Of this Pontiac you have read, no doubt, in various books of travels and
anecdotes of Indian chiefs. But it is one thing to read of these events
by an English fireside, where the features of the scene--the forest
wilds echoing to the war-whoop--the painted warriors--the very words
scalping, tomahawking, bring no definite meaning to the mind, only a
vague horror;--and quite _another_ thing to recall them here on the
spot, arrayed in all their dread yet picturesque reality. Pontiac is the
hero _par excellence_ of all these regions; and in all the histories of
Detroit, when Detroit becomes a great capital of the west, he will
figure like Caractacus or Arminius in the Roman history. The English
contemporaries call him king and emperor of the Indians; but there is
absolutely no sovereignty among these people. Pontiac was merely a war
chief, chosen in the usual way, but exercising a more than usual
influence, not by mere bravery--the universal savage virtue--but by
talents of a rarer kind; a power of reflection and combination rarely
met with in the character of the red warrior. Pontiac was a man of
genius, and would have ruled his fellow-men under any circumstances, and
in any country. He formed a project similar to that which Tecumseh
entertained fifty years later. He united all the north-western tribes of
Ottawas, Chippewas, and Pottowottomies, in one great confederacy against
the British, "the dogs in red coats;" and had very nearly caused the
overthrow, at least the temporary overthrow of our power. He had planned
a simultaneous attack on all the trading posts in the possession of the
English, and so far succeeded that ten of these forts were surprised
about the same time, and all the English soldiers and traders massacred,
while the French were spared. Before any tidings of these horrors and
outrages could reach Detroit, Pontiac was here in friendly guise, and
all his measures admirably arranged for taking this fort also by
stratagem, and murdering every Englishman within it. All had been lost,
if a poor Indian woman, who had received much kindness from the family
of the commandant (Major Gladwyn), had not revealed the danger. I do not
yet quite understand why Major Gladwyn, on the discovery of Pontiac's
treachery, and having him in his power, did not make him and his whole
band prisoners; such a stroke would have ended, or rather it would have
prevented, the war. But it must be remembered that Major Gladwyn was
ignorant of the systematic plan of extermination adopted by Pontiac; the
news of the massacres at the upper forts had not reached him; he knew of
nothing but the attempt on himself, and from motives of humanity or
magnanimity he suffered them to leave the fort and go free. No sooner
were they on the outside of the palisades, than they set up the war-yell
"like so many devils," as a bystander expressed it, and turned and
discharged their rifles on the garrison. The war, thus savagely
declared, was accompanied by all those atrocious barbarities, and turns
of fate, and traits of heroism, and hair-breadth escapes, which render
these Indian conflicts so exciting, so terrific, so picturesque.
Detroit was in a state of siege by the Indians for twelve months, and
gallantly and successfully defended by Major Gladwyn, till relieved by
General Bradstreet.
The first time I was able to go out, my good-natured landlord drove me
himself in his waggon (_Anglice_, gig), with as much attention and care
for my comfort, as if I had been his near relation. The evening was
glorious; the sky perfectly Italian--a genuine Claude Lorraine sky, that
beautiful intense amber light reaching to the very zenith, while the
purity and transparent loveliness of the atmospheric effects carried me
back to Italy and times long past. I felt it all, as people feel things
after a sharp fit of indisposition, when the nervous system, languid at
once and sensitive, thrills and trembles to every breath of air. As we
drove slowly and silently along, we came to a sluggish, melancholy
looking rivulet, to which the man pointed with his whip. "I expect,"
said he, "you know all about the battle of Bloody Run?"
I was obliged to confess my ignorance, not without a slight shudder at
the hateful, ominous name which sounded in my ear like an epitome of all
imaginable horrors.
This was the scene of a night attack made by three hundred British upon
the camp of the Indians, who were then besieging Detroit. The Indians
had notice of their intention, and prepared an ambush to receive them.
They had just reached the bank of this rivulet, when the Indian foe fell
upon them suddenly. They fought hand to hand, bayonet and tomahawk, in
the darkness of the night. Before the English could extricate
themselves, seventy men and most of the officers fell and were scalped
on the spot. "Them Indians," said my informant, "fought like brutes and
devils" (as most men do, I thought, who fight for revenge and
existence), "and they say the creek here, when morning came, ran red
with blood; and so they call it the Bloody Run."
There certainly is much in a name, whatever Juliet may say, and how much
in fame! There is the brook Sanguinetto, which flows into Lake
Thrasymene,--the meaning and the derivation are the same, but what a
difference in sound! The Sanguinetto! 'tis a word one might set to
music.--_The Bloody Run!_ pah! the very utterance pollutes one's fancy!
And in associations, too, how different, though the circumstances were
not unlike! This Indian Fabius, this Pontiac, wary and brave, and
unbroken by defeat, fighting for his own land against a swarm of
invaders, has had no poet, no historian to immortalise him, else all
this ground over which I now tread had been as _classical_ as the shores
of Thrasymene.
As they have called Tecumseh the Indian Napoleon, they might style
Pontiac the Indian Alexander--I do not mean him of Russia, but the
Greek. Here, for instance, is a touch of magnanimity quite in the
_Alexander-the-great_ style. Pontiac, before the commencement of the
war, had provided for the safety of a British officer, Major Rogers by
name, who was afterwards employed to relieve Detroit, when besieged by
the Indians. On this occasion he sent Pontiac a present of a bottle of
brandy, to show he had not forgotten his former obligations to him.
Those who were around the Indian warrior when the present arrived,
particularly some Frenchmen, warned him not to taste it, as it might be
poisoned. Pontiac instantly took a draught from it, saying, as he put
the bottle to his lips, that "it was not _in the power_ of Major Rogers
to hurt him who had so lately saved his life." I think this story is no
unworthy pendant to that of Alexander and his physician.
But what avails it all! who knows or cares about Pontiac and his
Ottawas?
"Vain was the chief's, the warrior's pride!
He had no poet--and he died!"
If I dwell on these horrid and obscure conflicts, it is partly to amuse
the languid idle hours of convalescence, partly to inspire you with some
interest for the localities around me:--and I may as well, while the pen
is in my hand, give you the conclusion of the story.
Pontiac carried on the war with so much talent, courage, and resources,
that the British government found it necessary to send a considerable
force against him. General Bradstreet came up here with three thousand
men, wasting the lands of the Miami and Wyandot Indians, "burning their
villages, and destroying their corn-fields;" and I pray you to observe
that in all the accounts of our expeditions against the Indians, as well
as those of the Americans under General Wayne and General Harrison,
mention is made of the destruction of corn-fields (plantations of Indian
corn) to a great extent, which show that _some_ attention must have been
paid to agriculture, even by these wild hunting tribes. I find mention
also of a very interesting and beautiful tradition connected with these
regions. To the east of the Detroit territory, there was settled from
ancient times a band of Wyandots or Hurons, who were called the neutral
nation; they never took part in the wars and conflicts of the other
tribes. They had two principal villages, which were like the cities of
refuge among the Israelites; whoever fled there from an enemy found a
secure and inviolable sanctuary. If two enemies from tribes long at
deadly variance met there, they were friends while standing on that
consecrated ground. To what circumstances this extraordinary institution
owed its existence is not known. It was destroyed after the arrival of
the French in the country--not by them, but by some national and
internal feud.
But to return to Pontiac. With all his talents, he could not maintain a
standing or permanent army, such a thing being contrary to all the
Indian usages, and quite incompatible with their mode of life. His
warriors fell away from him every season, and departed to their hunting
grounds to provide food for their families. The British pressed forward,
took possession of their whole country, and the tribes were obliged to
beg for peace. Pontiac disdained to take any part in these negotiations,
and retired to the Illinois, where he was murdered, from some motive of
private animosity, by a Peoria Indian. The Ottawas, Chippewas, and
Pottowottomies, who had been allied under his command, thought it
incumbent on them to avenge his death, and nearly exterminated the whole
nation of the Peorias--and this was the life and the fall of Pontiac.
The name of this great chief is commemorated in that of a flourishing
village, or rising town, about twenty miles west of Detroit, which is
called _Pontiac_, as one of the townships in Upper Canada is styled
_Tecumseh_: thus literally illustrating those beautiful lines in Mrs.
Sigourney's poem on Indian names:--
"Their memory liveth on your hills,
_Their baptism on your shore_;
Your everlasting rivers speak
Their dialect of yore!"
For rivers, bearing their old Indian names, we have here the Miami, the
Huron, the Sandusky: but most of the points of land, rivers, islands,
&c., bear the French appellations, as Point Pelee, River au Glaize,
River des Canards, Gros-Isle, &c.
The _melange_ of proper names in this immediate neighbourhood is
sufficiently curious. Here we have Pontiac, Romeo, Ypsilanti, and Byron,
all within no great distance of each other.
* * * * *
Long after the time of Pontiac, Detroit and all the country round it
became the scene of even more horrid and unnatural conflicts between the
Americans and British, during the war of the revolution, in which the
Indians were engaged against the Americans. When peace was proclaimed,
and the independence of the United States recognised by Great Britain,
this savage war on the frontiers still continued, and mutual aggressions
and injuries have left bitter feelings rankling on both sides. Let us
hope that in another generation they may be effaced. For myself, I
cannot contemplate the possibility of another war between the English
and Americans without a mingled disgust and terror, as something cruel,
unnatural, fratricidal. Have we not the same ancestry, the same
father-land, the same language? "Though to drain our blood from out
their being were an aim," they cannot do it! The ruffian refuse of the
two nations--the most ignorant, common-minded, and vulgar among them,
may hate each other, and give each other nicknames--but every year
diminishes the number of such; and while the two governments are shaking
hands across the Atlantic, it were indeed supremely ridiculous if they
were to go to cuffs across the Detroit and Niagara!
* * * * *