzag course, knowing that a false

stroke of the oar would send them upon the rocks. But in spite of the

discomfort and the danger, this soldier confesses from the safe shelter

of Montreal that, though the risk was very great, “yet, by way of

compensation one had the satisfaction of running a great way in a very

short time.” And he closes with a word of sympathy for La Barre. “All

the world blames our General for his bad success.... The people here

are busy in wafting to court a thousand calumnies against him.... But

after all the poor man could do no more than he did.”

PART II

THE STRUGGLE FOR POSSESSION

CHAPTER VIII

THE FOUNDING OF DETROIT

After the failure which has been recounted in the preceding chapter,

La Barre was recalled to France, and a new governor, Denonville, sent

over to take his place. He had not much greater success and was in

turn replaced by Count Frontenac, who returned to the scene of his

former labors. This was in 1689, when England and France were at war.

For the remaining nine years of his life Frontenac devoted all his

energies to defending New France against the English and the Iroquois

and to holding what the French had already gained on the Great Lakes.

In November, 1698, in his seventy-eighth year, he died, and was deeply

mourned as a strong governor and beloved leader. He had come out to New

France in 1672, and during his long term of service he had used his

power and influence not only to build up the settlements on the St.

Lawrence, but also to plant on the shores of the Great Lakes and the

rivers beyond a line of French forts and trading posts. He had gathered

about him a group of young men who shared his enthusiasm for expansion

and were eager to carry on his work. Five years before his death,

Frontenac had sent one of his men, Cadillac, to the Straits of Mackinac

to hold that centre of the fur trade.

Cadillac was a rough, forceful soldier who was summary in his methods

and short in his speech. He was well suited to the command of a

frontier post and did good work in keeping the lake Indians from

alliance with the enemies of the French. He did not, however, get

on well with the missionaries at Michilimackinac. They resented his

presence and his influence with the Indians, for whose conversion to

Christianity they were earnestly laboring. Cadillac soon came to see

that Detroit and not Mackinac was the key to the interior. Whoever held

the narrow channel connecting Lake Erie and Lake Huron would control

the fur trade of the whole lake region. He hastened to Quebec to gain

support for his scheme of erecting a fort and trading station on the

Detroit River. There he was stoutly opposed by the Jesuits, who foresaw

that the carrying out of his project would mean the ruin of their

mission, which could not compete commercially with the new station, and

that the extension of trade would bring the vices of civilization to

the natives. Nothing daunted, Cadillac went over the seas to France,

gained the favor of the colonial minister, and returned to Canada with

permission to found his colony. He reached Detroit with a band of one

hundred colonists and soldiers on the 24th of July, 1701.

Cadillac had done well in choosing Detroit as the situation for the

first permanent colony on the lakes. In the century that was past the

Great Lakes had been discovered and explored; the eighteenth century

was to witness their occupation and the contest for the possession of

this rich country. In this long strife, first France and England, and

then England and the American colonies, were to come to blows, while

always on these shores unceasing warfare would be waged between the

advancing white man and the retreating red man. In the opening years

of the new century Cadillac was taking the first step in permanent

occupation of the country, planting his settlement on a site so

important that a wise English leader was at that very time urging upon

the New York assembly its colonization by the English. So long as Lake

Erie and Lake Ontario had been avoided by the French, the northern

Ottawa River-Georgian Bay route had been the highway of travel and

trade. The easier southern route was now open to the French, but it was

even more convenient and accessible to their English rivals. The French

were brought face to face with the problem of how to hold the trade

of the upper lakes from the English. In the solution of this problem

Detroit would be the key.

There rushes through the strait of Detroit more water than through any

other river in the world, save only the Niagara and the St. Lawrence.

Through this channel, whose average width is a mile and whose length

is only twenty-seven miles, pour in a steady, even current, unbroken

by rapids or eddies, and with a speed of over two miles an hour, the

waters of three lakes, Superior, Michigan, and Huron, and of the

hundreds of streams that feed them. This little river is the natural

outlet for eighty-two thousand square miles of lake surface and one

hundred and twenty-five thousand square miles of land. Down the swift

current floated in those early days scores of canoes paddled by

silent Indians and swarthy coureurs de bois, bearing to the markets at

Montreal, Quebec, and Albany loads of beaver, mink, and otter furs of

immense value. They were the forerunners of a tonnage passing through

that strait which to-day exceeds that of the Thames and London.

Cadillac and his soldiers and settlers, fifty each, had paddled,

pushed, and carried their canoes, heavily laden with provisions, tools,

ammunition, and supplies, all the way from Montreal. As they gazed on

the beautiful site of their future homes, their weariness passed away.

With shouts of joy they drew their canoes to the bank and unpacked

their heavy loads for the last time.

No exploring party had ever passed through the Detroit River without

longing to stop. To appreciate the charm and wealth of that spot, one

must read the vivid descriptions which were written by men of that

time. Such an enthusiast was Cadillac. Two months after his arrival,

he wrote home the following, which would do credit to a promoter’s

prospectus of the present day.

“The business of war being so different from that of writing,” he said,

“I have not the ability to make a portrait of a country so worthy of

a better pen than mine; but since you have directed me to render

an account of it, I will do so.” He described the river and then

continued: “Its borders are so many vast prairies, and the freshness

of the beautiful waters keeps the banks always green. The prairies are

bordered by long and broad rows of fruit trees which have never felt

the hand of the vigilant gardener. Here also orchards, young and old,

soften and bend their branches, under the weight and quantity of their

fruit, towards the mother earth which has produced them. It is in this

land, so fertile, that the ambitious vine, which has never wept under

the knife of the vine-dresser, builds a thick roof with its large

leaves and heavy clusters, weighing down the top of the tree which

receives it, and often stifling it with its embrace.

“Under these broad walks one sees assembled by hundred the timid deer

and fawn, also the squirrel bounding in his eagerness to collect the

apples and plums with which the earth is covered. Here the cautious

turkey calls and conducts her numerous brood to gather the grapes, and

here also their mates come to fill their large and gluttonous crops.

Golden pheasants, the quail, the partridge, woodcock, and numerous

doves swarm in the woods and cover the country, which is dotted and

broken with thickets and high forests of full-grown trees.... There

are ten species of forest trees, among them are the walnut, white

oak, red oak, the ash, the pine, whitewood and cotton-wood; straight

as arrows, without knots, and almost without branches, except at the

very top, and of prodigious size.... The fish here are nourished and

bathed by living water of crystal clearness, and their great abundance

renders them none the less delicious. Swans are so numerous that one

would take for lilies the reeds in which they are crowded together. The

gabbling goose, the duck, the widgeon [a kind of duck], and the bustard

are so abundant that to give an idea of their numbers I must use the

expression of a savage whom I asked before arriving if there was much

game. ‘So much,’ he said, ‘that they draw up in lines to let the boats

pass through.’... In a word, the climate is temperate, and the air

purified through the day and night by a gentle breeze. The skies are

always serene and spread sweet and fresh influence which makes one

enjoy a tranquil sleep.”

Cadillac landed at the narrowest part of the river, where the city

now stands, and began to build the little village which was to

survive without a break the conflicts of the coming century. In this

wilderness, inhabited only by wild beasts and savages, the first

thought must be for defence; only when that was provided, could the

settlers turn to plans for their own shelter from wind and weather.

On the first rise of ground back from the river, along the line of

the present Jefferson Avenue, Cadillac marked out a space of a little

less than an acre, with a width of about two city blocks and a depth

of one, which was to be enclosed by a palisade. Small trees were hewn

in the forest and fashioned into sharply pointed pickets which were

driven into the ground as closely as possible, thus forming a solid

fence ten or twelve feet high. At the four corners were bastions of

stout oak pickets from which the soldiers could shoot along the line of

the palisade. Inside the stockade, Cadillac laid out a street twelve

feet wide, and assigned small lots to the settlers and soldiers. The

settlers bought theirs outright, but Cadillac retained the ownership of

the others.

Fifty hours after their landing, on the day sacred to St. Anne, they

began the foundation of a chapel on the very spot where St. Anne’s

church stands to-day. In a month the chapel was completed by a rude

cross placed over the door, and a bell summoned the colonists to daily

prayers. When the storehouse and magazine for ammunition were also

finished the people set to work on their own log huts. Trees were cut

in the forest, and the rough-hewn logs were hauled to the spot. There

a framework was set up, the logs were fitted into it, and the cracks

were filled with mortar and mud. Last of all the top was covered with

a roof of birch bark, or was thatched with grass. Land outside the

stockade was assigned for agriculture, each soldier having a half acre

for cultivation, and the civilians larger tracts. That very year wheat

was sown for the next summer. With remarkable speed the settlement

sprang up in the wilderness, and before the end of August took on an

appearance of stability and permanence.

Cadillac now summoned the Indians to council and urged them to build

settlements in the vicinity. He was wise enough to see that if a

sufficient number of friendly Indians located near by, traders would

come to buy their furs, the colony could rely on greater numbers in

case of attack, and the scanty three months’ supply of provisions

brought from Montreal could be eked out by food bought from Indian

hunters. Three large villages sprang up, and within eight months the

population of the strait was some six thousand people, whites and

Indians.

Hitherto there had been on the Great Lakes nothing looking to family

life or permanent residence, but in the spring of 1702, Madame Cadillac

and Madame Tonty, wife of the captain of the garrison, started in open

canoes, manned by Indians and Canadians, on the seven-hundred-mile

journey from Montreal to Detroit. At a season when storms were likely

to be frequent these two women braved the hardships of the trip, going

up the rapids of the St. Lawrence, across Lake Ontario and around

Niagara, and up Lake Erie to the strait. With her Madame Cadillac

brought her little boy, Jacques, six years of age; her oldest son was

already with his father. These were the first white women to come to

the Great Lakes. They were soon followed by the wives and families of

other settlers. By 1708 the settlement had grown so fast that houses

were built outside the stockade, as the twenty-nine huts within the

enclosure were not sufficient to accommodate the people.

The little colony suffered the usual troubles of frontier life,

but managed to survive them. In 1703 several of the buildings were

destroyed by a fire set by the Indians. For the first few years the

colony was managed by a company, but in 1705 Cadillac succeeded in

getting full control and ruled there with as absolute sway as had any

feudal chief in his turreted castle. He owned the public buildings and

defences and he alone could grant lots for settlement. From him alone

could the people obtain their liquor, and to prevent excessive drinking

by the Indians and traders he restricted the amount sold to each person

at one time and charged a high price for it. To him also all must

come for permits to carry on their different trades and occupations.

For every privilege the people must pay, and right bitterly did they

complain of their commandant to his enemies, though when he walked

along the narrow street, firm and erect, in soldierly costume and with

clanking sword, every hat was doffed. Doubtless some of his charges

were exorbitant, but the money was turned back into the improvement

of the colony, as, for instance, to build a public windmill where the

people could pay to have their corn ground. The blacksmith complained

that he had to pay six hundred francs a year and two casks of ale for

the privilege of blacksmithing, besides having to keep all Cadillac’s

horses shod. The latter task could not have been very arduous, for

until 1706 there were no horses in the settlement, and of the three

that Cadillac bought in that year only one, named Colin, was alive in

1711.

In 1710 Cadillac was ordered to go to Louisiana to govern the colony

there, and his connection with Detroit and the Great Lakes was brought

to an abrupt end. The settlement which he handed over to his successor

was fairly prosperous. In the following winter, however, while the men

of the neighboring Indian tribes were away at their hunting-grounds,

a thousand or more hostile Indians of the Fox-Wisconsin river tribes

descended upon the region and prepared to settle there. The colonists

were powerless to prevent them, but waited anxiously for the return

of the hunting-parties. In May they came, and under the leadership

of the French finally drove off the enemy after a hard and bloody

siege in which many lives were lost. For the next ten years the

colony was so weak that its abandonment was contemplated. Successive

governors mismanaged its internal affairs, demanding tolls and fees so

exorbitant that traders refused to come there. Cadillac’s demands had

been for the advancement of the colony; these men used their power to

enrich themselves.

In 1720 and 1721, financial distress in France sent many a ruined

Frenchman to Detroit, so that in 1722 the population was again two

hundred, as it had been at the time of its founder’s departure. For the

next thirty years the story of Detroit was uneventful. The settlement

increased gradually in numbers and strength. Of its hardships we may

best judge by the large mortality of children in those years. By the

middle of the century we find the authorities in Canada so eager to

have the colonies on the Great Lakes strong and permanent, that the

following inducements are offered in a proclamation posted, by order of

the governor-general, in all the parishes of Canada:--

“Every man who will go to settle in Detroit shall receive gratuitously,

one spade, one axe, one ploughshare, one large and one small wagon. We

will make an advance of other two tools to be paid for in two years

only. He will be given a cow, ... also a sow. Seed will be advanced

the first year, to be returned at the third harvest. The women and

children will be supported for one year. Those will be deprived of the

liberality of the King who shall give themselves up to trade in place

of agriculture.”

In this way men with families were encouraged to make France strong in

her western outposts. Within a year one hundred persons responded, and

an official census shows a population at Detroit of nearly five hundred

persons, of whom thirty-three were women over fifteen, and ninety-five

girls under that age. This represents no mere floating population of

traders and adventurers. The property returns of the inhabitants show

them to have been an agricultural people who made the most of the rich

land on which they lived. In the census they reported one hundred and

sixty horses in place of the one of forty years before, and six hundred

and eighty-two cattle. The fertility of the strait of Detroit seemed to

inspire even the roving Canadian, usually so restless and adventurous,

with a desire to plant and develop a home.

CHAPTER IX

NIAGARA AND THE LOSS OF CANADA

The importance of Niagara in trade and warfare was early recognized by

both the French and the English as well as by the Iroquois. La Salle

and Denonville, in their desire to monopolize the Indian trade, had

built fortified storehouses on the shore of the river, but both had

been destroyed by the Iroquois. By the beginning of the eighteenth

century, the English began to make serious inroads on the fur trade of

the interior, and the French became more anxious than ever to secure a

permanent foothold at Niagara. For twenty-five years French and English

orators harangued at Indian councils, begging for permission to build

forts or trading houses at that point; governors wrote home for the

necessary funds to purchase the Indians’ consent; and rival traders

watched every camp on the river with suspicion. At length French

diplomacy won the day. In 1720, Joncaire, with the help of Charles

Le Moyne, Chevalier de Longueuil, gained from the Indians a reluctant

consent to the building of a bark house at Niagara. He made the most

of this permission, and on the site of Lewiston built a large house,

forty feet wide and thirty long, which could accommodate fifty traders.

This he surrounded with a high fence or palisade and named the Magazin

Royal. In their turn the English built a similar, though smaller, house

at Oswego (1722), from which the Indians could go by portage by the

Oswego River to Lake Oneida, and, gaining the Mohawk, could paddle

their fur-laden canoes to Albany.

In their first permission to the French, the Iroquois had carefully

stipulated that the house to be built at Niagara should be of bark, for

they had learned the danger of stone forts. Now, Le Moyne told them

that he could not keep his skins dry in a bark house, and wrung from

them an unwilling consent to the erection of a stone house, provided it

be “no stone fort.” The authorities at once wrote to the king, asking

for money to defray the expense of building a house of solid masonry.

De Léry, the king’s chief engineer, who had come out to fortify Quebec

and Montreal, was directed to proceed to Niagara, and to build this

trading house. He decided not to put it near Joncaire’s station, which

was seven miles up the river, where the rapids made further navigation

impossible, but to place it at the outlet of the river into Lake

Ontario. On the eastern bank of the Niagara, near its mouth, he began

the erection of the stone structure which stands to-day as the oldest

part of the government buildings at Fort Niagara. It took two summers

in time and thirty thousand livres in money to build. When completed,

the house of stone possessed four bastions erected with a massiveness

of construction that makes it strong after nearly two hundred years

have passed away. Charles Le Moyne, who had gained the Indians’ consent

to the building of this stone house, was put in command and held it

for many years. The first Charles Le Moyne came to Canada in 1654,

and for a century his sons and grandsons played most important parts

in the building up of the French power in the New World. Two of his

sons led the attack on Schenectady, and later founded Louisiana; a

third son fell in the defence of Quebec against Sir William Phips in

1690, and another in the struggle with the English for Hudson’s Bay.

The second Charles Le Moyne accompanied La Barre and Denonville on

their expeditions against the Iroquois, and the third established this

fortified post at Niagara.

In a hundred and forty years, more or less, the French had made

wonderful progress in opening up the interior of North America to

exploration and trade; they had founded settlements at the extremities

of their dominion on the St. Lawrence and the lower Mississippi, and

had connected these by a chain of forts on the Great Lakes and the

northern tributaries of the Mississippi; but they had established only

one strong colony in the interior, the settlement at Detroit. As the

middle of the eighteenth century approached, they awoke to the need of

making good their claim to the Ohio Valley, building a line of forts at

Presque Isle on Lake Erie, Le Bœuf, Venango, and Duquesne, on the route

from that lake to the Ohio River. They also strengthened themselves

by erecting a fort on the southern shore of Lake Erie at Sandusky,

about halfway between Cleveland and Detroit. The energy of the French

was in part due to the exhibition of an intention of the English to

enter the great interior basin; but the French activity aroused the

English, and in 1754 the final contest for the control of the continent

began in the western wilderness of Virginia and Pennsylvania. With

the war elsewhere, this book has nothing to do; the campaigns for the

capture of Duquesne, Louisbourg, Ticonderoga, Quebec, and Montreal,

all took place far away from the shores of the Great Lakes; but it was

the success of the English in these other fields that determined the

fate of the interior. From the beginning the importance of Niagara had

been recognized by both combatants, but the strength of its position

deferred an attack upon it for several years. In 1758 the English

captured Fort Frontenac, and the next summer made a determined attack

on Niagara.

[Illustration: A View of Niagara Fort, _taken by Sir William Johnson_,

on the 25th of July 1759. _Drawn on the Spot in 1758._]

The fort at Niagara was now commanded by a French officer and engineer,

Captain Pouchot; he had strengthened and enlarged the fortifications

and had a garrison of six hundred men well supplied with food and

ammunition. The English general, Prideaux, marched with a force of

twenty-three hundred men from Oswego and laid siege to the fort. The

English engineers opened the trenches so near the fort that they were

obliged to withdraw and build a second series. When the artillery

was placed in position and opened fire, one of the first shells to be

discharged burst prematurely, and a fragment striking General Prideaux

on the head, killed him instantly. Sir William Johnson took command in

his place and carried on the siege effectively.

In two or three weeks the French garrison was reduced to the last

extremity. The walls and defences were riddled with shot and broken

through; more than a hundred of the defenders were killed or seriously

wounded, and all were worn out with the strain of the constant defence

day and night. Captain Pouchot still held out, for ever since the

siege began he had been watching for expected assistance from the

western posts. An army of thirteen hundred French and Indians had been

gathered from the stations of the Illinois River and from Detroit,

Michilimackinac, Le Bœuf, and Venango, to defend the Ohio Valley. As

soon as Pouchot heard that the English were coming to attack Niagara

he had sent a summons to the leaders of this force to come to his aid,

and now he was daily and hourly expecting their arrival, together with

the garrison of Fort Duquesne, which had abandoned that place on the

approach of an English army under General Forbes.

The western reënforcement was even now coming up Lake Erie under the

leadership of two French generals. It was an oddly assorted force,

such as no other time or place could have produced. A company of

well-drilled colonial militia paddled their boats beside the canoes of

a war-party of Indians who had been induced by traders to come from

their distant homes to take part in the white men’s strife. Hardly less

savage than the Indian warriors were the western traders and coureurs

de bois, who had lived so long in Indian wigwams that they had adopted

the dress, the war-paint, and the customs of their neighbors. All the

members of this mixed company were alike, however, in one thing,--they

were skilled in the warfare of the woods.

From Lake Erie the fleet paddled past the site of Buffalo and down the

swift-moving Niagara River around Grand Island, and, on the morning

of July 24, 1759, the soldiers and Indians landed at the head of the

portage path, a mile and a half above the falls. Here the French found

the ruins of their Fort of the Portage, of Fort Little Niagara, a

trading station which had been fortified in 1750. Joncaire, a son

of the Joncaire who built the first trading house on the river, had

occupied this post till recently, but had burned it at the approach of

the British. The army made its way up over the rough seven-mile portage

path and down over the rocks to the old French trading house. From here

they proceeded cautiously along the bank of the river.

Sir William Johnson had meanwhile been informed by scouts of the

approach of the expected French reënforcement. He divided his

twenty-three hundred men into three bodies,--one to guard the boats

on Lake Ontario, one to hold the trenches, and the third to cut off

the advance of the southern army. For this last company he picked the

provincial light infantry, two companies of grenadiers, and a hundred

and fifty men of the Forty-sixth Regiment. They were commanded by

Colonel Massey, under whose orders they threw up, about a mile and a

half up the river from the fort, a rough breastwork of felled trees

behind which they could stand and pour shot into the ranks of the

advancing enemy. The Iroquois warriors who had come with Johnson were

placed along the flanks of the English. They had recently shown signs

of disaffection, and when the French army came in sight they opened a

parley with the Indian allies of the French. This did not last long,

for they could come to no agreement, and without further delay the

savages threw themselves into the fight with wild war-whoops.

The French made a gallant fight, but were fatally hampered by their

unprotected position. For half an hour they made sallies, retreating

each time after heavy losses, but led back for another assault by

those who survived of their heroic officers. At last their ranks were

completely broken, and they fled along the shore to regain the portage

road around the falls and escape to their boats. For five miles the

English pursued them through the woods, capturing and bringing back as

many as they could overtake. The bravery of the French officers and

the desperate efforts that they made to check the retreat are shown

by the fact that nearly all of them were either killed or captured.

Their followers hastened back to their boats and retreated across Lake

Erie, burning, on their way, Presque Isle, Le Bœuf, and Venango, and

journeying to the safe and distant fort of Detroit.

On the morning of July 24th, Captain Pouchot, shut up in the fort at

Niagara, heard the sound of distant firing and began to watch for

his allies. Through the open spaces of the forest, he could see in

the far distance, moving forms and groups of men meeting and parting.

The English had evidently gone out to attack the advancing army; the

cannonading from the trenches which had sounded for so long in the ears

of the garrison had ceased, and the trenches seemed deserted. Captain

Pouchot called for volunteers to sally forth from the fort and destroy

the English works; but as soon as they appeared the English soldiers

stationed there by Johnson sprang up from their hiding places behind

the works and forced the French to retreat into their fortification.

At last the sound of distant firing stopped and the smoke of guns

ceased to rise from the scene of the conflict. The garrison waited hour

after hour in anxious suspense. About two o’clock in the afternoon a

friendly Indian slipped through the lines and told of the utter rout

of the relieving force. Captain Pouchot refused to believe him, but

at four o’clock, after a sharp cannonade from the English had been

answered by a similar discharge from the besieged garrison, a trumpet

was sounded in the English trenches, and an officer approached the

fort with a demand for its surrender. He presented also a paper with

the names of the captive French officers. Captain Pouchot still refused

to admit to the enemy his belief in the disaster, and sent an officer

of his own to see the prisoners. His worst fears were confirmed when

the officer returned with the report that under a shelter of boughs

near Johnson’s tent were sixteen officers, some of them severely

wounded.

All hope for the French was gone, and Captain Pouchot could only

endeavor to arrange for his garrison honorable terms of surrender.

Such terms the English, recognizing the gallant conduct of their

enemies, were glad to grant. The French were accorded all the honors of

prisoners of war, although they must be sent under guard to New York.

Pouchot asked and was granted a special stipulation that they should be

protected from their Indian enemies, who might take this occasion to

revenge themselves for the massacre at Fort William Henry three years

before. He signed the articles of surrender and delivered over to the

English the fort with ten officers and four hundred and eighty-six men,

besides women and children.

The surrender of Niagara broke the line of communication between

Montreal and the interior. In the next year, 1760, the Marquis de

Vaudreuil signed articles of capitulation by which Canada and all its

dependencies passed into the hands of the English, and French supremacy

on the Great Lakes was ended. It remained only for the conquerors to

take possession of the other French posts on the Great Lakes.

CHAPTER X

THE CONSPIRACY OF PONTIAC

On the thirteenth day of September, 1760, five days after the surrender

of Montreal, Major Robert Rogers, the most energetic Indian fighter

of the time, set out from Montreal with two hundred of his “Rangers,”

whose exploits in war had made his name famous, for the lakes. He was

to take possession of Detroit and the other lake forts for England.

Reaching Niagara on the first day of October, they crossed by portage

to the site of the modern Buffalo and skirted the southern shore of

Lake Erie, encamping nightly on its margin and taking every precaution

by day to keep the boats from losing sight of one another on the rough,

stormy waters. One night on the Cuyahoga River, near where the present

city of Cleveland now stands, a party of Indians entered the camp and

announced themselves to be ambassadors from Pontiac, “the king and lord

of that country,” who requested them to halt until he himself should

arrive. In a few hours the great sachem stalked into camp. He was of

medium height, with an active, muscular figure, and a stern face. His

first words were an imperious demand as to Major Rogers’ business. “How

dare you,” said he, “enter my country without my leave?” “I do not come

with any design against you or your people,” replied Rogers, “but to

remove out of your country the French, who have been an obstacle in our

way to mutual peace and commerce.” The Indian who greeted Rogers so

haughtily was the principal chief of the Ottawa and Ojibway tribes, a

man to whom all the nations of the Illinois country deferred and whose

name was held in respect even by the distant Algonquins of the St.

Lawrence. Rogers told him of his present mission, taking occasion to

dwell on the total defeat of the French in Canada, and gave him several

belts of wampum in token of his friendly intent. These Pontiac accepted

with dignity, but without any sign of unbending. He announced that he

stood in the path the English travelled in until the next morning,

and proffered a string of wampum to intimate that they must not march

farther without his leave. He inquired whether the party was in need

of anything he or his warriors could supply, and then withdrew.

The English kept a double force on guard all night, but in the morning

Pontiac came with his attendant chiefs and declared that he had made

peace with Rogers and his detachment, and that they might therefore

pass through his country unmolested and expel the French garrison from

Detroit. He was inclined, he said, to live peaceably with the English

while they used him as he deserved, but if they treated him with

neglect, he should shut up the way and exclude them from his domains.

The pipe of peace was passed around the council fire and smoked by

officers and chiefs alike.

As Rogers and his men proceeded on their way, they found the march made

easy by the powerful influence of Pontiac, who dissuaded a war-party

of Detroit Indians from attacking them, furnished guides and welcome

supplies of venison, turkeys, and parched corn. He even sent word ahead

to the Indians within the limits of the fort that he was a friend of

the English, making it impossible for the French commander to get any

help from them. In the rôle of guide, counsellor, and patronizing

friend of the newly arrived strangers, this remarkable savage comes

for the first time into prominence in history. Three years later he

was to make of what would have been without his leadership a series

of spasmodic and scattering raids a formidable and sustained Indian

uprising of the most serious kind.

Rogers took Detroit, sent the French commander and his garrison down

to Niagara, disarmed the Canadian militia, and received the oath

of allegiance from all the inhabitants; and in a few hours Detroit

was, in name at least, an English town. Within a year all the posts

on the lakes came into English possession; but the English were

far from gaining the hearty support of either the French-Canadian

inhabitants,--who were naturally not pleased at this change of

hands,--or even of the Indian tribes, who liked the French.

The French had always had unusual success in dealing with the Indians.

They were friendly with them, tolerant of their presence, and generous

with their gifts, without any insulting show of patronage. The previous

reputation of the English was bad among the Indians. They resented

their austere manners, their steady seizure of forest lands for

agriculture, and their ill-concealed contempt for the red man. This bad

name had been somewhat obscured in these recent years by the excellent

prices paid by the English for furs, and their lavish gifts to gain

Indian support; but it was now confirmed at every post along the whole

frontier.

When the two rival nations were using the Indians as allies, both had

treated them with respect and endeavored to gain their friendship.

Now the Indians began to realize that this friendship was no longer

considered valuable, but that the English were insolently seizing more

and more of their domain with the apparent intention of driving them

out. Their chiefs were no longer treated with respect as they hung

about the white men’s forts. Owing to a sudden policy of retrenchment

the gifts, too, were cut down or withheld altogether, until the savages

really suffered from want of supplies which the wise Frenchmen had seen

the necessity of providing for them. The customary amount of powder

was denied them, and the Indians feared lest their independence was

threatened. The English fur trade was in lawless hands, and the traders

abused and outraged the Indians while they cheated them out of their

lawful dues. The discontent of the natives was encouraged and fostered

by the French traders and settlers, who told their sullen audiences

incredible tales of the further evil purposes of the English, and

spread far and wide a rumor that the armies of the French were even now

advancing up the St. Lawrence and Mississippi rivers to drive out these

pretenders.

Suddenly, in May, 1763, the Indians uprose. With characteristic

secrecy and stealth the tribes had exchanged wampum belts, spreading

the summons to war and signifying in return acquiescence in the plan,

with hardly a suspicion on the part of their indifferent English

neighbors. Occasionally in the last month a story was brought in

that roused the anxiety of those who were wise in the ways of the

Indians, but these were laughed to scorn. Looking backward, one

marvels both at the secrecy with which the uprising was planned, and

at the serene confidence of the scanty garrisons stationed at these

isolated and dangerous outposts. From contemporary accounts it appears

that at Presque Isle there were twenty-seven men; at Michilimackinac

thirty-five men with their officers; at the foot of Lake Michigan, on

the St. Joseph’s River, fifteen, and at Fort Miami ten, while the

other posts were held by mere handfuls of soldiers; Detroit was the

only station that was suitably manned.

In their dealings with white men, the Indians had never before been

banded together under a single leader. The tribes were restless and

jealous of one another, but Pontiac restrained and humored them.

He made his plans so well, and they were carried out so secretly

and energetically, that within ten weeks of the time when the first

blow was struck, not a single post remained in British hands west of

Niagara, save only the fort of Detroit, where he himself conducted the

siege in person.

The garrison at Detroit was commanded by Major Gladwin, a young British

officer, who had taken an active part in the war with the French,

and had been at Detroit for nearly a year. He had eight officers and

one hundred and twenty men in his command; and besides the Canadian

residents, whose white cottages lined either bank of the river, there

were about forty fur traders at the settlement. The original stockade

had been several times enlarged since Cadillac’s day, once recently

during the three years of English occupation. It contained about a

hundred small houses, a well-built group of barracks, a council house,

and a church. Three rows of pickets, twenty-five feet high, with large

gateways surmounted by blockhouses for observation and defence, had

taken the place of the original twelve-foot fence. Within each gateway,

which was closed at sunset, was a small wicket, through which one

person could enter at a time. This was kept open until nine o’clock.

The fort was protected by three small cannon, one carrying three-pound

balls, the other two six-pounders; but these guns were badly mounted

and better calculated to terrify the Indians than to render much actual

assistance. Far more effective were the two small vessels, the _Beaver_

and the _Gladwin_, which lay anchored in the stream.

At a council on the 27th of April, 1763, Pontiac inflamed the minds

of his hearers by reporting a vision vouchsafed to him by the Great

Spirit, who asked him why the Indians suffered these English,--“these

dogs dressed in red,”--to dwell among them. The first step of his plan,

as he unfolded it to his warriors, was to spy out the land. On May-day,

1760, forty men of the Ottawa tribe, purporting to have returned from

their winter hunting-grounds, went to the fort and asked permission

to dance the calumet dance before the English officers. They were

admitted, and while thirty of them danced, the remaining ten strolled

about and noted every detail of the defence, all retiring at the close

without rousing any suspicion in the minds of their hosts.

Four days later one of the leading French settlers brought in word that

his wife, while purchasing supplies in the Ottawa village, had found

the warriors filing off the ends of their gun-barrels so as to make

them only about a yard long, probably with some treacherous intent of

concealing them more easily. The next day Major Gladwin was informed of

the plot for the destruction of his garrison on the morrow. Two stories

are told of the source of this information,--one that an Indian girl to

whom he had been kind made it known to him, and another that a friendly

young warrior told him. We would like to believe the former, which

tells of the reluctance of the beautiful girl to depart after she had

done her errand of delivering a pair of embroidered moccasins ordered

by Major Gladwin, and of her confession to him, when he pressed her for

the reason of her sad manner, that danger threatened him and his men.

Gladwin hardly believed the story, but made all preparations to thwart

the plans of Pontiac if occasion offered.

The next morning the guards in the blockhouse saw Pontiac and sixty

men land from their canoes and walk in Indian file up the river road

towards the gateway of the stockade. They were admitted and escorted

to the council chamber, where Major Gladwin and his principal officers

were awaiting them. It is said that even the iron composure of Pontiac

was shaken and that he gave a momentary start when he saw drawn up on

either side of the gateway and standing about in watchful groups in the

streets the armed soldiers of the garrison. The officers, too, were in

full uniform with their swords at their sides and a brace of pistols in

their belts. Before he was seated Pontiac asked, “Why do I see so many

of my father’s young men standing in the street with their guns?” “To

keep them in good discipline and exercise them,” replied Major Gladwin,

through his interpreter.

When the Indians were seated on the skins prepared for them, Pontiac

began his address. Holding in his hand the wampum belt which had been

agreed upon as the signal for attack, he spoke of the friendship of

the Indians for the English. Once, it is said, he raised it as if to

give the signal, but Gladwin signed with his hand and the soldiers

without the open door made a clattering with their arms. Pontiac

trembled and gave the belt in the usual way instead of in the manner

agreed upon in the council.

Gladwin replied that the Indians should have the friendship of the

English just so long as they kept the peace, but not one moment longer.

Some writers say that he drew aside the blanket of the chief nearest

to him and showed hidden in its folds a shortened gun. At any rate,

the English found out that every chief was armed, and knew that they

had narrowly escaped a frightful massacre. The Indians were awed by

the sharp rebuke of Gladwin into departing quietly. For two days they

attempted to parley with the English and gain admittance by deceit; but

Gladwin was firm that not more than sixty might enter the fort at one

time, and on the 9th of May Pontiac threw aside his mask of pretended

friendship. Hostilities were begun by the Indians murdering an old

English sergeant who lived on a neighboring island.

The Indians moved their camp to the same side of the river as the

fort, establishing themselves just above the line of the French houses.

One more attempt was made for peace, when two brave English officers,

Captain Campbell and Lieutenant McDougall, insisted upon risking their

lives in the Indian camp to see if they could persuade the savages to

desist from war. Both were detained by the Indians in spite of the

previous promises of Pontiac. Lieutenant McDougall later made his

escape, but Captain Campbell was murdered by the natives in an outburst

of anger. The blockade of Detroit was begun, and many months were to

pass before a white man could venture in daylight to step outside the

little wicket or to show his head at a port-hole or window without fear

of Indian bullets. For weeks every one from Major Gladwin down to the

lowest soldier was on the watch night and day, no man lying down to

sleep except in his clothes and with his gun beside him. The garrison

began to suffer for food and would have been forced to withdraw from

the fort and escape down the lake, had not a few friendly Canadians

smuggled in supplies. The Indians, too, whose method of warfare is that

of sudden attack rather than of protracted siege, had not sufficient

food, but began to make raids on the Canadian families, who, though

taking no part in the struggle, were in general indifferent to the

English. At a time like this the remarkable gifts of Pontiac came out.

With a foresight and method most unusual in a savage he established

a base of supplies, undertook a systematic levy on those who had

provisions, and gave out a regular amount each day to every Indian.

On the 29th of May, after the blockade had been going on for three

weeks, the long-expected boats from Niagara, which had been summoned by

Major Gladwin in the first days of the siege, were seen rounding the

wooded point below the fort, the red flag of England flying at their

sterns. All was rejoicing within the fort until, as the boats came

nearer, the English saw that they were occupied and guided by Indians.

Three Englishmen who escaped to the fort brought a mournful tale of

a night attack and seizure of the boats at the mouth of the Detroit

River, and also of the destruction of Sandusky and Presque Isle. This

was the first of many reports that were to come during that month of

similar successful attacks, until the little garrison at Detroit was

the only one left on the upper lakes. The remaining Englishmen of the

rescuing party were massacred that night in the Indian camp.

Towards the end of June Pontiac sent another summons to surrender,

saying that nine hundred Indians from the north were on their way

to join him. Major Gladwin refused to consider terms till Captain

Campbell and Lieutenant McDougall were returned to him, and once

more hostilities were resumed. On the 30th of June the _Gladwin_,

which about the middle of May had eluded the Indians and slipped down

the river to Niagara, succeeded in making her way up the river and

landing at the fort a force of fifty men, together with much-needed

provisions and ammunition. She brought the news that peace had

been formally concluded between England and France. While many of

the French-Canadians refused to admit the truth of this report and

continued to romance to the Indians about large French armies that were

approaching, forty settlers accepted their new position as English

subjects and took service under Gladwin. Through them the English

officers were kept even better informed of what went on without the

fort than before, but always throughout the blockade there seem to have

been daily reports from some source of what happened in the Indian

camp, as well as frequent sorties from the fort.

During the month of July the efforts of the Indians were directed

particularly against the two armed vessels, which had not only afforded

defence to the fort and brought men and supplies, but had begun to

make trips up the river to a point opposite the Indian camp, from

which they could pour shot into the wigwams. One night the attention

of the watchful sentries was attracted by a mass of flames shooting

up into the sky in the general direction of the Indian camp. Their

first thought was that the village was on fire, but the mass of flame

seemed to be moving and to come nearer. A huge fire-float, made of four

bateaux[2] filled with fagots, birch bark, and tar, appeared on the

water, drifting down to set fire to the schooners anchored opposite the

fort. The vessels were anchored by two cables, and as the blazing raft

approached, they slipped one cable and swung to the other side of the

river while the raft floated harmlessly by, lighting up the fort and

the dark shores till it burned itself down to the water’s edge.

[2] _Bateau_, the French word for boat, usually applied to a

flat-bottomed boat with pointed ends.

The next event of the blockade came at the end of that month. On the

29th of July the garrison heard firing down the river. They waited

anxiously, wondering what new disaster was to fall upon them, for

similar sounds had often been followed by the arrival of a single

survivor from some abandoned fort with a tale of Indian butchery.

Half an hour later the sentries called to their officers to come

quickly, for the whole surface of the water was covered with boats. In

breathless suspense the weary garrison waited to see if the story of

two months before was to be repeated and dusky forms were to appear

crouching in captured English vessels; but they were reassured by the

salute of an English gun. In an hour two hundred and sixty men had

landed at the little wharf and been welcomed with cheers and shouts.

Captain Dalyell had been sent from Niagara with companies from two

regiments and with twenty of Rogers’ Rangers, commanded by Major Rogers

himself, to put an end to the siege.

The newcomers were eager to sally forth and meet the Indians. Gladwin,

who had been made wary by long months of experience with Pontiac,

strenuously opposed Dalyell’s plan of a night attack, and only gave his

consent when the latter threatened to leave Detroit unless some such

bold stroke was permitted. About two o’clock in the morning, on the

thirty-first day of July, two hundred and fifty men marched in three

detachments up the bank of the river, past the French cottages, to a

little stream a mile and a half above the fort. Treacherous Canadians,

who had in some way learned of the plan, had warned the Indians, and as

the advance guard passed across the bridge which spanned the stream,

the Indians dashed down from the heights above and poured volleys of

musketry into the English ranks. The soldiers recoiled for a moment;

then they pushed on over the bridge, but the savages vanished yelling

into the darkness beyond. For a time the English pressed on, shot at

from every side; but flesh and blood could not stand against this

invisible enemy. The remaining troops endeavored to retreat in orderly

fashion, but were soon under heavy fire again from a rear ambuscade of

Indians. Major Rogers gained entrance to a house on the road and from

its windows commanded the road with his guns and covered the retreat.

The two bateaux which had followed the party up the river were loaded

with the dead and wounded. Slowly the English made their way back

under constant fire, and by eight o’clock the survivors gained the

shelter of the fort. Of the two hundred and fifty who had gone out six

hours before, one hundred and fifty-nine had been killed or wounded,

and Captain Dalyell himself had lost his life. The victory of Bloody

Run, as the stream was ever afterwards called, restored the confidence

of Pontiac and brought many accessions to his side; but in spite of

this disaster Major Gladwin, with his reënforced garrison of over two

hundred able-bodied men, was confident of ultimate success.

The schooner _Gladwin_ made her way again to Niagara and returned

early in September with a welcome load of forty-seven barrels of flour

and one hundred barrels of pork, but with a tale of Indian attack and

the loss of six of her crew of twelve. Other attempts from Niagara to

relieve the garrison were unsuccessful, but Pontiac received in October

a heavy blow in a letter from the French commander at Fort Chartres in

the Illinois country, saying that not only could he offer Pontiac no

help but he was now at peace with the English and wished the Indians

to follow his example. This message had its effect. Pontiac had had

great hopes of French assistance. With these hopes dashed he knew he

could not hold out much longer; already his warriors were wearying of

the attack and deserting him. He sent a letter to Gladwin asking for

peace and agreeing to forget the “bad things that had happened,” if

the Englishman would do the same. Gladwin replied that he would grant

a truce while he sent Pontiac’s message to his general, who alone had

power to grant pardon.

As it was then late in the season, it was deemed best to leave matters

in this condition until spring, as it held the Indians in a wholesome

state of uncertainty. Within a few days the encampments in the vicinity

of Detroit were abandoned. After a confinement of five long months the

inhabitants of the town could venture outside the stockade without

dread of Indian bullets.

A report was sent to General Amherst, the commander of the British

army, and during the winter plans were made to relieve Detroit and

bring peace to the lake region. A military expedition was to be sent

in the spring to force the tribes into submission; and in the meantime

Sir William Johnson, the superintendent of Indian affairs, despatched

messages to all the tribes, warning them of the coming expedition and

urging those who were ready to make peace to come, while there was yet

time, to a grand council fire at Niagara.

From the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi, from Lake Superior and

eastern New York, the friendly tribes came up in July to Niagara. When

Johnson stepped ashore from the boat which brought him from Oswego, he

saw dotting the fields the wigwams of more than a thousand Indians, and

in a few days the number was doubled. Councils were held at which the

representatives of the tribes promised their friendship to the English,

agreed to restore the forts, to cede lands, and in so far as their own

nations were concerned to guarantee safe navigation on the lakes. This

convention was the most remarkable assemblage of Indians that had ever

gathered on the shores of the Great Lakes.

While the council was in progress Colonel Bradstreet arrived at Niagara

with his troops, and when it was over he proceeded up Lake Erie to

Detroit, for Pontiac and his tribes had not come to the conference, and

Detroit was still in danger. During the winter the Indians had left the

town in peace, but in the spring warriors had returned to encamp on

the strait and had made occasional attacks. In August, 1764, fifteen

months from the time when Pontiac and his sixty chiefs sat in Gladwin’s

council chamber, the English army under General Bradstreet came to

relieve the weary garrison. Pontiac sent a message of defiance to the

English chief, but he sent it from the safe distance of a village on

the Maumee River, forty or fifty miles away, in what is now the state

of Ohio.

Fresh troops were put in place of the worn-out veterans of the siege;

such Indians as remained in the vicinity came in and offered their

allegiance to the English; and Gladwin, weary of fighting the Indians,

started down Lake Erie on his way to England. Now that his defence of

Detroit was honorably ended, he was glad to resign his commission.

Lesser posts had fallen, but Detroit had been saved, and with it the

upper lakes.

Pontiac spent the next two years among the western tribes of the

Illinois region. In the summer of 1766 he went to Oswego, and as

official representative of the tribes of the West offered to Sir

William Johnson his friendship and theirs. His conspiracy had failed

and he returned sadly to his home in the Illinois villages. For two

years little is known of him, but in April, 1769, his name became

once more the watchword of bloodshed and slaughter. From tribe to

tribe runners carried the news that he had been murdered in an Indian

village, and the nations rose in their wrath to avenge the death of

their great chieftain. The Illinois nation, to which the assassin

belonged, was almost wiped out, and internal feuds sprang up between

the tribes till all the Indians of the southern lake region were

involved, and the death of Pontiac was avenged among his people by a

period of universal tribal war.

_Chronology of the Ending of French Rule_

1759. Capture of Quebec and Niagara.

1760. Capture of Montreal and surrender of Canada.

Taking possession of Detroit.

1763. Pontiac’s attack, and the fall of the other posts of the

western lakes.

Treaty of Peace.

1764. Sir William Johnson’s conference at Niagara.

Bradstreet’s expedition up Lake Erie, and the close of

the blockade of Detroit.

CHAPTER XI

THE ADVENTURES OF A TRADER

A fur trader by the name of Alexander Henry was the first Englishman

to reach Mackinac after the fall of New France. His story of his

adventures gives a graphic picture of the course of events on the

upper lakes during the years when the siege of Detroit and the Indian

uprising under Pontiac left the northern forts isolated and unprotected.

Henry reached Fort Mackinac in September, 1761. For the latter part

of his journey from Montreal he had adopted the disguise of a French

trader, for the Indians stopped every party to inquire whether any

Englishman was coming to the lakes. As soon as his nationality became

known at Mackinac he was warned by the Canadians that he should lose no

time in making his escape to Detroit, as the Indians would not tolerate

the presence of an Englishman. Henry suspected that the Canadians had

fostered this spirit to retain control of the fur trade, and were

exaggerating the dangers of his position in the hope of frightening

him away. Still, it did not add to his comfort to hear that a party

of Indians was coming to pay him a visit. As he sat in his house one

afternoon the door opened and an Indian chief, six feet tall, walked

quietly in. Behind him were sixty more, each with a tomahawk in one

hand and a scalping knife in the other. In absolute silence they

stalked into the room in single file, seated themselves, at a sign from

their leader, on the floor, and began to smoke their pipes. In the long

pause that followed Henry had time to study his formidable visitors.

Their faces were painted with charcoal mixed with grease, and their

bodies, bare to the waist, were decorated with white clay plastered

on in various patterns. Some had feathers thrust through their noses;

others had them stuck into their hair. Unless their purpose was

friendly these warriors would not be safe guests for a single trader to

entertain. After a long time the chief began to address him. He told

him that because of his bravery in venturing into this country alone he

might stay among them, in spite of his being an Englishman, the hated

enemy of their father, the king of France. The august assembly ended

with a request that the young men be allowed to taste his “English

milk,” meaning rum, and the trader was assured of his safety at

Mackinac.

That week a detachment of English troops arrived from the lower lakes,

and the trader’s protection was ensured. Henry fitted out expeditions

to go into the interior to buy furs of the more remote Indian tribes,

and prepared to spend the winter at the fort. During these months at

Mackinac and the succeeding winter which he spent at Sault Ste. Marie

he was much interested in the fisheries. In both these straits the

whitefish were very abundant. At Sault Ste. Marie in the late autumn

there was such a run of fish that two men would go out in a canoe, one

paddling and the other handling a scoop-net on the end of a ten-foot

pole, and would return in two hours with a catch of five hundred

whitefish, each weighing from six to fifteen pounds. The steersman

would guide the canoe in and out between the sharp rocks and rushing

rapids; the fisherman would dip his net and throw in a pile of fish;

and before long the canoe would be loaded down to the water’s edge.

During the winter the fish were cured by drying them in smoke, and

packed for transportation to the nearest frontier posts, and even for

the markets of the St. Lawrence.

In May, 1763, when Henry returned to Mackinac, he found that the

traders, who were gathering there, brought rumors of Indian hostility.

These reports were disregarded by the officers of the garrison, who

with their force of soldiers and their fort could not believe there

was any cause for alarm. Henry himself received a warning. The year

before, he had won the friendship of one of the Chippewa Indians, named

Wawatam, who had surprised him one day by bringing his whole family to

the trader’s house, offering a present of skins, sugar, and dried meat,

and declaring his wish of adopting him into his family as a brother.

Henry had accepted the honor and thought no more of the incident until

now, in the spring of 1763, his Indian brother came to his house in

a very sober mood, and begged him to go back to the Sault the next

morning with himself and his family. He further inquired whether the

commandant of the fort had not heard bad news, saying that he himself

had been frequently disturbed by “the noise of evil birds.” He hinted

that there were many more Indians about the fort than the English had

seen. Henry paid little attention to the Indian’s words, but the

next morning he returned with his wife and once more entreated the

trader to go with him. Henry was not sufficiently familiar with the

Chippewa language to follow all his figurative and elaborate speech,

and unfortunately turned a deaf ear to his plea. After long effort the

chief went sadly away. He had warned Henry that all the Indians were

coming in a body one day soon to demand liquor of the commandant, and

that before they became intoxicated he had better be gone. Henry kept

careful watch, but except that a great many Indians came in the next

day to purchase tomahawks, he saw nothing unusual. The next day, the

4th of June, was the king’s birthday, and from this time on we will let

Henry tell his own story.

“The morning was sultry. A Chippewa came to tell me that his nation was

going to play at baggatiway (called by the Canadians “la crosse”) with

the Sacs, another Indian nation. He invited me to witness the sport,

adding that the commandant was to be there, and would bet on the side

of the Chippewas. In consequence of this information, I went to the

commandant and expostulated with him a little, representing that the

Indians might possibly have some sinister end in view; but he only

smiled at my suspicions.

“I did not go myself to see the match, which was now to be played

without the fort, because, there being a canoe prepared to depart on

the following day for Montreal, I employed myself in writing letters to

my friends; and even when a fellow-trader, Mr. Tracy, happened to call

upon me, saying that another canoe had just arrived from Detroit, and

proposing that I should go with him to the beach to inquire the news,

it so happened that I still remained to finish my letters, promising to

follow Mr. Tracy in the course of a few minutes. Mr. Tracy had not gone

more than twenty paces from my door, when I heard an Indian war-cry,

and a noise of general confusion.

“Going instantly to my window, I saw a crowd of Indians, within the

fort, furiously cutting down and scalping every Englishman they found.

I had, in the room in which I was, a fowling-piece, loaded with shot.

This I immediately seized, and held it for a few minutes, waiting to

hear the drum beat to arms. In this dreadful interval, I saw several of

my countrymen fall.”

At length, realizing that there was no hope of a call to arms, and

that one person could do nothing against four hundred Indians, Henry

decided to seek shelter for himself. He saw that many of the Canadian

inhabitants of the fort were calmly looking on, neither helping nor

hindering the Indians, and conceived the hope that he might be safe

in one of their houses. He climbed the low fence that separated his

house from that of Mr. Langlade, his next neighbor, and found the whole

family at the windows, gazing at the scene of blood before them. Henry

begged Mr. Langlade to put him in some place of safety, but he paid no

attention. “This,” says Henry, “was a moment for despair; but the next

an Indian woman, a slave of Mr. Langlade’s, beckoned to me to follow

her. She brought me to a door, which she opened, desiring me to enter,

and telling me that it led to the garret, where I must go and conceal

myself.” The woman locked the door after him, and from his hiding-place

he looked out on the horrible scenes that were passing without. Soon

every one who could be found had been massacred, and there was a

general cry, “All is finished.” At the same instant Indians entered

the house and asked Mr. Langlade whether there were any Englishmen in

the house. The Canadian replied that he did not know of any,--for

the Indian woman had kept her secret,--but that they might hunt for

themselves. They were delayed in their search by a hunt for the key

of the garret door, and in those few moments Henry hid himself under

a pile of birchbark vessels. Four Indians came up with Mr. Langlade,

walked round the dark garret so near to the fugitive that they might

have touched him, told how many they had killed and how many scalps

they had taken, and went off again, locking the door after them.

Exhausted by suspense Henry fell asleep, and was awakened in the

evening by Mrs. Langlade, who came up to the garret and was much

surprised to find him there. She gave him a little water to drink

and told him she hoped he would escape. The next morning the Indians

returned, and discovered the trader’s hiding-place. An Indian walked

into the garret and seized him with one hand by the collar of his coat,

while in the other he brandished a large carving-knife as if he meant

to plunge it into him. For some seconds the Indian looked into Henry’s

eyes, and then dropped his arm, saying, “I won’t kill you!” He added

that he had once lost a brother, and that he would call his prisoner

after him. He was going to take him to his cabin, but Henry begged Mr.

Langlade to request that he be allowed to stay in the garret, as the

Indians were so intoxicated that no Englishman would be safe among

them. Once more the trader settled himself in the garret to await his

fate, but in an hour an Indian came, purporting to be from his new

master, and led him outside the fort among the bushes, where he tried

to murder him. Henry managed to escape and ran with all speed to the

fort, where he found his master, who gave him protection. The next

morning three other Englishmen who had escaped massacre were brought

to Mr. Langlade’s house. From them Henry learned that the game of “la

crosse” had been a device to get as many Englishmen as possible outside

the walls. It had been agreed that a ball should be tossed as if by

accident over the pickets of the fort, and that it should be instantly

followed by all engaged in the game. When a sufficient number were

inside they could seize the fort. Twenty Englishmen had survived the

massacre. They consulted together to see whether there was any hope of

their regaining possession of the station, but were forced to decide

that without the help of the Canadian inhabitants, who could not be

counted upon, it was impossible.

The next day the prisoners went through a strange experience. They

were put into canoes and told that they were to be taken to the Castor

Islands in Lake Michigan, but a thick fog came up and their guards

thought it safer to keep near shore and paddled towards an Ottawa

village. Every half hour the Indians gave their war-whoops, one for

every prisoner in the canoe, in order to notify all other Indians of

the number of prisoners they were taking. At the Ottawa village they

were greeted by an Ottawa chief, who made signs to them to land. When

they came within a few hundred yards of the shore warriors rushed

into the water, dragged the prisoners from the canoes, and carried

them ashore. The English thought that their last moments had come,

but the Ottawas hastened to assure them that they were their friends.

The Ottawas were indignant because they had not been consulted by the

Chippewas about destroying the English. Therefore they had rescued

the prisoners from the Chippewas, who were taking them to the Castor

Islands to kill them. Before long the bewildered prisoners were

returning to Mackinac in the canoes of the Ottawas, and were marched by

their new masters into the midst of the astonished Chippewas.

While their captives slept the two nations held a long conference, and

the Ottawas were unfortunately persuaded to relinquish their grievance

and return the prisoners to their former conquerors. The prospect for

the Englishmen was now dark indeed, and several of them were to lose

their lives that day; but as preparations were being made for the

slaughter, Wawatam, Henry’s adopted brother, walked into the council.

By presents he bought the trader,--all the Indians recognizing his

right to do so,--and took him away with him into the interior. There

Henry spent the winter hunting with the Indians. He was often in danger

from hostile tribes who brought tales of the siege of Detroit and

summons from Pontiac to help in the war, but his position in the family

of Wawatam protected him, and in the spring of 1764 he returned with a

party of Canadian traders to Sault Ste. Marie.

While Henry was at the Sault a canoe arrived one day from Niagara. A

council was assembled to meet the strangers and receive their message.

They proved to be the ambassadors of Sir William Johnson, who warned

the tribes of the great English army that was coming, and advised them

to hasten to Niagara to make peace. Such a weighty matter could not be

settled by mere human knowledge and wisdom; so the Indians made solemn

preparations to consult their guiding spirit, the “Great Turtle.”

They built a large wigwam, within which they placed a small moose-skin

tent for the use of the priest. At nightfall the whole village

assembled in the wigwam. Several fires had been kindled near the

tent, and their flames lighted up the expectant faces of this strange

assemblage. The priest entered the tent, and as the skins fell over him

many voices were heard. Some were barking like dogs, some howled like

wolves, and others sobbed as if in pain. After a time these frightful

sounds died away, and a perfect silence followed. Then a voice not

heard before seemed to show the arrival of a new character in the tent.

Henry describes this as “a low feeble voice, resembling the cry of a

young puppy.” When it was heard the Indians clapped their hands for

joy, for now the chief spirit, the “Turtle,” the spirit that never

lied, had come to them. The others had been evil and lying voices. For

half an hour sounds of conversation were heard from the tent, and then

the priest spoke, saying that the “Great Turtle” was come and would

answer such questions as should be asked. The chief of the village

desired the priest to inquire whether the English were preparing to

make war on the Indians, and whether there were at Fort Niagara large

numbers of English troops. When the priest put these questions the tent

began to shake violently, and soon a voice announced that the “Turtle”

had departed.

A quarter of an hour elapsed in silence, and then the voice of

the “Turtle” was heard again. After it had talked for some time

in a language unintelligible to the audience, the priest gave an

interpretation of what it had said. The spirit had, during its short

absence, crossed Lake Huron, been to Fort Niagara, and thence to

Montreal. At Fort Niagara he had seen no great number of soldiers, but

on the St. Lawrence he had found the river covered with boats, and the

boats filled with soldiers, “in number like the leaves of the trees,”

and these were coming to make war on the Indians. The chief had a third

question to ask, and the spirit, “without a fresh journey to Niagara,”

gave an immediate and most satisfactory answer. “If,” said the chief,

“the Indians visit Sir William Johnson, will they be received as

friends?” “Sir William Johnson,” said the spirit, “will fill their

canoes with presents; with blankets, kettles, guns, gunpowder and shot,

and large barrels of rum, such as the stoutest of the Indians will not

be able to lift; and every man will return in safety to his family.”

“At this,” writes Henry, “the transport was universal; and amid the

clapping of hands, a hundred voices exclaimed, ‘I will go, too! I will

go, too!’”

On the 10th of June, Henry embarked with the Indian deputation of

sixteen men, leaving the scene of his long captivity. The party went

down Georgian Bay, across the country where the great Huron missions

had been built to Lake Simcoe, and out past the site of Toronto to

Lake Ontario. There they built canoes to take the place of those they

had left on Georgian Bay, completing two large boats in two days. They

spent their last night encamped four miles from Fort Niagara. In the

morning the Indians feared to start lest they should be going into a

trap set by the English. Henry assured them of a friendly welcome,

and at length, after painting themselves in their gayest colors to

show their peaceable intent, and singing the song which they used on

going into danger, they embarked. “A few minutes after,” says Henry, “I

crossed to the fort; and here I was received by Sir William Johnson, in

a manner for which I have ever been gratefully attached to his person

and memory.”

The Indians joined in the great council, and Henry conferred with

General Bradstreet, who with three thousand men was preparing to go

up Lake Erie and raise the siege of Detroit. Bradstreet informed him

that it was his plan when he reached Detroit to send a body of troops

to Mackinac, and that they should assist the trader to recover his

property there, should he care to accompany them. Henry was given

command of a corps of Indians of the upper lakes, ninety-six in number,

who were to proceed with the army. Among them were the sixteen men

with whom he had come to Niagara. Henry comments on the reversal of

conditions which made him their leader, he “whose best hope it had very

lately been, to live through their forbearance.” Most of the Indians

promptly deserted, not caring to march against their own nation at

Detroit, but Henry went on with Bradstreet and landed at Detroit on

the 8th of August. He proceeded up Lake Huron with two companies of

troops and three hundred Canadian volunteers to Mackinac, where peace

was concluded with the Indians and the fort was reoccupied by English

soldiers.

CHAPTER XII

WAYNE’S INDIAN CAMPAIGN

With the turn of a single page of history and the passage of a single

decade of time, during this century of struggle for possession, the

actors in the drama change, or if the same actors remain, a new set of

circumstances makes them play a new part amid the old scenes. Like the

bits of glass in a kaleidoscope they are shaken up and come out in new

combinations, and with them our ideas and sympathies are shaken up and

must be readjusted.

We have followed the fortunes of the little English garrisons at

Detroit and Mackinac in their struggles against a horde of savages,

and have breathed a sigh of relief when a strong British army came to

the rescue and England once more resumed possession of her lake posts.

We return to Detroit in twelve years to find General Hamilton, the

British commander of the French-English town, reading with scorn the

announcement in a stray copy of the _Pennsylvania Gazette_ of July,

1776, that a new American nation has been formed and a Declaration of

Independence has been adopted. Within two years Daniel Boone, the hero

pioneer, is brought to Detroit a British prisoner, taken by Indians in

their raid on Kentucky, and before he has made his escape from prison,

Hamilton is chanting the war-song and dancing the war-dance at a grand

council of Indians. To them he is offering his congratulations on the

success of their raids into the southern states of the newly formed

Union, on the number of prisoners they have taken, and especially

on the far greater number of scalps they have brought. The War of

the Revolution has begun, and with it a period of bloodshed in the

Northwest.

While the main bodies of troops were being marshalled and the decisive

battles were being fought in the south and the east, the British

carried on upon the western frontier an incessant Indian warfare. This

border campaign was marked by a horrible series of bloody raids and

massacres, many of which were planned at Niagara and Detroit. Niagara,

wrested in the past from the Indians and the French, became at this

time a place of refuge for the loyalists of New York, “a nest of

Tories,” and a centre of British influence so strong that an American

leader could make no more telling expression of his dread of the

threatened loss of a southern point of vantage than to say that it must

be saved, for if taken by the British it would become “another Niagara.”

From Detroit, Hamilton set out in the summer of 1778 with a force of

one hundred and seventy-five men to oust from Kaskaskia and Vincennes

the American “rebel,” George Rogers Clark, who had taken these British

strongholds. But instead of returning to Detroit triumphant, Hamilton

was taken by that same young rebel and started on a twelve-hundred-mile

journey to a Virginia prison. Even after this it seemed to the

Americans that plans and conspiracies came out from Detroit as fast as

prisoners and scalps went into the British prison there. There were

many schemes to take the fort, but all were abandoned because of its

inaccessibility.

When the negotiators met at Paris, in 1782, to arrange terms of peace

between Great Britain and the American colonies or states, it was

difficult to decide what should be done with the Great Lakes. At first

it was suggested that the boundary line between the United States

and Canada should be so drawn as to give the territory south of the

Ottawa River and Lake Superior to the United States, as far west as the

Mississippi. At another time it was proposed that all of the land north

of the Ohio and west of the Alleghanies should continue to be English.

Finally it was arranged that the Great Lakes, with the exception of

Michigan, should form the boundary line between the United States and

Canada in that part of the world. This arrangement gave to the United

States the posts at Detroit, Mackinac, and other points on the lakes;

but the English would not surrender them, justifying their not doing

so on the ground that the Americans had broken the treaty in other

respects. As long as the British retained the posts in the Northwest,

the Indians of that region looked to them for support and were inclined

to take up an attitude of hostility to the government of the United

States and to colonists, who now came into the Ohio Valley in great

numbers. Treaties were made with them, but these the Indians failed

to keep, and there ensued a period of confusion and bloodshed on the

frontier. Into the details of this petty warfare it is not worth our

while to enter.

At first the British seemed anxious to preserve peace for the sake of

the fur trade, but as time went on and relations between England and

the United States became more strained, the English lent undisguised

assistance to the Indians. It was inevitable that there should be

constant strife between the rough, encroaching frontiersman who

overstepped the original boundaries and the jealous, suspicious Indian

who met all wrongs by treachery and violence. The record of the years

shows a succession of efforts for peace by the United States government

and a series of councils, treaties, ruptures, and hostilities on the

part of the Indians.

A formal government had been organized in the Northwest by the

Ordinance of 1787, which created the great Northwest Territory,

out of which were later formed the five states of Ohio, Indiana,

Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. By 1789 and 1790 the United States

government began to realize that it had to deal in this region with no

petty skirmishes with scattered tribes, but with a widespread Indian

uprising. Raids and counter-raids must be abandoned, and war with

organized armies and carefully planned campaigns must be waged against

the lawless hordes of savages who were breaking faith with the white

man and murdering whom they pleased.

An expedition under the leadership of General Harmar, sent north in

1790 from Fort Washington (Cincinnati), met defeat at the hands of the

Indians at the present Fort Wayne. A similar expedition, commanded

a year later by General St. Clair, was routed on a battle-ground in

central Ohio, and the whole frontier was terrorized. Matters had now

become serious. Armies of regulars had been defeated by these savage

masters of the art of treacherous warfare, and the Indians were

becoming more and more aggressive in their elation at their victories,

while the British were becoming more and more open in their support of

the lake tribes.

Needing a leader who could drive back the Indians, President Washington

turned to a soldier who had distinguished himself in the Revolutionary

War for hard fighting and daring bravery. Major General Anthony Wayne

had so often snatched success in the face of almost certain defeat

that he had earned for himself the nickname “Mad Anthony.” He was the

grandson of a Pennsylvanian pioneer and had had hard schooling from

his Indian-fighting grandfather and father in the methods of frontier

warfare. Above all else he gloried in difficulty and danger.

In April, 1792, Washington appointed General Wayne to the command of

the army and sent him to the Ohio to drill his men. Wayne found there

the remnant of St. Clair’s force, to which were being constantly

added hundreds of raw recruits enlisted under new legislation for the

campaign by Congress. The one stipulation that Wayne had made when he

took command was that he be allowed to wait to fight until his ranks

were full and his men thoroughly trained. He knew that he had to deal

with the same kind of men who had failed St. Clair. He attributed

this failure to poor organization and lack of military discipline. He

knew, too, that he had the added difficulty of meeting the paralyzing

discouragement caused by previous defeats and well-remembered scenes of

horror. Patiently and deliberately he went to work, and new recruits

arriving in the summer and autumn found themselves living in a camp

where an army was being taught with all speed the essentials of

warfare. By spring Wayne had twenty-five hundred soldiers who were

eager for the campaign and worthy of their commander.

Congress was reluctant to begin war and kept Wayne waiting all through

the summer of 1793, while it made fruitless negotiations with the

Indians. The tribes finally demanded that the Ohio River should be the

boundary of American advance, and to this the government could not

agree. In October Wayne was given permission to open his campaign, but

with cautions that on no account was he to run any risks of defeat.

He moved his men from Fort Washington to a point eighty miles north,

which he fortified as a winter camp and named Greenville in honor of

his former comrade at arms, Captain Nathanael Greene. Here he spent

the winter, sending a large detachment of his men north to build on

St. Clair’s fatal battle-ground a fort which was prophetically named

Fort Recovery. Several skirmishes with the Indians took place at

Greenville during the winter, and in the early summer a large war-party

made an unsuccessful attack on Fort Recovery. On the 27th of July,

1794, General Wayne started with his “legion” of troops, more than two

thousand men, for the Miami towns of northern Ohio.

The march of the American army was watched with wonder and admiration

by the Indians, who reported to the British that the soldiers went

twice as far in a day as St. Clair’s had done, that Wayne kept scouts

out in every direction, and that he was always ready for attack and

guarded carefully against ambush by day or surprise by night. At the

junction of the Maumee and Auglaize rivers, where the line of hostile

Indian villages began, Wayne built a strong log stockade which he

christened with the characteristic name of Fort Defiance, a name

perpetuated to this day. Warned of his approach, the Indians had fled,

leaving their homes and their rich fields of corn and vegetables, in

which the soldiers revelled after their hard march and short rations.

From Fort Defiance Wayne sent a final offer of peace to the Indians,

declaring that he would restore to them their lands and villages and

preserve their women and children from famine should they agree to

a lasting peace. The Indians returned an evasive answer, and Wayne

advanced against them. From scouts he learned that the natives were

encamped near the British fort on the Maumee River a few miles west of

the present city of Toledo. There were between fifteen hundred and

two thousand warriors in all, with seventy rangers from Detroit,--the

latter company being made up of French, English, and other refugees.

On the 20th of August Wayne met the Indians at a spot some six miles

down the river, known as the Fallen Timbers because there a whirlwind

had overturned the forest and left the trees piled across one another

in rows. Wayne’s army numbered about three thousand men, two-thirds

of whom were regulars, and one-third mounted volunteers from Kentucky

led by General Scott. At the front of the line was a small force of

mounted volunteers, and back of them were the carefully placed lines of

infantry and cavalry. The Indians were secreted as usual in the woods

and tall grass and behind the piles of trees. From their shelter they

poured a murderous fire into the ranks of the army, but the volunteers

pressed on. The front line of infantry rushed up and dislodged the

savages from their covert, the cavalry dashed over the rough ground

and the piles of logs, and the Indians fled before the second line of

soldiers could even come up to the battle-field. Of this engagement

one of the men wrote that there was not “a sufficiency of the enemy

for the Legion to play upon.” The entire action lasted less than forty

minutes, and not a third of Wayne’s force took part in it. The army

pursued the fugitives two miles to the shelter of the British fort, and

then burned everything near by. Thirty-three Americans were killed and

one hundred wounded in this engagement, which closed a forty years’

warfare with the Indians in as many minutes. Wayne’s carefully drilled

troops had won the most decisive victory ever gained over the Indians

of the Northwest.

General Wayne completed his conquest by marching back to Fort Recovery,

and thence westward to the Miami towns at the junction of St. Mary’s

and St. Joseph’s rivers, the scene of Harmar’s disaster. The Indians

dared offer no resistance, but fled before his triumphant army. Along

his route he burned their villages, and at the meeting-place of the

rivers he built the fort which was to perpetuate his name to the

present day, Fort Wayne. Then he returned to Greenville for the winter.

Meanwhile the anger of the Indians had been stirred by the inaction of

their British allies, who had urged them on to war but had furnished

no troops from Detroit. A new respect had been called forth for the

Americans. All the winter Wayne received at Greenville delegations from

various Indian tribes, and in the summer of 1795 a formal treaty was

signed, in which Wayne, representing the United States, made peace with

all the western tribes. Eleven hundred and thirty Indians assembled,

making a full representation from all tribes previously hostile.

Gathered about the council-fire and supplied with a pile of wampum

strings, the chiefs and the American general conferred day after day

as the various groups of Indians arrived during the months of June and

July. The record of their speeches is eighty pages long and carries

one back to the days when Champlain and Frontenac conferred with their

Indian children and received their repentant promises of good behavior

in the future; but now Wayne was addressed by the chiefs as “Elder

Brother,” and he called them always his younger brothers.

By the treaty of Greenville the Indians ceded to the United States

all of what is now southern Ohio and southeastern Indiana, various

reservations about the forts of Detroit, Michilimackinac, and those

which Wayne had built, a six-mile tract at Chicago, and a large grant

of land near the Falls of the Ohio. The government, in its turn,

agreed to the Indian title to the remaining country, and promised

to pay the tribes large annuities. Both sides were to return all

prisoners. Wayne, by his skill at warfare, had brought to the borders

a peace that lasted for fifteen years, when new conditions brought new

difficulties.

While Wayne was fighting for the supremacy of the United States in

the Northwest, John Jay was representing the government in London in

negotiations for a treaty which should settle disputed points between

the two nations, providing, among other things, for the settlement by a

commission of any ambiguities in the boundaries and for the surrender

of the lake posts to the Americans. In 1796 this treaty was ratified

by Congress, and American officers were sent to take command of the

various posts. With appropriate ceremonies the English flag was lowered

and the American Stars and Stripes were raised at each of the posts

whose history we have followed under French and later under English

control. General Wayne was sent by a grateful Congress to conduct the

final transfer of the forts. After a twelve-hundred-mile journey he

arrived at Detroit, where he was received with great honor by Indians,

English, French, and Americans. Leaving there in November for Presque

Isle, he was taken with his old enemy, the gout, and died at that

place. His remains were later removed by his son to Philadelphia, but a

log-house, patterned after the one which Wayne himself built there in

1790, marks to-day the place of his grave at the present city of Erie,

Pennsylvania.

It is worthy of note that the month before General Wayne started for

Detroit to conclude the ceremonies of taking possession of that post,

Moses Cleveland, with a party of Connecticut pioneers, set out to found

on the shores of Lake Erie the city which bears his name,--the advance

guard of an army of occupation which the stipulations of the treaty of

Greenville and Wayne’s intimidation of the Indians made possible.

CHAPTER XIII

THE GREAT LAKES IN THE WAR OF 1812

From the surrender of the northwest posts and the founding of Cleveland

to the year 1812, there is little to note in the history of the Great

Lakes. The forts were gradually strengthened, the fur trade was

continued, and a few settlements were made on the southern shores of

Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. Travel and transportation between the

Atlantic seaboard and the Great Lakes were so difficult that few

settlers found their way into the lake region, and there was no market

for such agricultural products as were raised. In the same period the

Ohio Valley was fast filling up, and settlers were pushing westward and

northward from the Ohio River into central Ohio and Indiana. The ever

increasing pressure on the Indians of that region aroused their fears

and resentment, and made them listen to the plans of an able chieftain,

Tecumseh, who banded them together in a strong league for resistance

to the whites. The natives looked for aid to the British in Canada,

but how far these had gone in encouraging the Indians is unknown. In

1811 matters became so serious that General William Henry Harrison,

Governor of Indiana Territory, marched against the Indians and defeated

them in the battle of Tippecanoe. When the War of 1812 began, Tecumseh

and many of his allies joined the British.

The opening of the war found the lake frontier of the United States

exposed and almost unprotected. At Fort Wayne there were eighty-five

soldiers, at Fort Harrison (Terre Haute) fifty, at Fort Dearborn

(Chicago) fifty-three, at Fort Mackinac eighty-eight, and at Detroit

one hundred and twenty. The last-named post claimed early attention,

because of its great importance, and also because of its exposed

situation. Its loss to the United States would mean the loss of the

upper lakes, at least temporarily. The problem was a difficult one

because the United States had no war vessels on the lakes to secure

communication between Detroit and the settlements on the southeastern

shore of Lake Erie. William Hull, Governor of Michigan Territory, fully

recognized the importance of a naval force, but he was obliged to do

what he could to defend Detroit without one. In the spring of 1812,

with three regiments of Ohio militia, a troop of Ohio dragoons, and

a regiment of United States infantry,--in all about sixteen hundred

men,--he set out from the settlements in Ohio to march overland to

reënforce this important post. The route lay through the wilderness,

much of the way over swampy grounds, but the soldiers cut roads and

advanced with a rapidity that amazed the British. At Frenchtown, on the

River Raisin, forty miles below Detroit, Hull received word that war

had been declared. Before this he had sent a schooner to Detroit with

supplies and a letter to the commandant apprising him of his coming.

This vessel was seized by the British soldiers stationed at Malden, on

the Canadian side of the Detroit River, and some distance below the

American town.

On the 5th of July, 1812, Hull reached Detroit. Besides its small

garrison, the town contained about eight hundred inhabitants. It was

defensible from Indian attacks, but was within gunshot of the British

side of the Detroit River, was insufficiently supplied with provisions

and ammunition for a siege, and was liable to be completely cut off

from communication with the United States should the British gain

command of Lake Erie and the road along the river to the south. At

once, Hull seized the town of Sandwich, opposite Detroit, and issued

a proclamation to the inhabitants of Canada which brought many of

them over to the American side, but an expedition which was to have

reënforced him from Niagara came to naught.

On the British side in the spring of 1812, affairs seemed even more

gloomy, but the difficulties were overcome by the capability and

courage of one man, Brigadier General Isaac Brock, who exercised entire

command in upper Canada. He had at his disposal barely two thousand

men, who were hundreds of miles from their supplies and scattered

through several posts. When war seemed imminent, Brock fitted out

armed vessels on Lake Erie and strengthened the defences of Malden.

The moment war was declared, he directed a subordinate to seize the

American post at Michilimackinac and himself hurried with all available

men to the Detroit River.

Day after day the American army waited at Sandwich before striking a

decisive blow at the British in their fort at Malden. General Hull

had, indeed, good reason for fear of failure, for although he had more

men than the British, the English army had in its fortification a base

of attack, and in its fleet a pronounced advantage. With ineffective

sallies into the neighboring country and prolonged councils of war the

days wore on, and the officers as well as the rank and file of the army

became more and more disheartened. They had crossed the river July

12. They finally set August 8 for the attack on Malden; but meanwhile

word came that British reënforcements were on their way to the fort,

and that a party of Indians under Tecumseh had captured the American

supplies and mail-bags coming from Ohio. Prisoners of war from Fort

Mackinac arrived at the American camp, announcing that their fort had

been surrendered and that a horde of Indians were coming from the

Northwest to attack Detroit in the rear. With the British garrison at

Malden increased, Detroit threatened by the Indians, and the line of

communication between the American army and headquarters in danger,

Hull saw nothing to do but to recross the river; and on the night of

the day when he had planned to attack the British fort he withdrew with

his force to Detroit.

Meanwhile General Brock reached Malden, held a council of war at which

Tecumseh with his following of a thousand Indians was present, and

sent to General Hull a summons to surrender. Hull refused to yield

and started messengers to recall an expedition of three hundred and

fifty men which he had despatched under two Ohio colonels, MacArthur

and Lewis Cass, to the River Raisin to rescue the necessary supplies

for the army. As soon as Hull’s reply was received two British vessels

moved up the river to Sandwich, where their guns could cover the

American fort. During the night Tecumseh and six hundred Indians

crossed to the American side of the river and established themselves

in the woods at a point where they could intercept the returning

Ohio colonels with their force. On the morning of August 16, General

Brock crossed the river with seven hundred soldiers. The British

commander had intended to take up a position and force Hull to attack

him, but after he reached the American bank of the river, he learned

from Tecumseh that the Ohio detachment was only a few miles away.

Fearing lest he be surrounded if he delay, Brock determined to make an

immediate attack.

Within his tent General Hull sat debating what to do. Should he

admit to his officers and men his desire to surrender at once, their

undisguised scorn at his previous delays would perhaps turn to open

mutiny; yet he felt sure that the fort must ultimately be taken, and

he dreaded the loss of life and possible Indian massacre should he

hold out. The British column began to advance. Every soldier expected

that the heavy American guns which were pointed toward them would be

lighted and discharged into their midst; instead, an American was

seen advancing from the fort with a white flag. Within an hour, and

without the firing of a single shot, the surprised British troops

found themselves in possession of Detroit. Hull included in the terms

of capitulation not only the troops within the fort but the Ohio

detachment now advancing up the river, so that General Brock gained

at least twenty-five hundred prisoners of war. The mortification

of the country at the whole course of the war vented itself after

this surrender upon General Hull, who was really the victim of poor

management of the army and lack of support at headquarters. He might

have been forced to give up Detroit within a few weeks unless he was

reënforced, but he could have kept Brock from returning to harry

Niagara in nine days.

Detroit was surrendered on the morning of August 16. On the same day

and at the same hour Fort Dearborn at Chicago was being burned by an

Indian war-party, after the members of its garrison had been massacred.

Two weeks earlier Hull had sent an order to Captain Heald, commander of

the fort, to evacuate it if practicable. The Indian runner reached Fort

Dearborn on August 9 with this message and with the news of the fall

of Fort Mackinac, the receipt of which had been the occasion of Hull’s

decision in regard to Chicago.

It had taken the Indian messenger a suspiciously long time to make

the journey, and as Indians from a distance began to gather about the

fort it was surmised that he had in some way learned the contents

of the message, and in particular the clause which directed that

Captain Heald deliver up to the Indians all the public property of the

garrison, and had told the news along the way. Accounts differ as to

what Captain Heald promised to the Indians. According to the story of

Mr. Kinzie, a trader in the fort, Captain Heald held a council with

them, at which he agreed to divide among them the public property at

the fort on condition that they should furnish him with a friendly

escort. Unfortunately the two things that the Indians most wanted were

ammunition and liquor. These the white men considered it an act of

madness to put into their hands, and under cover of night knocked in

the heads of the barrels and poured the whiskey into the river, threw

powder, bags of shot, and cartridges into the river, and breaking to

pieces the muskets and pistols they could not take with them, dropped

them into a well. An unknown writer, who was present at the time,

distinctly states that Heald objected to this act and argued that it

was a bad thing to lie to an Indian. The watchful Indians found out

what had been done, and from that time on the older chiefs were unable

to restrain the anger of their young men. So many Indians had gathered

that the officers became convinced that the tribes had been notified by

the messenger from Detroit as he made his trip of the distribution of

gifts that was to take place. The supply of blankets, paints, calicoes,

and trinkets that were given out did not satisfy the warriors.

On the evening of the 13th of August the garrison was cheered by the

arrival from Fort Wayne of Captain William Wells, a famous Indian

fighter and uncle of Mrs. Heald, the commander’s wife. This man had

had a most romantic life. Born in Kentucky, he had been stolen when

a boy of twelve by the Indians and adopted by a chief of the Miamis,

whose daughter he had married. He had grown up with the Indians and

fought their battles with them as a matter of course, taking part in

the engagements with General Harmar and General St. Clair. Discovered

by his Kentucky kindred and convinced that he was brother of Captain

Samuel Wells, he had been persuaded after a time to return to his own

people. He had bidden his Indian father-in-law a dramatic farewell,

telling him that in the past they had been friends, but henceforth

they must be enemies; but as a matter of fact he had always kept in

friendly relation with his former chief and had on one occasion saved

his family from being taken prisoners. He had been one of Wayne’s most

valuable scouts, and had since occupied the position of Indian agent,

first at Chicago and now at Fort Wayne, where he was living with his

Indian wife. Hearing of the probable evacuation of Fort Dearborn he had

marched thither with all haste, bringing a party of thirty friendly

Miamis in the hope that he could be of assistance to his friends and

especially to his favorite niece, Mrs. Heald.

On the morning of the 15th of August, at nine o’clock, the soldiers

left the fort for their journey of two hundred and eighty miles to

Detroit. Without a sign of ill-feeling the Indians bade them good-by,

and the little party started along the lake shore. Captain Wells with

half his Miamis, all mounted on Indian ponies, led the line. The

soldiers of the garrison with the wagons, in which sat the twelve women

and twenty children, followed directly behind them, and the remainder

of the friendly Miamis brought up the rear. The escort of five hundred

furnished by the neighboring tribes kept abreast of the troops until

they reached the sand-hills, a quarter of a mile from the fort. There

they struck out suddenly into the prairie and disappeared, hurrying

forward to prepare an ambuscade.

The little company had proceeded about a mile and a half when Captain

Wells was seen to turn and ride back, swinging his hat in a circle

above his head, which, in the sign language of the frontier, meant:

“We are surrounded by Indians.” As he came nearer he shouted, “We are

surrounded. March up on the sand ridges.” All at once, in the language

of Mrs. Heald, who left a graphic report, they saw “Indians’ heads

sticking up and down again here and there, like turtles out of water.”

As the member of the party most experienced in Indian warfare, Captain

Wells was immediately put in command. He led the men in a charge up the

bank, and with a volley of shot they broke the line of the Indians. A

second time they charged, and again the Indians drew back. But though

they were beaten in front, they poured in from all sides, captured

the horses and baggage, and began to kill the women and children. For

fifteen or twenty minutes the fight went on. Captain Wells was here,

there, and everywhere. With two pistols and a gun, which he kept

reloading with lightning rapidity, he sighted and brought down the

warriors in the midst of their wanton work.

Wounded himself and isolated on a mound with a remnant of his men,

Captain Heald saw that there was no hope but to surrender. The Indians

made signs for him to approach them, and he offered to surrender in the

hope of sparing further bloodshed. His own wife was slightly wounded,

and Mrs. Helm, the wife of his lieutenant, had only been saved from

being tomahawked by the friendly chief, Black Partridge, who seized

her from the grasp of her captor, and took her to the water, where he

made feint to drown her, but kept her head out until the fight was

over. After the surrender Captain Wells rode up, desperately wounded,

to send farewell messages to his wife, and was killed on the instant by

a group of Indians, who mangled his body horribly. Of the ninety-three

in the party but thirty-six were still living. Of the sixty-six

fighting men forty-three had been killed, and only seven women and six

children survived. Some of the prisoners made their escape, finding

their way to safety through a series of hairbreadth adventures; some

died in captivity, and others were exchanged at intervals during the

next two years. On the spot where the massacre took place,--then out

in open prairie, now at the foot of Eighteenth Street in the city of

Chicago,--there stands a noble monument to the Fort Dearborn garrison.

With Fort Dearborn and Fort Mackinac abandoned, the last American

defences on the western lakes were gone. The boundary line of the

United States became the Wabash and Maumee rivers, and the surrender

of Detroit made it doubtful whether even that line could be maintained.

The hold of the United States on the Great Lakes in August, 1812,

looked very uncertain.

CHAPTER XIV

THE CONQUEST OF LAKE ERIE

The year 1813 began with another disaster for the United States. After

the surrender of Detroit, Governor William Henry Harrison, of the

Indiana Territory, placed himself at the head of a popular movement

to retrieve the defeat at any cost and to recover Detroit. It was

winter before he succeeded in getting an army within reach of the lake

coast. For months the three divisions of his force of ten thousand

men struggled through the swampy lands of Ohio, where the movement of

troops and of necessary provisions was rendered well-nigh impossible

by the heavy rains. On the 15th of January two Frenchmen had entered

the camp of the advance division of the army, which under command of

General Winchester was establishing itself at a point on the Maumee

River twenty miles inland from Lake Erie. They urged the troops to

occupy Frenchtown, a village on the American shore of Lake Erie

but within British lines. This town on the River Raisin was held by

Canadians and Indians, and its loss, if taken by the Americans, would

be a serious blow to the British. Six hundred and fifty men, the flower

of the Kentucky regiments, started under the command of Colonel Lewis

for the attack. After considerable losses the Americans seized the

town. General Winchester hastened to their support with three hundred

more men, making a total American force at the River Raisin of eight or

nine hundred men.

General Proctor, Brock’s successor at Fort Malden, had under his

command over two thousand soldiers. On the morning of January 22,

1813, he crossed the lake on the ice with a force of six hundred men

and from six to eight hundred Indians and attacked the Americans in

the ill-fortified village. When the hard-fought engagement was ended

four hundred Americans were missing, either killed during the battle

by the British or scalped by the Indians in the horrible massacre

that followed the defeat. Only after the ammunition had given out

and retreat had been proved impossible because of the deep snow and

the position of the enemy, did the last of the gallant Kentuckians

surrender. “Remember the River Raisin” became the watchword of a

desperate people, and operations on the Great Lakes were suspended

until Commodore Perry was ready with his navy to retrieve these defeats

and turn the tide of American fortune.

Oliver Hazard Perry had been brought up in the naval service. His

father was a gallant seaman who had fought in the Revolution and

been on the sea ever since. When Oliver was ready he was appointed

midshipman on his father’s ship, and had seen since that day service

in the West Indies, in the Tripolitan war, and off the Atlantic coast.

At the beginning of the War of 1812 he was put in charge of a flotilla

of gun-boats stationed at Newport, but he had petitioned to be removed

from this retirement and placed in active service, preferably on the

lakes. He was summoned in the winter of 1813 to take charge of the

construction of vessels on Lake Erie. He found the lake fleet divided.

At the Black Rock Navy Yard on the Niagara River lay several vessels,

unable to get out past the British fleet and the overlooking British

forts. At Erie, Pennsylvania, two brigs, a schooner, and a gun-boat

were being built. It was for Perry to unite the two sections of the

fleet, to provide them with a crew of able seamen, and to force the

British fleet into decisive action.

An American victory on the Niagara River on the 27th of May set free

the vessels at Black Rock. Perry was on hand to superintend their

laborious removal from the navy-yard. Oxen and men worked day after day

dragging the vessels against the heavy current of the river into Lake

Erie. Once on the waters of the lake the American ships under Perry’s

command evaded the British cruisers which were sailing back and forth

between Niagara and Erie, with the sole purpose of intercepting them,

and reached the latter port in safety. For two months the fleet lay

in that harbor while Perry strained every nerve to get the vessels

into shape and secure sailors to man them. We get a little idea of his

difficulties by the fact that between the last of May and the first of

August he cut down his requirements in the number of seamen to one-half

his original estimate. On the sixth day of August all preparations were

completed and the fleet sailed out on Lake Erie.

Commodore Perry was twenty-eight years old; his antagonist, Barclay,

was thirty-two. Barclay had met as many difficulties as Perry in

getting his fleet ready, and especially in securing provisions for his

men. The American squadron had, moreover, cut off communication between

Fort Malden and its source of supplies. So in September, even though

his best vessel, the _Detroit_, had to be launched unfinished from

the stocks, Barclay saw no choice but to fight at once. Early on the

morning of September 9, the British fleet sailed to meet the American

squadron, which was anchored at the mouth of the Sandusky River.

Barclay had six vessels with sixty-three guns, and probably about four

hundred and fifty men. Perry had nine vessels with fifty-four guns, and

about the same number of available men. His guns, however, were much

heavier, and his vessels larger.

At daybreak of September 10, Perry’s lookout discovered the approaching

British fleet; the American ships at once weighed anchor, in twelve

minutes they were under sail and standing toward the enemy. The wind

was light and the lake calm, so that both sides found difficulty in

getting into position, but by noon they were drawn up for battle.

The British vessels were in a single column, the American in a

somewhat more irregular formation, and each vessel opposed one of

its own tonnage and build in the enemy’s fleet. Barclay commanded the

_Detroit_, a ship of four hundred and ninety tons carrying nineteen

guns, and opposite him was Perry’s flagship, the _Lawrence_, with

twenty guns. At a quarter before twelve the British opened fire, and

the Americans replied.

Finding the British fire at long range very destructive, especially

to his own vessel, Perry set more sail and passed the word by hail of

trumpet for the whole line to close up and advance nearer the enemy.

For two hours the fleets manœuvred in this position, the _Lawrence_

within two hundred and fifty yards of the _Detroit_ and both vessels

pouring a heavy fire into each other. A second vessel, the _Queen

Charlotte_, came to the support of Barclay, and Perry’s flagship, after

sustaining the action for over two hours, was seriously disabled.

Every gun was rendered useless, the greater part of the crew killed or

wounded, and the rigging shot away. At 2.30 the English commander saw

the _Lawrence_ drop from her position and a small boat pass from her

to the _Niagara_, a vessel under command of Lieutenant Elliot, which

had been at some distance from the main engagement and was at this

time comparatively fresh. As Barclay wrote in his official report,

“The American commodore, seeing that as yet the day was against him,

made a noble and, alas! too successful an effort to regain it; for he

bore up [in the _Niagara_] and supported by his small vessels, passed

within pistol-shot and took a raking position on our bow.” Up to this

time the result of the action had been in doubt. For some reason the

portion of the fleet under Elliot had pursued an independent course,

and Perry with the vessels nearest him had been too hard pressed. A

bitter dispute as to the cause of this condition was waged by Elliot’s

friends in the ensuing years after the close of the war. Whatever the

reason, it was evident to all that the American force was not in its

most effective position because so many of the vessels were fighting

at long range instead of at close. When Elliot came up near enough to

the disabled flagship to allow Perry to go on board, the advantage

was for the first time on the American side. Perry was able to bear

down on the _Detroit_ and pour into her volleys of shot so that, with

American vessels on every side aiding in the attack, she soon became

completely disabled. The topmasts and rigging were cut away, the hull

was shattered, and the vessel became unmanageable. Within half an hour

the British commander was forced to strike his flag and surrender.

It had been a desperate alternative for Commodore Perry to venture

into a small boat and transfer his flag from one ship to another. By

his personal action in thus rushing his own vessel in at the crisis

and exposing himself to a fusillade from the enemy for several minutes

before he could make any reply to it, Perry had won the battle for

the Americans. He determined to receive the surrender on his original

flagship, the _Lawrence_, at whose peak had been flying throughout the

battle the words spoken a few months before by the hero for whom the

vessel was named, the dying commander of the _Chesapeake_, “Don’t give

up the ship.” Perry returned to the ship and the English officers came

to him there. Each presented his sword, and in reply Perry bowed and

requested that their side-arms be retained by the officers. The deck

of the _Lawrence_ was covered with dead and wounded. On both sides

the battle had been very hard-fought, and the loss of life, both of

officers and men, was very heavy. Out of one hundred and three men

on the _Lawrence_ twenty-two had been killed and sixty-one wounded.

On both the flagships every officer save Perry was killed or wounded,

even Barclay being seriously injured, and the loss on these vessels was

probably four-fifths of the men disabled or killed. When the ceremony

of surrender was over, Perry tore off the back of an old letter, and

using his hat for a writing-desk, wrote to General Harrison, stationed

with reënforcements on the Sandusky River: “We have met the enemy, and

they are ours; two ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop.”

Perry’s victory was immediately followed up both by himself and by

General Harrison. Within a week the remnant of the fleet was ready

to convey land forces to Malden, where they disembarked on the 27th

of September. The timidity and incompetence of the British general,

Proctor, gave the Americans a great advantage. To the utter scorn of

Tecumseh and his Indians, who were supporting the British, General

Proctor evacuated Malden, Detroit, and Sandwich without a stroke in

their defence, and retired along the road to Lake Ontario even before

the Americans landed. With such a start Harrison thought that the

English with their thousand horses would be out of his reach, but he

prepared to follow them. This Proctor seems not to have included in the

range of possibilities.

By easy marches the British proceeded to Chatham, fifty miles from

Sandwich on the River Thames. Here Proctor halted the army while

he himself went on to the Moravian town twenty-six miles beyond.

The American army appeared, and the British tried to follow their

commander to Chatham. The organization of the whole army was by this

time completely demoralized. They had, however, no choice but to turn

and fight, as the younger officers and soldiers had long desired. The

British were so stationed as to give the advantage of position to

their opponents; and the American force was strengthened by a mounted

regiment commanded by Richard Johnson, who had won a great reputation

for himself and his men in previous battles on the frontier. The

Americans lost only fifteen men in the engagement, with thirty wounded.

The British list of dead and wounded was also short, but nearly five

hundred were taken prisoners, and their supply of provisions and

ammunition fell into the hands of the Americans. Only two hundred

of this whole division of the British army returned to report at

headquarters a month later. The Indian warrior, Tecumseh, was killed

in this battle, and with his death the remote prospect of an Indian

confederacy was gone. After these two victories the western Indians

fell away from their alliance with the British and took no active part

in the war.

The last year of the war, the year 1814, was marked by constant

and active operations on Lake Ontario and about Niagara. The naval

movements were not particularly effective on the American side, nor did

they win great results. The possession of the Niagara River was sharply

contested, and the American troops distinguished themselves by their

bravery at the battles of Chippewa Creek and Lundy’s Lane. Cut off from

any other lake position, the British could concentrate their forces

at this point and throw the Americans on the defensive. These battles

concerned, nevertheless, only a small portion of the Great Lakes, which

were again the northern boundary of the United States. By Perry’s

victory on Lake Erie, the subsequent recovery of the Detroit River, and

the defeat of the British army at the Thames, Lake Erie and the whole

Northwest were saved to the United States. The close of the war by the

treaty of Ghent in the winter of 1814 brought to the lake frontier a

well-earned and a lasting peace.

CHAPTER XV

GENERAL LEWIS CASS AND REORGANIZATION

A period of conflict always leaves behind it changed and unsettled

conditions. Between the close of a war and the final readjustment of

affairs leading up to a settled and permanent life, there must be a

time of reorganization. Into this period of reconstruction the western

territory about the Great Lakes passed at the close of the War of

1812. Since the Ordinance of 1787 the Northwest Territory had been

subdivided. Ohio had become a state in 1802, and the region west of it

had all been included in a territory under the general name of Indiana,

of which section William Henry Harrison was the first governor. From

Indiana, in its turn, Michigan was set off in 1805, with William Hull

as its first governor. On Hull’s retirement from public life, after

the surrender of Detroit, Colonel Lewis Cass was appointed governor of

Michigan Territory. As the man who had most influence on the Northwest

during these years of reconstruction, Governor Cass deserves detailed

notice.

Born in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1782, Lewis Cass was the son of a

soldier of the Revolution. During his son’s boyhood Major Cass, the

father, was with Anthony Wayne or in command of Fort Hamilton, and

after the peace of Greenville he brought his family, as did so many

of the soldiers, to the rich country through which he had marched in

war time. The young man divided his time between Marietta, where he

began the study of law, and the frontier, where his father was hewing

a home and making a living out of the wilderness. Under the state

constitution of Ohio the first certificate of admission to the bar was

given in 1802 to Lewis Cass. In the school of the county court the

young lawyer gained a first-hand knowledge of the practice of the law

and an understanding of the people of the frontier and how to deal

with them, both of which served him well in his governorship. Even

before he reached the proper age of eligibility he was sent to the Ohio

legislature, and at the outbreak of the War of 1812 he was given a

colonel’s commission.

Cass was one of the three Ohio colonels who served with Hull in

the ill-starred Detroit expedition. Indeed, he led one of the few

successful minor charges of that campaign. To his great indignation

he was included by his general in that surrender, although he was not

at the fort. For some months he was prisoner of war on parole. As

soon as he was released he joined Harrison, under whom he did such

efficient service that Harrison left him after the battle of the Thames

in command of Detroit and the northwest frontier. The President soon

appointed Cass governor of Michigan Territory, which then included only

the lower peninsula of the present state, but to which the territory

that is now Wisconsin was added in 1818 under the name of the Huron

District.

Indiana became a state two years after the close of the war, but as

governor of Michigan Territory and superintendent of Indian affairs

General Cass had control of all Indian posts in the Northwest, as

well as of the whole of Michigan, Wisconsin, and northern Illinois.

Illinois became a state in 1818, but at that time the only recognized

settlements were in the southern portion of the territory, and the

region about Chicago was practically left to the care of General Cass.

The management of this vast territory presented many difficulties.

The governor’s immediate residence, Detroit, was four-fifths Canadian,

and of this population a large proportion was French. It was only

fifty years since Major Gladwin had taken possession of a Detroit that

was wholly French, and when the Americans took command in 1796 they

had found a large predominance of French-Canadians. These settlers

were in the best of times poor farmers, and in war times they had

stopped all attempts to cultivate the land. Governor Cass found among

them the most absolute ignorance of the rudimentary principles of

farming that he had ever encountered. They used one piece of ground,

without the least attempt to fertilize, until it was exhausted, and

then proceeded to another. As these settlers of Detroit were typical

of the more scattered inhabitants of the region, and as the Indians

were almost entirely dependent on the gifts and supplies of the ruling

people, Cass found himself confronted by the problem of how to feed

a starving territory. For its immediate need he sought and obtained

government bounties for the people. For the remedy of the condition

he did everything in his power to stimulate settlement, urging the

government to survey the land and allot portions for sale. In this

he was hindered by the false reports of the first surveyors, who for

some reason represented the whole of Michigan as so swampy, barren, or

otherwise unfit for cultivation that there could be no incentive to

immediate settlement. This, be it remembered, was said of Michigan,

whose rich bottom-lands, fertile prairies, and timber tracts were

soon to be so productive and whose orchards were to become among the

greatest fruit producers of the states. Cass did everything in his

power to counteract these statements and to further immigration.

Occupation of the land by thrifty settlers would solve the difficulties

by making the inhabitants independent as they became capable of

producing what they needed, and would also lessen their isolation by

creating lines of communication with the East. In these efforts he

was successful. A public sale of lands was held in 1818, and by 1820

the population had nearly doubled since before the war. The opening

of the Erie Canal in 1825 brought in a period of rapid immigration in

which Cass began to see the fulfilment of his hopes. The population

jumped from nine thousand in 1820 to thirty-two thousand in 1830.

This came just before he was called to the position of Secretary of

War at Washington. During his period of national service he had the

satisfaction of seeing his territory flooded with newcomers, till in

1837 it entered the Union as a state with one hundred and seventy-five

thousand inhabitants. It was due to the statesmanship of its governor

that Michigan Territory was so well-ordered and well-developed a

region and was therefore so soon ready for statehood. He educated the

original settlers to self-government, organized courts and legislative

assemblies and guided their policies, and furthered the cause of public

education. During the eighteen years of his governorship he devoted

himself to such service with a zeal that won immediate results.

In his double position as governor and superintendent of Indian

affairs, Cass did much else for the western lake region. Even after the

cessation of hostilities, he found the British attitude hostile and

aggravating. This showed itself in two ways. The British were inclined

to ignore the rights of the United States citizens and to interfere

with their liberty when the proximity of the two nations brought up any

disputed question; they also stirred the Indians to hostility. Governor

Cass stood out boldly, insisting that the United States must be

treated according to the customs of international law between two equal

powers. In time the British came to realize that they were dealing

with a nation, not with a detached and feeble territory. Governor Cass

could not handle so openly the British instigation of the Indians to

hostility toward the United States and its western settlers. There was

no law to prevent the distribution of sixty tons of presents among the

Indians who gathered at Malden from the American as well as from the

Canadian side of the river. The British did not realize that the time

had come for them to give up their guardianship of all Indian tribes

who did not live within their lawful jurisdiction.

In the conduct of Indian affairs Governor Cass showed himself skilled

as no leader had been since the days of the wise French explorers.

The Indians had never forgotten the French missionaries. “Seven

generations,” said a Chippewa chief, “have passed since the Frenchmen

came to these falls (Sault Ste. Marie), but we have not forgotten

them. Just, very just, were they to us.” This spirit of fairness now

returned in Governor Cass, who combined with it an insight into Indian

character, a patience that enabled him to deal with the savages, and

an energy which made him go to endless trouble to arrange matters with

them. The work of this wonderful man held off raids and massacres,--if

not open and continued war,--which would have retarded settlement in

this exposed wilderness for many years. If the white men were to occupy

the greater part of the country, agreements must be made and kept with

the Indians. Cass recognized this as his cardinal principle, and began

to act on it even before the close of the war. He first made treaties

with the Indians near Detroit. From this centre the circle widened

until it included the whole of his vast territory and parts of more

settled regions. At St. Mary’s in Ohio, at Saginaw in Michigan, and at

Chicago in Illinois, he concluded treaties which brought to the United

States vast stretches of valuable territory.

With the permission of the government Cass organized an expedition

to go into the remote sections of its northwestern possessions,

investigate their resources, and come into friendly relations with the

Indians. Of this picturesque and important expedition made by twenty

Americans into the then unknown Lake Superior country Mr. Schoolcraft,

one of his scientific companions, has left us a full account. In every

transaction the figure of Cass stands out strong and forceful. At

Sault Ste. Marie he wanted to obtain a piece of ground which through

old British and French treaties the Indians had previously admitted

to belong to the white men. Adorned with British medals the Indians

greeted him with an independence of word and gesture that soon became

open rudeness and impudence. Retiring from the council the chiefs ran

up the British flag on their lodge and cleared the room in preparation

for battle. Governor Cass, with a single interpreter, walked into the

Indian camp, tore down the British flag, and faced the astonished

savages. The Americans were studious, he said, to render justice and

promote peace with the Indians, but the flag was the distinguishing

token of national power, and two could not fly over the same spot. The

Indians were forbidden to raise any flag but the American, and if they

should the United States would put strong feet on their necks and crush

them to earth. With these words he turned and walked out of the lodge

with the British flag in his hand. In a few hours the Indians signed

the treaty, and the expedition proceeded on its way.

At the request of Cass mineralogists and geologists had been sent with

him, and they made such discoveries as he had expected of copper and

other minerals. So valuable were they that the attention of the whole

United States was turned toward this rich region. Part of the company,

led by Cass, returned by way of Chicago, a village of only ten or

twelve houses outside the limits of a well-garrisoned fort, but with a

location in what seemed to Cass “the most fertile and beautiful country

that could be imagined.”

Six years later Cass was back on Lake Superior making on the site of

Duluth important treaties with the tribes of Wisconsin and Minnesota.

In all these treaties with the Indians he insisted on three points. The

chiefs should understand fully what they were doing; just remuneration

should be made by the Americans; and the promises made should be

faithfully observed on both sides. The flag that he carried into the

lake region remained during his administration the symbol of justice

and honor, and won the respect of all.

CHAPTER XVI

THE BLACK HAWK WAR

The settlement of northern Illinois and Wisconsin by American colonists

brought on in 1832 the last serious Indian outbreak in the lake region.

The white men had been pushing the Indians farther and farther west. On

the banks of the Mississippi the red men turned and made a desperate

attempt to keep possession of the lands which held the homes and the

graves of their ancestors.

Between Rock River in Illinois and the Wisconsin River there lay on

the eastern bank of the Mississippi a region which had been known to

the white men ever since the visit of Nicholas Perrot in 1690 because

of its extensive deposits of lead. Mines had been worked there by the

Indians and Frenchmen for two centuries and had yielded a considerable

output, which had been bought by French-Canadian traders and in later

years by the British. The United States concluded in 1804 a treaty

with the Sauk and Fox Indians, who occupied this country, by which they

ceded to the Americans the territory east of the Mississippi River from

the mouth of the Illinois at the south to the mouth of the Wisconsin at

the north. It had been agreed that so long as the lands remained the

public property of the United States the Indians might live and hunt

there, but when they were bought by settlers the Indians must move.

[Illustration: Map: “From Lake Michigan to the Mississippi”]

American mining settlements sprang up after the close of the War

of 1812, and by 1827 an established coach road, known as Kellogg’s

Trail, ran from Peoria one hundred and twenty miles north to Galena,

which was in the heart of the mining country. Along this road were

occasional groups of cabins, while on either side trails ran off into

the wilderness which would have led the traveller who followed them to

solitary homesteads and well-ordered farms. In a rich and fertile tract

at the mouth of Rock River stood the chief village of the Sauks. It was

one of the largest and most prosperous Indian towns on the continent,

with more than five hundred families, and was besides the principal

cemetery of the nation. Squatters seized the Indian fields, built their

huts on their clearings, and stole their harvests. Until the lands

were formally sold the Indians had a right there, and their complaints

were just. In 1828, however, the site of the village was sold, and the

tribes were given notice to leave. Keokuk, the chief of the Sauks,

crossed the Mississippi with the majority of the tribe and counselled

the rest to yield peaceably. A considerable number of the Indians

remained in the settlement, living on the high bluff which has since

been known as Black Hawk’s Watch Tower, and cultivating the few fields

which remained to them.

Black Hawk was one of the Indians who did not share Keokuk’s

submissive temper of mind. He was a warrior about sixty years of age,

who seems always to have been a restless and discontented member of

the tribe. He was a tall, spare man, with pinched features, high

cheek-bones, and a prominent Roman nose. His black eyes were piercing;

he had practically no eyebrows, and his hair had been plucked out save

for a single scalp-lock, in which on occasions was fastened a bunch

of eagle feathers. He was a striking figure, and his history bore out

in interest his appearance. He had begun his warlike career in early

youth. Before he was fifteen he had won in his tribe the rank of a

brave, and at that age the scalping of an enemy had gained him the

coveted right to paint, to wear feathers, and to dance the war-dance.

Since that time he had been involved in every tribal skirmish that had

taken place, and he had played a prominent part in the white men’s wars.

[Illustration: Portrait of Black Hawk, shown wearing several necklaces

as well as numerous earrings which are in both ears.]

In the unsettled period before the War of 1812, Black Hawk had gathered

about him a group of two hundred young warriors, who won for themselves

in the war the name of the “British Band,” from their support of the

British troops. He had fought at the battle of Frenchtown on the

River Raisin, at the battle of the Thames under Tecumseh, and after

the latter’s death he returned to Illinois and carried on there a

border warfare which was only ended by his signing at St. Louis in

1816 a treaty of peace. Since that time he had made the Rock River

village his headquarters, and when the white men began to take up his

lands, his smouldering hatred of the Americans blazed out. Returning

with a band of warriors from the winter hunting season of 1831, he

was warned off his land. He refused to cross the Mississippi River,

and appealed to the Indians to defend the graves of their ancestors.

In spite of Keokuk’s remonstrances the best young men of the Sauk and

Fox tribes flocked to his standard, and his threats excited such alarm

among the settlers that Governor Reynolds of Illinois issued a call for

volunteers to assist the regular troops in guarding the frontier. There

was a prompt response, and when the troops reached Black Hawk’s village

the Indians withdrew during the night to the west side of the river

and signed a treaty never to return to their former homes without the

express permission of the United States authorities.

Black Hawk did not abide by this treaty. During the winter of 1832 he

recruited a large force, and in the spring he crossed the Mississippi

at a point just south of his former village, and began a march up the

Rock River Valley. This invasion of the state by a hostile band of

savages excited great alarm along the frontier. The settlers came in

from their lonely farms and built about the larger villages stockades

and defences. A call for volunteers was issued, and the enthusiastic

response was a surprise, even to the governor who summoned them.

One of the first to enlist was Abraham Lincoln, an Illinois citizen of

two years’ standing. He had come with his family in his seventh year

from Kentucky to Indiana and thence in 1830 to the newer settlements

of Illinois. He was twenty-three years old, and was a tall, sturdy

backwoodsman, who was to prove himself in the wrestling matches that

were the soldiers’ pastime, the strongest man but one in the whole

army. He was at once chosen captain of his company, an honor which

brought him more gratification than most of his greater successes. The

volunteers were organized into four regiments, and started to follow

Black Hawk up the Rock River. The command of four hundred regulars

was given to Colonel Zachary Taylor, afterwards President of the

United States; and during the months of this war there served in the

army Robert Anderson, the defender of Sumter, Winfield Scott, Albert

Sidney Johnston, the Confederate hero, and Jefferson Davis. It was a

distinguished group of men who responded in their youth to the call of

their country.

The marching was difficult. There were no roads or bridges, only marshy

trails and streams swollen into torrents by the spring thaws. But the

hardy backwoodsmen were used to such conditions. They marched steadily

on, and when they had gone some ninety miles up Rock River to Dixon’s

Ferry halted to await the arrival of General Atkinson with the regular

troops and the loads of provisions. They found there two battalions of

horsemen, under the command of Majors Stillman and Bailey, which had

been gathered in the upper country. They had had no long march to weary

them, but were impatient to get a chance at the enemy. They set off as

scouts on a dark, threatening morning in May, with orders to coerce

what Indians they met into submission. “I thought,” says the governor

in his memoirs, “they might discover the enemy.” And they did.

Black Hawk had been urging the tribes of the Rock River region to

join him, but had received so little encouragement that he was almost

prepared to make peace with the advancing army. He was now a little

way up the river with a party of forty or fifty warriors, a body-guard

selected from his eight hundred men, who were encamped seven miles

beyond. As the chief sat at supper on the evening of the 14th of May,

he was told that a small party of white horsemen was making camp near

by. The creek on whose banks the Americans had halted was lined with

tall willows, which made a good protection for the camp. The vanguard

of the two brigades had stopped, tied their horses to the trees, and

begun to build fires for supper when three Indians appeared on a height

nearly a mile away. It afterwards proved that these Indians were

messengers from Black Hawk and were bearing a white flag of truce.

The scouts at sight of the Indians rushed out and seized them. Black

Hawk and his men, watching at a distance, saw their men captured and

prepared hastily to meet and attack the whites. The squads of soldiers

who had started in the chase were scattered without any regular order

along half a mile of the valley. When the foremost of the pursuers

came upon Black Hawk and his men hidden behind a growth of brush, the

savages dashed out upon them with wild war-whoops. The soldiers thought

that eight hundred Indians were behind their leader, and scattered in

every direction. Their officers tried to rally them, but the force

was disorganized. The men leaped on their horses and rode away. The

Indians, astonished at this sudden development, feared that they were

being led into an ambush; but they pursued the white men, killing those

whom they overtook. At one or two places companies of soldiers turned

and made a gallant fight, but most of them escaped on their swift

horses. By twos and threes they straggled into the camp at Dixon’s

Ferry, twenty-five miles away, with a story of defeat that spread a

panic over the whole frontier. The army marched next day to the scene

of the surprise; but Black Hawk and his men were gone, and it was not

thought wise to pursue them farther north without a better supply of

provisions. The unexpected and easy victory had encouraged Black Hawk

and had brought many Indians of other tribes to his side.

A reign of terror followed Stillman’s defeat. Scalping parties

organized by Black Hawk covered the frontier, making raids on the

exposed northern settlements. Many on both sides lost their lives,

for small parties of American settlers made gallant defences in their

scattered villages and held the Indians back. Three weeks from the time

of the first attack a new army of volunteers, four thousand strong,

took the field. They marched to Dixon’s Ferry and then plunged into the

wilderness, taking every precaution as they proceeded into the enemy’s

country to guard against surprise. On the 30th of June they crossed the

Illinois border near the present city of Beloit, Wisconsin, and came

upon abandoned camps and other signs of the retreating Indians.

The progress through the wilderness of Wisconsin was slow and

difficult. Day after day the troops pushed on, wading up to their

armpits in mud and water, or hewing away the trees and underbrush that

barred their course. After three weeks they came up with the last of

the fugitives. Passing through a forest where stands to-day the city

of Madison, they came to the shores of the Wisconsin River, and there

they fought the battle of Wisconsin Heights. The loss of life among the

Indians was heavy; among the Americans, light. During the night after

the battle, the startled soldiers sitting in their camp heard from

the direction of the Indian encampment a loud, clear voice speaking

in an unknown tongue. They feared that some chief was directing his

men to descend upon the camp and make a night attack. After a time,

however, the voice ceased and nothing more was thought of the incident.

It proved afterwards that this was the voice of an orator sent by

Black Hawk to beg for peace. He had used the Winnebago tongue, and

as the members of that tribe had left the camp that very day, no one

understood him. Thus the second attempt of Black Hawk to make peace

failed.

From this time on the story of the campaign is a tale of relentless

pursuit and slaughter of the fugitives. Black Hawk and his starving

war-party reached the banks of the Mississippi, but an American steamer

prevented their crossing in safety. The troops came upon them at a

point called Bad Axe, and for three hours the bloody conflict raged.

The white men lost only seventeen men killed, and twelve wounded. At

least one hundred and fifty Indians were killed in the battle and

as many more men, women, and children were drowned or shot down in

their attempts to escape. Nearly a thousand Indians had crossed the

Mississippi at Rock River, two hundred miles below. Barely one hundred

and fifty regained the western bank at Bad Axe.

General Winfield Scott brought home the remaining troops, who were

attacked by cholera on the journey and suffered great losses. The

Winnebagoes, with whom Black Hawk sought refuge, delivered him over to

the Americans, who put him under the guardianship of his former rival,

the peace-loving Keokuk. By order of the war department the fallen

warrior was taken during the time of his captivity on a tour of the

country to see in the east the strength of the white man and realize

the futility of further resistance by the Indian. On his first trip he

went to Washington, was received by President Jackson, and was taken

to Philadelphia, New York, up the Hudson, and back by way of the Great

Lakes to Rock River, where he was set free. In 1837 Keokuk, who did

not dare leave him unwatched in his absence, took him to Washington

again with a deputation of Sauk and Fox Indians, and on this trip he

went to Boston. The experiences of the savage warrior in this eastern

city take us back to the time when Champlain took his Indian host

Darontal to the little settlement at Quebec in 1616, and showed him the

civilization of the Frenchman. Nothing could portray better the change

in the relations of the white man and the red man in the two hundred

years that had come between.

The Indian delegation was received by the mayor, the aldermen, and

the common council of Boston at Faneuil Hall. The armories and the

navy-yard were visited to show the military power of Bostonians; a

levee was held at Faneuil Hall to receive the ladies who desired to

meet the warriors; and on Monday morning, October 30, 1837, they were

formally received in the Hall of the House of Representatives by

Governor Everett, attended by his staff and other officers. In flowing

and graceful language the governor welcomed the Indians on behalf of

the Commonwealth, addressing them in the Indian style of oratory. The

chiefs responded, one by one, to his words, Black Hawk in a shrill,

clear voice that attracted the attention of the audience to the famous

veteran warrior. All thanked the governor for his kind words and

shook hands with him, expressing their desire for friendship with the

white men. The party then adjourned to the Boston Common, where they

performed a series of war-dances in the presence of an immense crowd;

and in the evening they went to the Tremont Theatre to see “The Banker

of Bogota,” which was being played there. With this scene the picture

of the life of the last great Indian warrior of the lake region ends.

Black Hawk returned to his home and died the next year at the age of

seventy-one, in a reservation at Des Moines, Iowa, set apart for him

and his few remaining followers. The Indians had been humbled and

defeated.

The Black Hawk War called national attention to the western country.

The troops had explored a wilderness little known to the Americans,

and the story of their march into Wisconsin had been published in

full in the newspapers of the East. Guide-books were issued, painting

in brilliant colors the charms of the region, and a tide of westward

immigration followed the sale of public lands by the government.

Northern Illinois gained a large population, and Wisconsin was made a

territory within four years. The foundation of the lake states had been

laid; the Northwest had been Americanized.

PART III

OCCUPATION AND DEVELOPMENT