The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]

"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.