frontier. It was the Gibraltar of defence, protecting the Eastern
colonies from invasion by the Western Indians. The consummation of
Pontiac's gigantic scheme depended upon the capture of Fort Pitt. It was
a strong fortification at the confluence of the Allegheny and
Monongahela Rivers. Its northern ramparts were faced with brick on the
side looking down the Ohio. Fort Pitt stood "far aloof in the forest,
and one might journey eastward full two hundred miles before the English
settlements began to thicken." The garrison consisted of three hundred
thirty soldiers, traders, and backwoodsmen, besides about one hundred
women and a greater number of children. Captain Simeon Ecuyer, a brave
Swiss officer, was in command. Every preparation was made for the
expected attack. All houses and cabins outside the palisade were
levelled to the ground. A rude fire-engine was constructed to extinguish
any flames that might be kindled by the burning arrows of the Indians.
In the latter part of May the hostile savages began to approach the
vicinity of the fort. On June 22d they opened fire "upon every side at
once." The garrison replied by a discharge of howitzers, the shells of
which, bursting in the midst of the Indians, greatly amazed and
disconcerted them. The Indians then boldly demanded a surrender of the
fort, saying vast numbers of braves were on the way to destroy it.
Ecuyer displayed equal bravado and replied that several thousand British
soldiers were on the way to punish the tribes for their uprising. The
fort was now in a state of siege. For about a month "nothing occurred
except a series of petty and futile attacks," in which the Indians,
mostly Ottawas, Ojibwas, and Delawares, did small damage. On July 26th,
under a flag of truce, the besiegers again demanded surrender. It was
refused and Ecuyer told the savages that if they again showed themselves
near the Fort he would throw "bombshells" among them and "blow them to
atoms." The assault was continued with renewed fury.
Meanwhile Sir Jeffrey Amherst, the commander-in-chief of the British
forces, awakening to the gravity of the situation, ordered Colonel
Bouquet, a brave and able officer in his majesty's service, to take
command of certain specified forces and proceed as rapidly as possible
to the relief of Fort Pitt, and then make aggressive warfare on the
Western tribes. Bouquet, leaving his head-quarters at Philadelphia,
reached Carlisle late in June, where he heard for the first time of the
calamities at Presqu'île, Le Boeuf, and Venango. He left Carlisle with
a force of five hundred men, some of them the pick of the British
regulars, but many of them aged veterans enfeebled by disease and long,
severe exposure. Bouquet had seen considerable service in Indian
warfare. He was not likely to be caught napping. He marched slowly along
the Cumberland Valley and crept cautiously over the mountains, passing
Forts Loudon and Bedford, the latter surrounded with Indians, to Fort
Ligonier, which, as noted above, had been blockaded for weeks by the
savages who, as at Bedford, fled at Bouquet's approach.
On August 5th the little army, footsore and tired and half-famished,
reached a small stream within twenty-five miles of Fort Pitt, known as
Bushy Run. Here in the afternoon they were suddenly and fiercely fired
upon by a superior number of Indians. A terrific contest ensued, only
ended by the darkness of night. The encounter was resumed next day; the
odds were against the British, who were surrounded and were being cut
down in great numbers by the Indians who skulked behind trees and logs
and in the grass and declivities. Bouquet resorted to a ruse which was
signally successful. He formed his men in a wide semicircle, and from
the centre advanced a company toward the enemy; the advancing company
then made a feint of retreat, the deceived Indians followed close after
and fell into the ambuscade. The outwitted savages were completely
routed and fled in hopeless confusion. Bouquet had won one of the
greatest victories in Western Indian warfare. His loss was about one
hundred fifty men, nearly a third of his army. The loss of the Indians
was not so great.
As rapidly as possible Bouquet pushed on to Fort Pitt, which he entered
without molestation on August 25th. The extent and the end of Pontiac's
conspiracy had at last been reached. The Pennsylvania Assembly, and King
George, even, formally thanked Bouquet.
Forts Detroit and Pitt, as has been seen, proved impregnable; neither
the evil cunning nor the persistent bravery of the savage could dislodge
the occupants of those important posts. The siege of Detroit had been
abandoned by the combined forces of Pontiac, but the country round
about continued to be infested with the hostile Indians, who kept up a
sort of petty bushwhacking campaign that compelled the soldiers and
traders of the fort, for safety, to remain "in doors" during the winter
of 1763-1764. Bouquet, on gaining Fort Pitt, desired to pursue the
marauding and murderous savages to their forest retreats and drive them
hence, but he was unable to accomplish anything until the following
year.
In the spring of 1764 Sir Jeffrey Amherst resigned his office, and
General Thomas Gage succeeded him as commander-in-chief of the British
forces in America, with head-quarters in Boston. Shortly after assuming
office, General Gage determined to send two armies from different points
into the heart of the Indian country. The first, under Bouquet, was to
advance from Fort Pitt into the midst of the Delaware and Shawano
settlements of the Ohio Valley; and the other, under Bradstreet, was to
pass from Fort Niagara up the Lakes and force the tribes of Detroit and
the region round about to unconditional submission.
Colonel John Bradstreet left Fort Niagara in July, 1764, with the
formidable force of over a thousand soldiers. In canoes and _bateaux_
this imposing army of British regulars coasted along the shore of Lake
Erie, stopping at various points to meet and treat with the Indians,
who, realizing their inability to cope with so powerful an antagonist,
made terms of peace or went through the pretence of so doing. At
Sandusky (Fort), particularly, Bradstreet accepted the false promises of
the Wyandots, Ottawas, Miamis, Delawares, and Shawanoes. On August 26th
he arrived at Detroit, to the great joy and relief of the garrison,
which now, for more than a year, had been "cut off from all
communication with their race" and had been virtually prisoners confined
within the walls of their stockade. Bradstreet forwarded small
detachments to restore or retake, as the case might be, the farther
western British posts, which had fallen into the hands of Pontiac's wily
and exultant warriors.
In October (1764) Bouquet, with an army of fifteen hundred troops,
defiled out of Fort Pitt, and, taking the Indian trail westward, boldly
entered the wilderness, "which no army had ever before sought to
penetrate." It was a novel sight, this regiment of regulars, picking
its way through the woods and over the streams to the centre of the Ohio
country. Striking the Tuscarawas River he followed down its banks,
halting at short intervals to confer with delegations of Indians until
October 25th, when he encamped on the Muskingum, near the forks of that
river formed by the confluence of the Tuscarawas and Walhonding rivers.
Here with much display of the pomp and circumstance of war on the part
of Bouquet, to impress and over-awe the savages, he held conferences
with the chiefs of the various tribes. They agreed to lay down their
arms and live for the future in friendship with the white invaders. All
prisoners heretofore taken and then held by the Indians were to be
surrendered to Bouquet. Over two hundred of these, captives, including
women and children, were delivered up, and with these Bouquet, with his
successful soldiery, retraced his course to Fort Pitt, arriving there on
November 28th. It was one of the most memorable expeditions in the
pre-State history of Ohio.
The sudden and surprising victories of Pontiac were being rapidly
undone. The great Ottawa chief saw his partially accomplished scheme
withering into ignominious failure. Sullen, disappointed, consumed with
humiliation and revenge, he withdrew from active prominence to his
forest wigwam. He sought the banks of the Maumee, the scene of his birth
and the location of the villages of many tribes who were his sympathetic
adherents. He did not participate in any of the councils held by
Bradstreet and the chiefs. "His vengeance was unslaked and his purpose
unshaken." But his glory was growing dim and his power was withering
into dust. From the scenes of his promising but short-lived triumphs, he
retired into the country of the Illinois and the Mississippi. He tried
to arouse the aid of the French. He gathered a band of four hundred
warriors on the Maumee, and with these faithful followers revisited the
Western tribes, in hopes of creating another confederation.[54] Not even
would the southern tribes, however, respond to his appeals. All was
lost. His allies were falling off; his followers, discouraged, were
deserting him. Again and again he went back to his chosen haunts and
former faithful followers on the Maumee. But his day had passed.
In the spring of 1766 Pontiac met Sir William Johnson[55] at Oswego. In
his peace speech at that time he said: "I speak in the name of all the
nations westward, of whom I am the master. It is the will of the Great
Spirit that we should meet here to-day; and before him I now take you by
the hand. I call him to witness that I speak from my heart; for since I
took Colonel Croghan[56] by the hand last year, I have never let go my
hold, for I see that the Great Spirit will have us friends.
"Moreover, when our great father, of France, was in this country, I held
him fast by the hand. Now that he is gone, I take you, my English
father, by the hand, in the name of all the nations, and promise to keep
this covenant as long as I shall live."
But he did not speak from the heart; on the contrary, only from the
head. Leaving the Oswego conference, "his canoe laden with the gifts of
his enemy," Pontiac steered homeward for the Maumee; and in that
vicinity he spent the following winter. From now on for some two years
the great Ottawa chief disappeared as if lost in the forest depths.
In April, 1769, he is found at Fort St. Louis, on the west side of the
Mississippi, where he gave himself mainly to the temporary oblivion of
"fire-water," the dread destroyer of his race. He was wont to cross the
"Father of Waters" to the fort on the British side at Cahokia, where he
would revel with the friendly creoles. In one of these visits, in the
early morning, after drinking deeply, he strode with uncertain step into
the adjacent forest. He was arrayed in the uniform of a French officer,
which apparel had been given him many years before by the Marquis of
Montcalm. His footsteps were stealthily dogged by a Kaskaskia Indian,
who in the silence and seclusion of the forest, at an opportune moment,
buried the blade of a tomahawk in the brain of the Ottawa conqueror, the
champion of his race.
The murderer had been bribed to the heinous act by a British trader
named Williamson, who thought to thus rid his country (England) of a
dangerous foe. The unholy price of the assassination was a barrel of
liquor. It was supposed that the Illinois, Kaskaskia, Peoria, and
Cahokia Indians were more or less guilty as accomplices in the horrible
deed. That an Illinois Indian was guilty of the act was sufficient. The
Sacs and Foxes, and other Western tribes friendly to Pontiac and his
cause were aroused to furious revenge. They went upon the warpath
against the Illinois Indians. A relentless war ensued, and, says
Parkman, "over the grave of Pontiac more blood was poured out in
atonement than flowed from the veins of the slaughtered heroes on the
corpse of Patroclus."
The body of the murdered chief was borne across the river and buried
near Fort St. Louis. No monument ever marked the resting-place of the
great hero and defender of his people.
FOOTNOTES:
[45] Estimate of Sir William Johnson in 1763: Iroquois, 1950; Delawares,
600; Shawnees, 300; Wyandots, 450; Miamis and Kickapoos, 800; Ottawas,
Ojibwas, and other wandering tribes of the Northwest "defy all efforts
at enumeration." The British population in the colonies was then about
1,000,000; the French, something like 100,000.
[46] Rogers called this river Chocage. Rogers' camp was on the present
site of the city of Cleveland.
[47] Parkman says he was about fifty years old when he met Major Rogers,
which was in 1760.
[48] Chief Richardville also asserted that Pontiac was born of an Ottawa
father and a Miami mother. The probability of this tradition is allowed
by Knapp, and accepted by Dr. C.E. Slocum, of Defiance, a very careful
and reliable authority. Dodge says some claimed Pontiac was a Catawba
prisoner, adopted into the Ottawa tribe.
[49] Detroit was first settled by Cadillac, July 24, 1701, with fifty
soldiers and fifty artisans and traders. So it had been the chief
Western stronghold of the French for one hundred fifty years. Detroit at
this time (1760) contained about two thousand inhabitants. The centre of
the settlement was a fortified town, known as the "Fort," to distinguish
it from the dwellings scattered along the river-banks. The Fort stood on
the western bank of the river and contained about a hundred small wood
houses with bark or thatch-straw roofs. These primitive dwellings were
packed closely together and surrounded and protected by a palisade about
twenty-five feet high; at each corner was a wooden bastion, and a
block-house was erected over each gateway. The only public buildings in
the enclosure were a council-house, the barracks, and a rude little
church.
[50] There are many versions of the divulging of the plot; one that it
was by an old squaw; another that a young squaw of doubtful character
told it to one of the subordinate officers; still another, that it was
by an Ottawa warrior. Parkman seems to favor the Ojibwa girl, called
Catherine, and said to be the mistress of Gladwyn.
[51] True to his Indian nature, Pontiac determined to assume a mask of
peace and bide his time. Gladwyn wrote as follows to Lord Jeffrey
Amherst: "This moment I received a message from Pontiac telling me that
he should send to all the nations concerned in the war to bury the
hatchet; and he hopes your excellency will forget what has passed."--ED.
[52] This post of St. Joseph was the site of a Roman Catholic mission
founded about the year 1700. Here was one of the most prominent French
military posts.
[53] There were several forts called Miami in those early days. This one
was built in 1749-1750 by the French commandant, Raimond.
[54] Pontiac sought the aid of the Kickapoos, Piankishaws, Sacs, Foxes,
Dakotas, Missouris, and other tribes on the Mississippi and its
head-waters.
[55] Sir William Johnson was at this time superintendent of Indian
affairs in the North (of the colonies) by appointment from the King.
Johnson was a great favorite with the Indians, and exerted great power
over them, especially among the Six Nations. He married a sister of
Brant, the Mohawk chief; he was, moreover, adopted into the Mohawk tribe
and made a sachem.
[56] George Croghan was a deputy Indian agent under Sir William Johnson.
In 1765, at the instance of Johnson, Croghan proceeded from Fort Pitt
down the Ohio to the mouth of the Wabash, up which he journeyed and
thence across the country to Detroit, treating with the Indians as he
passed. On this journey Croghan met Pontiac, who made promises of peace
and friendship.
AMERICAN COLONIES OPPOSE THE STAMP ACT
PATRICK HENRY'S SPEECH
A.D. 1765
JAMES GRAHAME GEORGE BANCROFT
Although the Stamp Act passed by the English Parliament in 1765 was
repealed in the following year, the opposition which led to its
repeal became also one of the principal causes of the American
Revolution. The passage of this act and the laying of its
impositions upon the colonies formed the climax of England's
mercantile policy there, where irritating revenue laws had already,
as in Massachusetts, for some years been in force.
In 1763 England determined to levy upon the colonies direct taxes,
not only for their own military defence, but also as a contribution
to the payment of the British war debt. George Grenville, who, says
Macaulay, knew of "no national interests except those which are
expressed by pounds, shillings, and pence," became prime minister in
1763. His first measure was that known as the "Molasses or [Sugar]
Act," reviving an old law for enforcement in the American colonies.
The act was meant to "protect" West Indian sugar-planters, and it
laid a heavy duty upon all sugar and molasses imported into North
America from the French West Indies.
The outbreak of indignation, especially in New England, against this
imposition was a prelude to the more general and determined
resistance to the Stamp Act, which was Grenville's second obnoxious
measure. The history of "Grenville's Stamp Act" is adequately set
forth by Grahame and Bancroft, whose respective accounts present its
most important features and its fate in the hands of American
patriots.
JAMES GRAHAME
The calamities of the French and Indian War (1755) had scarcely ended
when the germ of another war was planted which soon grew up and produced
deadly fruit. At that time sundry resolutions passed the British
Parliament relative to the imposition of a stamp duty in America, which
gave a general alarm. By them the right, the equity, the policy, and
even the necessity of taxing the colonies were formally avowed. These
resolutions, being considered as the preface of a system of American
revenue, were deemed an introduction to evils of much greater magnitude.
They opened a prospect of oppression, boundless in extent and endless in
duration. They were, nevertheless, not immediately followed by any
legislative act. Time and an invitation were given to the Americans to
suggest any other mode of taxation that might be equivalent in its
produce to the Stamp Act; but they objected not only to the mode, but
the principle; and several of their assemblies, though in vain,
petitioned against it.
An American revenue was, in England, a very popular measure. The cry in
favor of it was so strong as to silence the voice of petitions to the
contrary. The equity of compelling the Americans to contribute to the
common expenses of the empire satisfied many who, without inquiring into
the policy or justice of taxing their unrepresented fellow-subjects,
readily assented to the measures adopted by the Parliament for this
purpose. The prospect of easing their own burdens at the expense of the
colonists dazzled the eyes of gentlemen of landed interest, so as to
keep out of their view the probable consequences of the innovation. The
omnipotence of Parliament was so familiar a phrase on both sides of the
Atlantic that few in America, and still fewer in Great Britain, were
impressed, in the first instance, with any idea of the illegality of
taxing the colonists.
Illumination on that subject was gradual. The resolutions in favor of an
American stamp act, which passed in March, 1764, met with no opposition.
In the course of the year which intervened between these resolutions and
the passing of a law grounded upon them, the subject was better
understood, and constitutional objections against the measure were urged
by several, both in Great Britain and America. This astonished and
chagrined the British ministry; but as the principle of taxing America
had been for some time determined upon, they were unwilling to give it
up. Impelled by partiality for a long-cherished idea, Grenville, in
March, 1765, brought into the House of Commons his long-expected bill
for laying a stamp duty in America. By this, after passing through the
usual forms, it was enacted that the instruments of writing in daily use
among a commercial people should be null and void unless they were
executed on stamped paper or parchment, charged with a duty imposed by
the British Parliament.
When the bill was brought in, Charles Townshend concluded a speech in
its favor with words to the following effect: "And now will these
Americans, children planted by our care, nourished up by our indulgence,
till they are grown to a degree of strength and opulence, and protected
by our arms--will they grudge to contribute their mite to relieve us
from the heavy weight of that burden which we lie under?" To which
Colonel Barre replied: "They planted by your care? No, your oppressions
planted them in America! They fled from tyranny to a then uncultivated
and inhospitable country, where they exposed themselves to almost all
the hardships to which human nature is liable; and, among others, to the
cruelty of a savage foe the most subtle, and I will take upon me to say
the most formidable, of any people upon the face of God's earth! And
yet, actuated by principles of true English liberty, they met all
hardships with pleasure, compared with those they suffered in their own
country from the hand of those that should have been their friends.
"They nourished up by your indulgence? They grew by your neglect of
them! As soon as you began to care about them, that care was exercised
in sending persons to rule them, in one department and another, who
were, perhaps, the deputies of deputies to some members in this House,
sent to spy out their liberties, to misrepresent their actions, and to
prey upon them: men whose behavior on many occasions has caused the
blood of those sons of liberty to recoil within them; men promoted to
the highest seats of justice--some who to my knowledge were glad, by
going to a foreign country, to escape being brought to the bar of a
court of justice in their own.
"They protected by your arms? They have nobly taken up arms in your
defence, have exerted a valor, amid their constant and laborious
industry, for the defence of a country whose frontier was drenched in
blood, while its interior parts yielded all its little savings to your
emolument. And, believe me, that same spirit of freedom which actuated
these people at first will accompany them still: but prudence forbids me
to explain myself further. God knows I do not at this time speak from
any motives of party heat. I deliver the genuine sentiments of my
heart. However superior to me, in general knowledge and experience, the
respectable body of this House may be, yet I claim to know more of
America than most of you; having seen and been conversant in that
country. The people, I believe, are as truly loyal as any subjects the
King has; but a people jealous of their liberties, and who will
vindicate them if ever they should be violated: but the subject is too
delicate. I will say no more."
During the debate on the bill, the supporters of it insisted much on the
colonies being virtually represented in the same manner as Leeds,
Halifax, and some other towns were. A recurrence to this plea was a
virtual acknowledgment that there ought not to be taxation without
representation. It was replied that the connection between the electors
and non-electors of Parliament, in Great Britain, was so interwoven from
both being equally liable to pay the same common tax as to give some
security of property to the latter: but with respect to taxes laid by
the British Parliament, and paid by the Americans, the situation of the
parties was reversed. Instead of both parties bearing a proportional
share of the same common burden, what was laid on the one was exactly so
much taken off from the other.