88

Rogers crosses Ohio.

1759.

Detroit. He left Montreal on the 13th of September, 1760, and, on the 8th of October, reached Presqu'Ile, where Bouquet then commanded. Thence he went slowly up Lake Erie, to Detroit, which place he summoned to yield itself on the 19th of November. It was, if we mistake not, while waiting for an answer to this summons, that he was visited by the great Ottawa chieftain, Pontiac, who demanded how the English dared enter his country; to which the answer was given, that they came, not to take the country, but to open a free way of trade, and to put out the French, who stopped their trade. This answer, together with other moderate and kindly words, spoken by Rogers, seemed to lull the rising fears of the savages, and Pontiac promised him his protection.

Beleter, meantime, who commanded at Detroit, had not yielded; nay, word was brought to Rogers on the 24th, that his messenger had been confined, and a flag-pole erected, with a wooden head upon it, to represent Britain, on which stood a crow picking the eyes out, as emblematic of the success of France. In a few days, however, the commander heard of the fate of the lower posts, and, as his Indians did not stand by him, on the 29th he yielded. Rogers remained at Detroit until December 23d, under the personal protection of Pontiac, to whose presence he probably owed his safety. From Detroit the Major went to the Maumee, and thence across the present State of Ohio to Fort Pitt; and his Journal of this overland trip is the first we have of such an one in that region. His route was nearly that given by Hutchins,† in Bouquet's "Expedition," as the common one from Sandusky to the Fork of the Ohio. It went from Fort Sandusky, where Sandusky City now is, crossed the Huron river, then called Bald Eagle Creek, to "Mohickon John's Town," upon what we know as Mohicon Creek, the northern branch of White Woman's River, and thence crossed to Beaver's Town, a Delaware town on the west side of the "Maskongam Creek," opposite "a fine river" which, from Hutchins' map, we presume was Sandy Creek. At Beaver's Town were one hundred and eighty warriors, and not less than three thousand acres of cleared land. From there the track went up Sandy Creek and across to the Big Beaver, and up

*See his Journal, London, 1765. Also, his Concise Account of North America. London. 1765.

+ Thomas Hutchins, afterwards Geographer of the United States, was, in 1764, assistant engineer on Bouquet's edition.

1761.

Henry at Mackinac.

89

the Ohio, through Logstown, to Fort Pitt, which place Rogers reached January 23d, 1760, precisely one month having passed while he was upon the way.

In the spring of the year following Rogers' visit, (1761,) Alexander Henry, an English trader, went to Missillimacnac for purposes of business, and he found everywhere the strongest feeling against the English, who had done nothing by word or act to conciliate the Indians. Even then there were threats of reprisals and war. Having, by means of a Canadian dress, managed to reach Missilimacanac in safety, he was there discovered, and was waited on by an Indian chief, who was, in the opinion of Thatcher, Pontiac himself. This chief, after conveying to him the idea, that their French father would soon awake and utterly destroy his enemies, continued:

"Englishman! Although you have conquered the French, you have not yet conquered us! We are not your slaves! These lakes, these woods, these mountains, were left to us by our ancestors. They are our inheritance, and we will part with them to Your nation supposes that we, like the white people, cannot live without bread, and pork, and beef. But you ought to know that He, the Great Spirit and Master of Life, has provided food for us upon these broad lakes and in these mountains."

none.

He then spoke of the fact that no treaty had been made with them, no presents sent them, and while he announced their intention to allow Henry to trade unmolested, and to regard him as a brother, he declared, that with his king the red men were still at

war.

Such were the feelings of the northwestern savages immediately after the English took possession of their lands; and these feelings were in all probability fostered and increased by the Canadians and French. Distrust of the British was general; and, as the war between France and England still went on in other lands, there was hope among the Canadians, perhaps, that the French power might be restored in America. However this may have. been, it is clear that disaffection spread rapidly in the West, though of the details of the years from 1759 to 1763 we know hardly any thing.

Upon the 10th of February, 1763, the treaty of Paris was concluded, and peace between the European powers restored. Of

Travels of Alexander Henry in Canada, from 1760 to 1776. New York, 1809.Thatcher's Indian Biography, vol. ii. pp. 75, et seq.

90

Peace of Paris.

1763.

that treaty we give the essential provisions bearing upon our subject.

ART. 4 "His most Christian Majesty renounces all pretensions which he has heretofore formed, or might form, to Nova Scotia or Acadia in all its parts, and guarantees the whole of it, and with all its dependencies, to the King of Great Britain: moreover, his most Christian Majesty cedes and guarantees to his said Britannic Majesty, in full right, Canada, with all its dependencies, as well as the island of Cape Breton, and all the other islands and coasts in the gulf and river of St. Lawrence; and, in general, every thing that depends on the said coun tries, lands, islands, and coasts, with the sovereignty, property, possession, and all rights acquired by treaty or otherwise, which the most Christian King and the crown of France have had, till now, over the said countries, islands, lands, places, coasts, and their inhabitants; so that the most Christian King, cedes and makes over the whole to the said King, and to the crown of Great Britain, and that in the most ample manner and form, without restriction, and without any liberty to depart from the said cession and guarantee under any pretence, or to disturb Great Britain in the possessions above mentioned.

ART. 7. “In order to establish peace on solid and durable foundations, and to remove forever all subjects of dispute with regard to the limits of the British and French territories on the continent of America, it is agreed that for the future, the confines between the dominions of his Britannic Majesty and those of his most Christian Majesty in that part of the world, shall be fixed irrevocably by a line drawn along the middle of the river Mississippi, from its source to the river Iberville, and from thence by a line drawn along the middle of this river, and the lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain, to the sea; and for this purpose, the most Christian King cedes, in full right, and guarantees to his Britannic Majesty, the river and port of the Mobile, and every thing which he possesses or ought to possess on the left side of the river Mississippi, with the exception of the town of New Orleans, and of the island in which it is situated, which shall remain to France; it being well understood that the navigation of the river Mississippi shall be equally free, as well to the subjects of Great Britain as to those of France, in its whole breadth and length from its source to the sea; and expressly, that part which is between the said island of New Orleans, and the right bank of that river, as well as the passage both in and out of its mouth. It is further stipulated that the vessels belonging to the subjects of either nation shall not be stopped, visited, or subjected to the payment of any duty whatsoever."

[It is necessary to observe, that the preliminary articles, which so far

1763.

Indian Conspiracy.

91

as relates to the two articles here inserted, are verbatim the same with those of the definitive treaty, were signed on the third day of November, 1762, on which same day, as will appear, France ceded Louisiana to Spain.]*

FROM 1763 TO 1764.

And now once more men began to think seriously of the West. Pamphlets were published upon the advantages of settlements on the Ohio; Colonel Mercer was chosen to represent the old Company in England, and try to have their affairs made straight, for there were counter-claims by the soldiers who had enlisted, in 1754, under Dinwiddie's proclamation; and on all hands there were preparations for movement. But, even at that moment, there existed through the whole West a conspiracy or agreement among the Indians, from Lake Michigan to the frontiers of North Carolina, by which they were with one accord, with one spirit, to fall upon the whole line of British posts and strike every white man dead. Chippeways, Ottoways, Wyandots, Miamis, Shawanese, Delawares, and Mingoes, for the time, laid by their old hostile feelings, and united under Pontiac in this great enterprise. The voice of that sagacious and noble man was heard in the distant North, crying, "Why, says the Great Spirit, do you suffer these dogs in red clothing to enter your country and take the land I have given you? Drive them from it! Drive them! When you are in distress, I will help you."

That voice was heard, but not by the whites. The unsuspecting traders journeyed from village to village; the soldiers in the forts shrunk from the sun of the early summer, and dozed away the day; the frontier settler, singing in fancied security, sowed his crop, or, watching the sunset through the girdled trees, mused upon one more peaceful harvest, and told his children of the hor

See Land Laws, p. 83.

92

Mackinac taken.

1763.

rors of the ten years' war, now,-thank God! over. From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi the trees had leaved, and all was calm life and joy. But through that great country, even then, bands of sullen red men were journeying from the central valleys to the lakes and the Eastern hills. Bands of Chippeways gathered about Missilimacanac. Ottaways filled the woods near Detroit. The Maumee post, Presqu'Ile, Niagara, Pitt, Ligonier, and every English fort was hemmed in by mingled tribes, who felt that the great battle drew nigh which was to determine their fate and the possession of their noble lands. At last the day came. The traders everywhere were seized, their goods taken from them, and more than one hundred of them put to death. Nine British forts yielded instantly, and the savages drank, "scooped up in the hollow of joined hands," the blood of many a Briton. The border streams of Pennsylvania and Virginia ran red again. "We hear," says a letter for Fort Pitt, "of scalping every hour." In Western Virginia, more than twenty thousand people were driven from their homes. Mackinac was taken by a stratagem, which Henry thus describes:

The next day, being the fourth of June, was the king's birth-day. The morning was sultry. A Chippeway came to tell me that his nation was going to play at baggatiway, with the Sacs or Saakies, another Indian nation, for a high wager. He invited me to witness the sport, adding that the commandant was to be there, and would bet on the side of the Chippeways. In consequence of this information, I went to the commandant, and expostulated with him a little, representing that the Indians might possibly have some sinister end in view; but the commandant only smiled at my suspicions.

Baggatiway, called by the Canadians le jeu de la crosse, is played with a bat and ball. The bat is about four feet in length, curved, and terminating in a sort of racket. Two posts are planted in the ground, at a considerable distance from each other, as a mile or more, Each party has its post, and the game consists in throwing the ball up to the post of the adversary. The ball at the beginning is placed in the middle of the course, and each party endeavors as well to throw the ball out of the direction of its own post, as into that of the adversary's. I did not go myself to see the match which was now to be played without the fort, because, there being a canoe prepared to depart, on the following day, for Montreal, 1 employed myself in writing letters to my friends; and even when a fellow-trader, Mr. Tracy happened to

+See Henry's Narrative.-Thatcher's Indian Biography, vol. ii. p. 83.