Heroes of the Middle West Part 9

About a hundred and twenty English soldiers, besides fur traders and Canadian settlers, were in this inclosure, which was called the fort, to distinguish it from the village of French houses up and down the sh.o.r.e.

Dwellers outside had their own gardens and orchards, also surrounded by pickets. These French people, who tried to live comfortably among the English, whom they liked no better than the Indians did, raised fine pears and apples and made wine of the wild grapes.

The river, emptying the water of the upper lakes into Lake Erie, was about half a mile wide. Sunlight next morning showed this blue strait sparkling from the palisades to the other sh.o.r.e, and trees and gardens moist with that dewy breath which seems to exhale from fresh-water seas.

Indians swarmed early around the fort, pretending that the young men were that day going to play a game of ball in the fields, while Pontiac and sixty old chiefs came to hold a council with the English. More than a thousand of them lounged about, ready for action. The braves were blanketed, each carrying a gun with its barrel filed off short enough to be concealed under his blanket.

About ten o'clock Pontiac and his chiefs crossed the river in birch canoes and stalked in Indian file, every man stepping in the tracks of the man before him, to the fort gates. The gates on the water side usually stood open until evening, for the English, contemptuously careless of savages, let squaws and warriors come and go at pleasure.

They did not that morning open until Pontiac entered. He found himself and his chiefs walking betwixt files of armed soldiers. The gates were shut behind him.

Pontiac was startled as if by a sting. He saw that some one had betrayed his plan to the officers. Even fur traders were standing under arms.

To this day it is not known who secretly warned the fort of Pontiac's conspiracy; but the most reliable tradition declares it to have been a young squaw named Catherine, who could not endure to see friends whom she loved put to death.

It flashed through Pontiac's mind that he and his followers were now really prisoners. The captain of Detroit was afterwards blamed for not holding the chief when he had him. The tribes could not rush through the closed gates at Pontiac's signal, which was to be the lifting of a wampum belt upside down, with all its figures reversed. But the cunning savage put on a look of innocence and inquired:--

"My father," using the Indian term of respect, "why are so many of your young men standing in the street with their guns?"

"They have been ordered out for exercise and discipline," answered the officer.

A slight clash of arms and the rolling of drums were heard by the surprised tribes waiting in suspense around the palisades. They did not know whether they would ever see their leader appear again. But he came out, after going through the form of a council, mortified by his failure to seize the fort, and sulkily crossed the river to his lodge. All his plans to bring warriors inside the palisades were treated with contempt by the captain of Detroit. Pontiac wanted his braves to smoke the calumet with his English father.

"You may come in yourself," said the officer, "but the crowd you have with you must remain outside."

"I want all my young men," urged Pontiac, "to enjoy the fragrance of the friendly calumet."

"I will have none of your rabble in the fort," said the officer.

Raging like a wild beast, Pontiac then led his people in a.s.sault.

He threw off every pretense of friendliness, and from all directions the tribes closed around Detroit in a general attack. Though it had wooden walls, it was well defended. The Indians, after their first fierce onset, fighting in their own way, behind trees and sheltered by buildings outside the fort, were able to besiege the place indefinitely with comparatively small loss to themselves; while the garrison, shut in almost without warning, looked forward to scarcity of provisions.

All English people caught beyond the walls were instantly murdered. But the French settlers were allowed to go about their usual affairs unhurt.

Queer traditions have come down from them of the pious burial they gave to English victims of the Indians. One old man stuck his hands out of his grave. The French covered them with earth. But next time they pa.s.sed that way they saw the stiff, entreating hands, like pale fungi, again thrust into view. At this the horrified French settlers hurried to their priest, who said the neglected burial service over the grave, and so put the poor Englishman to rest, for his hands protruded no more.

One of the absent schooners kept for the use of the fort had gone down river with letters and dispatches. Her crew knew nothing of the siege, and she narrowly escaped capture. A convoy of boats, bringing the usual spring supplies, was taken, leaving Detroit to face famine. Yet it refused to surrender, and, in spite of Pontiac's rage and his continual investment of the place, the red flag of England floated over that fortress all summer.

Other posts were not so fortunate in resisting Pontiac's conspiracy.

Fort Sandusky, at the west end of Lake Erie; Fort Ouatanon, on the Wabash, a little south of where Lafayette, in the state of Indiana, now stands; Fort Miami, Presqu' Isle, Le Boeuf, Venango, on the eastern border, and Michilimackinac, on the straits, were all taken by the Indians.

At Presqu' Isle the twenty-seven soldiers went into the blockhouse of the fort and prepared to hold it, lining and making it bullet-proof.

A blockhouse was built of logs, or very thick timber, and had no windows, and but one door in the lower story. The upper story projected several feet all around, and had loopholes in the overhanging, floor, through which the men could shoot down. Loopholes were also fixed in the upper walls, wide within, but closing to narrow slits on the outside.

A sentry box or lookout was sometimes put at the top of the roof. With the door barred by iron or great beams of wood, and food and ammunition stored in the lower room, men could ascend a ladder to the second story of a blockhouse and hold it against great odds, if the besiegers did not succeed in burning them out.

Presqu' Isle was at the edge of Lake Erie, and the soldiers brought in all the water they could store. But the attacking Indians made breastworks of logs, and shot burning arrows on the s.h.i.+ngle roof.

All the water barrels were emptied putting out fires. While some men defended the loopholes, others dug under the floor of the blockhouse and mined a way below ground to the well in the fort where Indians swarmed.

Buildings in the inclosure were set on fire, but the defenders of the blockhouse kept it from catching the flames by tearing off s.h.i.+ngles from the roof when they began to burn. The mining party reached the well, and buckets of water were drawn up and pa.s.sed through the tunnel to the blockhouse. Greatly exhausted, the soldiers held out until next day, when, having surrendered honorably, they were all taken prisoners as they left the scorched and battered log tower. For savages were such capricious and cruel victors that they could rarely be depended upon to keep faith. Pontiac himself was superior to his people in such matters.

If he had been at Presqu' Isle, the garrison would not have been seized after surrendering on honorable terms. However, these soldiers were not instantly ma.s.sacred, as other prisoners had been in war betwixt French and English, when savage allies could not be restrained.

Next to Detroit the most important post was Michilimackinac.

This was not the island in the straits bearing that name, but a stockaded fort on the south sh.o.r.e of Michigan, directly across the strait from St. Ignace. To this day, searching along a beach of deep, yielding sand, so different from the rocky strands of the islands, you may find at the forest edge a cellar where the powder house stood, and fruit trees and gooseberry bushes from gardens planted there more than two hundred years ago.

Michilimackinac, succeeding St. Ignace, had grown in importance, and was now a stockaded fort, having French houses both within and outside it, like Detroit. After Father Marquette's old mission had been abandoned and the buildings burned, another small mission was begun at L'Arbre Croche, not far west of Fort Michilimackinac, such of his Ottawas as were not scattered being gathered here. The region around also was full of Chippewas or Ojibwas.

All these Indians hated the English. Some came to the fort and said to a young English trader named Alexander Henry, who arrived after the white flag was hauled down and the red one about to be hoisted:--

"Englishman, although you have conquered the French, you have not conquered us. We are not your slaves. These lakes, these woods and mountains were left to us by our ancestors. They are our inheritance, and we will part with them to none!"

Though these Ottawas and Chippewas were independent of those about Detroit, they had eagerly taken hold of Pontiac's war belt. The missionary priest was able for a while to restrain the Ottawas. The Chippewas, gathered in from their winter's hunting, determined to strike the first blow.

On the fourth day of June, which was the English king's birthday, they came and invited the garrison to look at a game of ball, or baggattaway, which they were going to play on the long sandy beach, against some Sac Indians. The fortress gates stood open. The day was very warm and discipline was relaxed. n.o.body noticed that squaws, flocking inside the fort, had tomahawks and scalping knives hidden under their blankets, though a few Englishmen afterward remembered that the squaws were strangely huddled in wrappings on a day hot for that climate.

The young English trader, Alexander Henry, has left a careful account of the ma.s.sacre at Fort Michilimackinac. He did not go out to see the ball game, because he had important letters to write and send by a canoe just starting to Canada. Officers and men, believing the red tribes friendly, lounged about unarmed. Whitewashed French houses shone in the sun, and the surge of the straits sounded peacefully on the beach. n.o.body could dream that when the shouting Indians drove the ball back from the farthest stake, their cries would suddenly change to war whoops.

At that horrid yell Henry sprang up and ran to a window of his house.

He saw Chippewas filling the fort, and with weapons s.n.a.t.c.hed from the squaws, cutting down and scalping Englishmen. He caught his own gun from its rack, expecting to hear the drum beat to arms. But the surprised garrison were unable even to sound an alarm.

Seeing that not a Frenchman was touched, Henry slipped into the house of his next neighbor, a Canadian named Langlade. The whole family were at the front windows, looking at the horrible sights in the fort; but an Indian slave, a Pani, or p.a.w.nee woman, beckoned to him and hid him in the attic, locking the door and carrying away the key.

The attic probably had one or two of those tunnel-like dormer windows built in the curving roof of all French houses. Henry found a place where he could look out. He saw his countrymen slaughtered without being able to help them, and it was like a frightful nightmare from which there was to be no awakening. Presently the cry rose:--

"All is finished!"

Then the Indians crowded into Langlade's house and inquired whether any Englishmen were hid there. So thin was the attic floor of planks laid across joists, that Henry could hear every word.

"I cannot say," answered the Frenchman. "You may examine for yourselves."

Henry looked around the attic for some place to hide in. Moccasined feet were already coming upstairs. Savage hands shook the attic door, and impatient guttural voices demanded the key. While some one went for the key, Henry crept into a kind of tunnel made by a heap of birch-bark vessels, used in the maple-sugar season. The door was opening before he could draw himself quite out of sight, and though the pile was in a dark corner, he dreaded displacing some of the birch troughs and making a noise.

The Indians trod so close to him he thought they must hear him breathe.

Their bodies were smeared with blood, which could be seen through the dusk; and while searching they told Monsieur Langlade how many Englishmen they had killed and the number of scalps they had taken.

Not finding any one, they went away and the door was again locked.

Henry crept out of hiding. There was a feather bed on the floor and he stretched himself on it, so worn out by what he had seen and endured that he fell asleep.

He was roused by the door opening again. Madame Langlade came in, and she was surprised and frightened at finding him. It was nearly night and a fierce summer rain beat upon the roof, dripping through cracks of the heat-dried bark. Madame Langlade had come to stop a leak. She told Henry that all the English except himself were killed, but she hoped he would escape. She brought him some water to drink.

As darkness came on, he lay thinking of his desperate state. He was four hundred miles from Detroit, which he did not then know was besieged, and with all his stores captured or destroyed by the Indians, he had no provisions. He could not stay where he was, and if he ventured out, the first red man who met him would kill him.

By morning the Indians came to the house inquiring for Henry, whom they had missed. Madame Langlade was in such fear that they might kill her children if they found Henry sheltered in the house, that she told her husband where he was and begged to have him given up. This the Frenchman at first refused to do; but he finally led the Indians again to the attic.

Henry stood up, expecting to die.

The Indians were all partially drunk and had satisfied themselves with slaughter. One of them seized Henry by the collar and lifted a knife to plunge into his breast. White man and red man looked intently at each other, and the savage, perhaps moved by the fearless despair in the young Englishman's eyes, concluded to take him prisoner. Henry began to think he could not be killed.

He found that the captain and lieutenant of Michilimackinac were also alive and prisoners like himself. The missionary priest was doing all he could to restrain his maddened flock. At a council held between Chippewas and Ottawas, Henry was bought with presents by a Chippewa chief named Wawatam, who loved him, and who had been absent the day of the attack Wawatam put Henry in his canoe, carried him across the strait to Michilimackinac Island, and hid him in a cave, which is now called Skull Rock by the islanders, because Henry found ancient skulls and bones in the bottom of it. As the island was held sacred by the Indians, this was probably one of their old sepulchres. Its dome top is smothered in a tangle of evergreens and brush. There is a low, triangular entrance, and the hollow inside is shaped like an elbow. More than one island boy has since crept back to the dark bend where Henry lay hidden on the skulls, but only a drift of damp leaves can be found there now.

The whole story of Alexander Henry's adventures, before he escaped and returned safely to Canada, is a wonderful chapter in western history.

The Indians were not guilty of all the cruelties practiced in this war.

Bounties were offered for savage scalps. One renegade Englishman, named David Owen, came back from adoption and marriage into a tribe, bringing the scalps of his squaw wife and her friends.