Attack on the Fisher Family
On Monday, May 9, 1763, Pontiac returned yet again to the fort, accompanied by several hundred followers. Gladwin refused admittance to the large group and insisted that all save about 50 of the leading men leave. Instead, the entire group departed. Later in the day the fighting began as Pontiac’s men started firing on the fort and the two gunboats, the Michigan and Huron, anchored near the fort in the Detroit River.
On the same day, a war party crossed to Isle au Cochon (currently Belle Isle) in the Detroit River, where the British kept a herd of cattle. The raiders killed two soldiers, a farmer named James Fisher, and Fisher’s wife and one of his children. They took another soldier and the three remaining children prisoner. One of the children, seven-year-old Betty Fisher, was murdered the following year—drowned, apparently at the direction of Pontiac, who threw her in the Maumee River in a fit of anger when she soiled her blanket and sought warmth at Pontiac’s fire. The act was surely the most offensive single incident of the Ottawa war chief’s entire life.
A French sawyer on the island, Francjois Goslin, apparently panicked and tried to escape, only to be killed when he was mistaken for being English. As a general rule Pontiac and his allies during the war remained friendly with the French who lived near the fort, seeing them as potential allies. To maintain a good relationship with the French, Pontiac occasionally even attended Mass with them. Although he needed to requisition supplies from French villagers (known as habitants), he generally gave them a bill of sale with his mark (reportedly a picture of a raccoon) for cattle or grain that he took.
Death of Captain Campbell
A party of Wyandots approached the fort on May 10, offering to negotiate a peace agreement. Later in the day, they returned with Ojibwas, Ottawas, Potawatomis, and three habitants. Gladwin agreed to permit Campbell, accompanied by Lieutenant John McDougall, to go with the supposed peace party; he kept two Potawatomi hostages in an effort to ensure the safe return of the British officers.
Campbell and McDougall were taken to the home of Antoine Cuillerier, a half-brother of the former French commander of Fort Detroit. There, little in the way of negotiations ensued, and the two men became prisoners. Pontiac named Cuillerier interim commander of the fort until the arrival of his brother, former commander Francjois de Belestre; dispatched a party of Indians and French to Illinois to seek help from Chevalier Pierre Joseph Neyon de Villiers, the French commander of Fort de Chartres, located north of Kaskaskia near the Mississippi in southwestern Illinois; and issued a call for Gladwin to surrender immediately. Gladwin naturally refused. In late July, Pontiac received a letter from de Neyon stating that the French commandant had heard of a
Possible peace agreement between the French and British (which had occurred in February) and, therefore, could not assist Pontiac. In addition, a letter from de Neyon to the French habitants in the Detroit area urged them not to enter the conflict between Pontiac and the British.
Pontiac’s force grew throughout May and June. Realizing that a frontal assault on the fort would result in heavy Indian casualties, he settled in for a siege. At the same time, Pontiac tried to prevent the fort from receiving reinforcements and supplies by attacking boats approaching on the river and attempting to disable the Huron and Michigan gunboats.
Meanwhile, Campbell and McDougall remained prisoners. On July 2, McDougall, along with two traders, escaped and reached the fort safely. McDougall reported that he tried to persuade Campbell to escape as well, but the overweight and nearsighted officer decided against the attempt, perhaps believing that he would slow down the group. Given his history of friendly relations with the Ottawas, he also may have believed that he was in no great danger. If so, he was tragically in error.
Gladwin ordered a detachment to leave the fort on July 4 and destroy an earthen fortification that the besiegers had constructed. The British exchanged fire with the Indians and French, and in the encounter the nephew of a Chippewa chief named Wasson was killed. Wasson, angered by both his nephew’s death and what he considered insufficient effort by Pontiac, demanded custody of Captain Campbell. Pontiac turned his prisoner over to his irate ally. Wasson took Campbell to his own camp, stripped the officer, and killed him with a tomahawk. He then scalped his victim and ate his heart before throwing the body into the river, where it floated past the fort and was recovered by the British. The killing infuriated Pontiac, but he was not about to disrupt his alliance over it.
The Spreading War
As Pontiac continued the siege of Detroit, other forts were being attacked, many of them falling or being abandoned by troops too few in number to defend them. Between May 16 and June 2, Ottawas, Ojibwas, Miamis, Potawatomis, and Wyandots took Forts Sandusky (near the current Sandusky, Ohio), St. Joseph (near Niles, Michigan, in southwestern Michigan), Miami (near the modern Fort Wayne, Indiana), Ouiatenon (on the Wabash River near Lafayette, Indiana), and Michilimackinac (on the south shore of the Straits of Mackinac joining Lakes Huron and Michigan). In each case, clever stratagems led to victories. What Pontiac had attempted at Detroit worked at the first two forts that fell, with entry gained supposedly to hold council meetings and without the commanders suspecting any hostile intent. Both forts were taken in May before word had spread of the attempt at Detroit. At Ouiatenon, many of the soldiers were tricked into leaving the protection of the fort for a supposed council.
A different opportunity presented itself at Fort Miami, where the Miami girlfriend of the commander lured him outside the fort’s walls on the pretext
Of helping with her ill sister. Outside, the commander was shot to death, and the remainder of the small garrison surrendered. The tactic at Fort Michili-mackinac was even cleverer. Ojibwas (also known as Chippewas) entertained their Sauk visitors with a game of lacrosse that lasted for hours. Troops also watched the game while leaving the gate to the fort stand open. Finally, the ball rolled through the open gate. Players, clearly unarmed, rushed after it, only to receive weapons from women spectators who had hidden them under their blankets. The surprised soldiers found themselves quickly taken prisoner or killed.
As the summer advanced, additional British forts fell or were abandoned— most notably Fort Presque Isle at present-day Erie, Pennsylvania. On June 19, a force of Ottawas, Ojibwas, Senecas, and Hurons built breastworks atop two nearby hills from which to fire on the fort. Burning arrows set portions of the fort on fire, and the troops retreated to the blockhouse. Finally, they had little recourse but to surrender. The only three forts in the region to survive were Forts Pitt (formerly Fort Duquesne), Niagara, and Detroit.
The Continued Siege
Pontiac continued trying to isolate Detroit. To do so, however, he had to stop Gladwin’s use of his gunboats to ferry men and supplies to the fort as well as to provide firepower to keep the besiegers at a distance. In fact, the guns onboard the boats were so powerful that the British could bombard Pontiac’s village from the river. The Huron began its round trips to Niagara in late May and continued to do so throughout the summer. Pontiac tried drifting burning rafts downriver, hoping to set one of the boats on fire, but the British were able to intercept the rafts. A massive attack on the Huron by canoe in September came closer than any other effort, but the crew was able to unleash broadsides of grapeshot at the canoes and turn back the attack.
While the Huron ferried troops and supplies, the Michigan usually remained nearby to defend the fort. When four other gunboats became available in July and were brought across Lake Erie by Captain James Dalyell, Gladwin began using the Michigan, in addition to the Huron, to resupply the fort. The Michigan broke up in windy weather on Lake Erie on August 28, 1763, but by that time Gladwin had access to a sufficient fleet without it.
Captain Dalyell persuaded Gladwin to let him lead a force of 247 men out of the fort early in the morning of July 31 on what he hoped would be a surprise attack on Pontiac’s forces. However, Pontiac had learned of the plan and was waiting. By eight o’clock, the battered troops were back in the fort, having suffered 20 fatalities, including Dalyell, with more than 40 additional men wounded and others taken prisoner. Several soldiers had died in Parent’s Creek, their blood staining the water red, resulting in the creek becoming known as Bloody Run. The conflict earned the name the Battle of Bloody Bridge, a term referring to the location of the troops on the bridge over Parent’s Creek when Pontiac gave the order to fire on them.
Lifting of the Siege
As the stalemate continued at Fort Detroit as well as at Forts Pitt and Niagara, and with no substantial French help likely to arrive (de Neyon had again responded to Pontiac’s entreaties with a call for peace) and Pontiac’s force shrinking, Pontiac began to make peace overtures. A truce (but no formal peace treaty) was negotiated in late October 1763. After crops were harvested for the year, Pontiac left the area to establish a winter village approximately 90 miles southwest of Detroit on the Maumee River.
The fatalities suffered on both sides during 1763 are impossible to determine precisely. Gladwin claimed that Pontiac and his allies had lost 80 to 90 warriors in the Detroit region, and others obviously died in battles elsewhere. Peckham estimates that approximately 450 British soldiers were killed in addition to civilians.6
Pontiac was well aware that the war which had begun so promisingly in the spring now looked much less hopeful. Forts Pitt and Niagara remained under British control. Among events elsewhere, the British had scored a significant— though not unqualified—victory in the Battle of Bushy Run. Colonel Henry Bouquet had led a force of approximately 500 men west toward Fort Pitt during the summer of 1763, stopping at other garrisons on the way. Meanwhile, Delawares, Mingos, Shawnees, and Wyandots were besieging Fort Pitt in late July but left to try to intercept Bouquet. On August 5, 26 miles east of the fort on Edge Hill, Bouquet’s troops came under attack. The attacking force encircled Bouquet’s men, but two British companies managed to break out without being seen, outflanked the Indian forces, and forced them into a fast retreat.
Bouquet led his men to Bushy Run, where they were able to get water to drink; this location, rather than the site of the battle, gave the conflict its name. At Bushy Run, Bouquet again was attacked, but the Indians withdrew and Bouquet continued on to Fort Pitt, bringing reinforcements but leaving the bulk of his supplies behind. Both sides suffered heavy losses, with Bouquet losing approximately 50 men.7 Nonetheless, despite the disappointments of 1763, Pontiac was not yet ready to give up the fight for good.
Seeking French Aid
In 1764, Pontiac’s focus, as well as that of the British, turned toward the area that would become the state of Illinois. By the early eighteenth century, this region had become part of the French province of Louisiana, an area ceded to the British in 1763. In the mid-1760s, however, it still was uncontrolled by and inhospitable to the British. The future state became part of the Northwest Territory in 1787, was incorporated into Indiana Territory in 1800 when the Northwest Territory was partitioned, and was established as a separate territory including much of present-day Wisconsin and part of Minnesota in 1809. Finally, the area comprising present-day Illinois earned statehood in 1818.
With French influence still strong in the area, Pontiac again sought de Neyon’s help, leading a delegation to visit him in April 1764. Pontiac presented the
Conflict not only as a political and military issue between the French and the British, but also in religious terms of Catholic (France) versus Protestant (England). Pontiac did not arrive empty handed: He carried with him symbols of military alliances in the form of wampum belts. In addition, he occupied a position of strength occasioned by the recent failure of Major Arthur Loftus to disrupt convoys from New Orleans that traveled up the Mississippi resupplying Indians in the Illinois region.
Although de Neyon was sympathetic to Pontiac, he again stated that given the establishment of peace between England and France, he could do nothing to help. Despite Pontiac’s inability to enlist the French in his cause, a variety of Indian peoples were busy recruiting allies against the British throughout Illinois, and the British remained unable to exercise any significant control over most of the region.
BRITISH INDIAN POLICIES Royal Proclamation of 1763
Back in Ohio, the British hoped to establish peace through a combination of legislation and political alliances that would isolate those Indian groups— including the Shawnees, Delawares, and Pontiac’s Ottawas—whom they held responsible for resistance to British rule, prevent confrontations between Europeans and Indians, and avoid the considerable financial expense of fighting Indian wars. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was directed toward keeping settlers out of traditional Indian lands, thereby maintaining both political and fiscal stability in the existing British possessions. The royal edict prohibited settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains and attempted to regulate Indian trade. It also clarified that, from the British perspective, Indians were not “subjects” but rather individuals under the protection of the British. Consequently, they lacked the legal rights enjoyed by subjects in England and in the colonies.
As subsequent history shows, the proclamation would prove at best a brief partial impediment to westward expansion. Colonists strongly objected to this attempt to keep them from settling beyond the Appalachians. Moreover, they found the policy to be one of many reasons ultimately to break free of the mother country, although historians remain divided about the extent to which the Royal Proclamation helped bring about the American Revolution.
The Iroquois League
There was much more to Indian policy, however, than the Royal Proclamation of 1763. Sir William Johnson, superintendent of the Indian Department in the north, attempted to reinforce British relations with the Iroquois League, a confederation of the Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onandaga, and Seneca nations, and after 1710 the Tuscaroras—often referred to as the Five Nations, and later
The Six Nations. The arrangement between England and the Iroquois, referred to as the Covenant Chain, included British acknowledgment of Iroquois rule over the Shawnees. Johnson decided to ignore Seneca involvement in Pontiac’s war, a political compromise given the Senecas’ membership in the Six Nations. Peace overtures went out to other native peoples as well, with Johnson trying to isolate the bands whose actions he most wanted to curtail.
Ultimately, little of Johnson’s plan went precisely according to his hopes. The Shawnees would strongly resist domination by the Iroquois, as the later efforts of Tecumseh demonstrated (see Chapter 3). Even the Iroquois tended to put their own interests first, as the expedition led by Colonel John Brad-street illustrates.
Colonel Bradstreet's Peace
Johnson formed a strong force consisting of approximately 1,200 British soldiers and 650 Indians (largely Iroquois) that was ready by August 1764 to march westward from Fort Niagara under the command of Colonel Bradstreet to force acquiescence by the Ottawas, Shawnees, and Delawares to British rule. Bradstreet, however, seemed more inclined to make peace rather than war, and the Iroquois likewise preferred negotiation with Shawnees and others rather than risking combat. Thus, when Bradstreet reached L’Anse aux Feuilles on the southern shore of Lake Erie near Fort Presque Isle around the middle of August, he engaged a delegation of Indian representatives, including Shawnees and Delawares, in peace discussions. The agreement, concluded on August 12, included a promise by Bradstreet to send a message to Colonel Bouquet urging him to abandon his plans at Fort Pitt to attack the Shawnees and Delawares.
Bouquet, Johnson, and Thomas Gage (who had replaced Jeffery Amherst as commander-in-chief in North America at the end of 1763) all rejected Brad-street’s peace agreement. Bradstreet, however, was unaware of the anger that his actions had generated and dispatched a party that included Lieutenant Thomas Morris, a college-educated, French-speaking soldier who would later make a career as a poet and writer, to spread the news of the peace of L’Anse aux Feuilles. Thomas King, an Oneida chief, was among those accompanying Morris. Up the Maumee River from Maumee Bay, near present-day Toledo, Ohio, Morris’ party was captured by Ottawas. After meeting with Thomas King, Pontiac agreed to talk with Morris. Pontiac then told Morris that he would consider peace and gave the British soldier permission to continue his journey up the Maumee. Pontiac sent along his nephew, a French trader named St. Vincent, and a wampum belt that referenced 180 villages. The belt, Pontiac assured Morris, would guarantee him safe passage.
Despite the protection afforded by Pontiac’s belt, Morris ran into trouble at a Miami village. After being ordered to turn back, he set off for Detroit. Neither Bradstreet nor Bouquet ended up doing much fighting in 1764, but they achieved additional peace arrangements and managed to negotiate the
Return of several hundred British captives, some of whom had become thoroughly acculturated to their new communities and were reluctant to return to British civilization. There had been no military defeat of Indians in the Ohio region, and Pontiac remained free, still determined to resist the British.
World History
