PONTIAC AND THE TRIBES OF THE HINTERLAND
Foremost among the Indian leaders was Pontiac, the
over-chief of the Ottawa Confederacy. It has been customary
to speak of this chief as possessed of 'princely grandeur'
and as one 'honoured and revered by his subjects.' But
it was not by a display of princely dignity or by inspiring
awe and reverence that he influenced his bloodthirsty
followers. His chief traits were treachery and cruelty,
and his pre-eminence in these qualities commanded their
respect. His conduct of the siege of Detroit, as we shall
see, was marked by duplicity and diabolic savagery. He
has often been extolled for his skill as a military
leader, and there is a good deal in his siege of Detroit
and in the murderous ingenuity of some of his raids to
support this view. But his principal claim to distinction
is due to his position as the head of a confederacy
--whereas the other chiefs in the conflict were merely
leaders of single tribes--and to the fact that he was
situated at the very centre of the theatre of war. News
from Detroit could be quickly heralded along the canoe
routes and forest trails to the other tribes, and it thus
happened that when Pontiac struck, the whole Indian
country rose in arms. But the evidence clearly shows
that, except against Detroit and the neighbouring
blockhouses, he had no part in planning the attacks.
The war as a whole was a leaderless war.
Let us now look for a moment at the Indians who took part
in the war. Immediately under the influence of Pontiac
were three tribes--the Ottawas, the Chippewas, and the
Potawatomis. These had their hunting-grounds chiefly in
the Michigan peninsula, and formed what was known as the
Ottawa Confederacy or the Confederacy of the Three Fires.
It was at the best a loose confederacy, with nothing of
the organized strength of the Six Nations. The Indians
in it were of a low type--sunk in savagery and superstition.
A leader such as Pontiac naturally appealed to them. They
existed by hunting and fishing--feasting to-day and
famishing to-morrow--and were easily roused by the hope
of plunder. The weakly manned forts containing the white
man's provisions, ammunition, and traders' supplies were
an attractive lure to such savages. Within the confederacy,
however, there were some who did not rally round Pontiac.
The Ottawas of the northern part of Michigan, under the
influence of their priest, remained friendly to the
British. Including the Ottawas and Chippewas of the Ottawa
and Lake Superior, the confederates numbered many thousands;
yet at no time was Pontiac able to command from among
them more than one thousand warriors.
In close alliance with the Confederacy of the Three Fires
were the tribes dwelling to the west of Lake Michigan--the
Menominees, the Winnebagoes, and the Sacs and Foxes. These
tribes could put into the field about twelve hundred
warriors; but none of them took part in the war save in
one instance, when the Sacs, moved by the hope of plunder,
assisted the Chippewas in the capture of Fort Michilimackinac.
The Wyandots living on the Detroit river were a remnant
of the ancient Hurons of the famous mission near Lake
Simcoe. For more than a century they had been bound to
the French by ties of amity. They were courageous,
intelligent, and in every way on a higher plane of life
than the tribes of the Ottawa Confederacy. Their two
hundred and fifty braves were to be Pontiac's most
important allies in the siege of Detroit.
South of the Michigan peninsula, about the head-waters
of the rivers Maumee and Wabash, dwelt the Miamis,
numbering probably about fifteen hundred. Influenced by
French traders and by Pontiac's emissaries, they took to
the war-path, and the British were thus cut off from the
trade-route between Lake Erie and the Ohio.
The tribes just mentioned were all that came under the
direct influence of Pontiac. Farther south were other
nations who were to figure in the impending struggle.
The Wyandots of Sandusky Bay, at the south-west corner
of Lake Erie, had about two hundred warriors, and were
in alliance with the Senecas and Delawares. Living near
Detroit, they were able to assist in Pontiac's siege.
Directly south of these, along the Scioto, dwelt the
Shawnees--the tribe which later gave birth to the great
Tecumseh--with three hundred warriors. East of the
Shawnees, between the Muskingum and the Ohio, were the
Delawares. At one time this tribe had lived on both sides
of the Delaware river in Pennsylvania and New York, and
also in parts of New Jersey and Delaware. They called
themselves _Leni-Lenape_, real men; but were, nevertheless,
conquered by the Iroquois, who 'made women' of them,
depriving them of the right to declare war or sell land
without permission. Later, through an alliance with the
French, they won back their old independence. But they
lay in the path of white settlement, and were ousted from
one hunting-ground after another, until finally they had
to seek homes beyond the Alleghanies. The British had
robbed the Delawares of their ancient lands, and the
Delawares hated with an undying hatred the race that had
injured them. They mustered six hundred warriors.
Almost directly south of Fort Niagara, by the upper waters
of the Genesee and Alleghany rivers, lay the homes of
the Senecas, one of the Six Nations. This tribe looked
upon the British settlers in the Niagara region as
squatters on their territory. It was the Senecas, not
Pontiac, who began the plot for the destruction of the
British in the hinterland, and in the war which followed
more than a thousand Seneca warriors took part. Happily,
as has been mentioned, Sir William Johnson was able to
keep the other tribes of the Six Nations loyal to the
British; but the 'Door-keepers of the Long House,' as
the Senecas were called, stood aloof and hostile.
The motives of the Indians in the rising of 1763 may,
therefore, be summarized as follows: amity with the
French, hostility towards the British, hope of plunder,
and fear of aggression. The first three were the controlling
motives of Pontiac's Indians about Detroit. They called
it the 'Beaver War.' To them it was a war on behalf of
the French traders, who loaded them with gifts, and
against the British, who drove them away empty-handed.
But the Senecas and the Delawares, with their allies of
the Ohio valley, regarded it as a war for their lands.
Already the Indians had been forced out of their
hunting-grounds in the valleys of the Juniata and the
Susquehanna. The Ohio valley would be the next to go,
unless the Indians went on the war-path. The chiefs there
had good reason for alarm. Not so Pontiac at Detroit,
because no settlers were invading his hunting-grounds.
And it was for this lack of a strong motive that Pontiac's
campaign, as will hereafter appear, broke down before
the end of the war; that even his own confederates deserted
him; and that, while the Senecas and Delawares were still
holding out, he was wandering through the Indian country
in a vain endeavour to rally his scattered warriors.