_Near Uniontown, Pennsylvania, one mile east of Chalk Hill, beside the
National Pike, lie the remains of General Edward Braddock. They are
said to have been reinterred at this place in 1824._]
[Illustration: PONTIAC
_The chief of the Ottawas. In April, 1769, he was murdered, when drunk,
at Cahokie (nearly opposite St. Louis) by a Kaskaskia Indian, bribed by
an English trader. He was buried near the St. Louis fort._]
For a long time the Indian astutely played off one foreign nation
against the other; but after the French were excluded the only Great
Father left to the poor Indian was his Majesty King George III--God
bless him! The French loved the Indians, in both a flowery and an
actual way; but the English would neither protect them nor marry them.
Hence the outbreak under Pontiac, after the Northwest had been turned
over to England. He was one of the greatest of his race. He might have
said, as one of his brethren did say to an Anglo Saxon potentate, “I
am a man; and you are another.” This was one of the few attempts in
America to combine the Indian tribes and to attack the whites all along
the line. When Pontiac failed there was nothing for it but to yield.
Even the Iroquois gave in and learned to eat out of the hand of Sir
William Johnson of Johnson Hall; and they made the treaty of Fort
Stanwix with the English in 1768, generously giving lands they had
never possessed. That was fatal for the Six Nations; for they got so
addicted to Great Father George III that they stood by him when the
Revolution broke out. That gave to Patriot General Sullivan the chance
to march into their own country in 1779, and to break to pieces the
only American third power that ever tried to stand neutral between the
French and the English.
[Illustration: STARVED ROCK
_In 1770 this rock became the last refuge of a small band of Illinois
Indians flying before a large force of Pottawattomies, who believed
that one of the Illinois had assassinated Pontiac, in whose conspiracy
the Pottawattomies had taken part. Unable to dislodge the Illinois, the
Pottawattomies cut off their escape and let them die of starvation._]
SUPPLEMENTARY READING.--“French and English in North America,”
Francis Parkman; “History of Canada,” F. B. Tracy; “Formation
of the Union,” A. B. Hart; “France in America,” Reuben G.
Thwaites; “Sir William Johnson and the Six Nations,” W.
E. Griffis; “United States” (Vol. II), Edward Channing;
“Mississippi Basin,” Justin Winsor; “Old Fort Loudon,” Charles
Egbert Craddock; “Seats of the Mighty,” Gilbert Parker.