124 INDIAN ATTACKS ON FRONTIER POSTS. until he could obtain sufficient supplies to withstand a siege, finally refused to consider any terms but war. The Indians also sent out side expeditions to the surrounding posts. Ensign Paulli, commandant at Fort Sandusky, was captured, the traders at the post were killed and their stores destroyed, and Paulli himself was taken to Detroit. On May 25, the fort near the mouth of the St. Joseph was surprised by a party of Pottawattamies, and Schlosser, the commandant, was seized, and 11 of the garrison of 14 were massacred. Holmes, commandant at Fort Miami, was shot while on an errand of mercy, and the soldiers were later taken prisoners.* Lieutenant Jenkins, the commander at Fort Quiatanon, just below Lafayette, in Indiana, together with his garrison, was also compelled to surrender.† Another fort west of the straits at Michillimackinac, was captured by the Ojibways, and soldiers and traders were robbed of all their possessions. The fort of Le Bœuf was attacked June 18 and set afire, but the garrison succeeded in escaping to the woods; they were more fortunate than their companions at Venango, who perished in the flames rather than risk torture by the Indians. Presqu' Isle (now Erie) was captured June 22 and the commander with a few others was carried a captive to Detroit. Even Fort Pitt, which had a garrison of 350 men, was Dunn, Indiana, p. 71. + Dunn, p. 71. threatened, but the attack was not pressed. The Indians did not stop with capturing forts, but they also killed more than 100 traders in the woods, prowled around the cabins on the border, killed the laborer in the field and the child in the cradle, spreading consternation and terror along the entire frontier. The powerful influence of Sir William Johnson was taxed to the utmost to keep the Six Nations from joining Pontiac against the white men.* The colonial governments soon awakened to the necessity of sending reinforcements to the western forts. Virginia sent 1,000 men and Maryland also gave aid, while Pennsylvania was ready to arm and pay 700 volunteers provided they were not placed under command of a British officer, the legislature being willing to equip that number of men only as a resident force for the protection of the country. For this "supine and neglectful conduct " Pennsylvania was severely censured by the king. In June a reinforcement of 60 men succeeded in reaching Detroit, and on July 29 Dalyell, an aide-de-camp to Amherst, arrived with 260 men. On the next day Dalyell, against the advice of Gladwin, determined upon a sally, and with 247 men set forth only to be ambushed by the Indians and forced to retreat with a loss of 20 N. Y. Col. Docs., vol. viii., pp. 111-157; Griffis, Sir William Johnson and the Six Nations, p. 187 et seq.; W. L. Stone, Life and Times of Sir William Johnson. BATTLE OF BUSHY RUN; PEACE MEASURES. killed and 42 wounded. Upon the Upon the rivulet along which the battle was fought was bestowed the name of The Bloody Run.* While attempting to bring off the wounded, Dalyell fell and was scalped. This victory resulted in bringing further recruits to the forces of Pontiac and the siege of Detroit was now maintained by more than 2,000 Indians. In July Fort Pitt was again besieged by the Delaware, Shawnees, Wyandots and Mingoes, but, making no impression on the works, the savage hordes finally retired. While the siege was in progress, Lieutenantcolonel Henry Bouquet with about 500 ment was making his way to relieve Fort Pitt, and after leaving Fort Ligonier, his advance guard was attacked by the Indians, but succeeded in repelling the attack. The savages grew to be so numerous that the English were surrounded on every side and were compelled to spend the night on Edge Hill, a mile east of Bushy Run. On the morning of July 6, Bouquet feigned a retreat and drew the Indians into an ambuscade killing large numbers, but not before he had lost nearly one-fourth of his own men. So many of the horses were killed that Bouquet was obliged to destroy his stores, and it was not *Cooley, Michigan, pp. 61-62. One of the companies in this expedition was commanded by Daniel Morgan.-Buell, Sir William Johnson, p. 225. Sharpless, Two Centuries of Pennsylvania History, pp. 152-153. VOL. II-9 125 until four days later that he arrived at Pittsburg. Amherst had become exceedingly wrathy at the continued repulses of his soldiers* and offered a reward of £100 for the person who should kill Pontiac, also giving orders that no prisoners should be taken, but that death should be meted out to every Indian falling into English hands. Amherst also sent out a small expedition which in September was waylaid by the Senecas about three miles below Niagara Falls, the Indians falling upon the convoy with such suddenness and vigor that only 8 men out of the 80 escaped, the others becoming victims to the scalping-knife. The French were the first to put forth any effective measures looking to a general pacification. DeNeyon, the French commandant at Fort Chartres, after the signing of the treaty between England and France, sent belts, peace pipes and messages to all parts of the continent, advising the savages to bury the hatchet and assuring them that their old allies, the French, would retire. These belts finally reached the nations on the Ohio and Lake Erie and were accepted. The messenger of peace arrived at Detroit toward the end of October and informed the inhabitants that Canada had been ceded to England. He said he would "wipe forever from the face of the earth that faithless, cruel tribe [the Senecas], who have already too long debauched the good name of the Iroquois Confederacy by pretending to belong to it."- Buell, Sir William Johnson, p. 227. 126 THE PAXTON BOYS; BOUQUET'S EXPEDITION. A proclamation was addressed to the Indians giving the same general information and Gladwin was also Gladwin was also informed that all the forts on the Ohio and east of the Mississippi Mississippi would be surrendered to the English. Pontiac therefore sent a message to Gladwin that he accepted the peace which his father, the French, had despatched to him and the savages dispersed to their hunting grounds, the formation of a definite treaty of peace being referred to the commander-in-chief.* This onslaught by the Indians provoked a bloody retaliation on the part of a number of Scotch and Irish settlers in Paxton township in Pennsylvania. At that place lived a friendly and harmless tribe under the guidance of some Moravian missionaries. The so-called "Paxton Boys" attacked this tribe, indiscriminately murdering men, women and children. Some of the natives took refuge in the Lancaster workhouse, but the "Paxton Boys" forced their way into the workhouse and killed the refugees. They then marched in January, 1764, to Philadelphia, for For details see Parkman, Conspiracy of Pontiac, vol. i., pp. 142-367, vol. ii.; and on the siege of Detroit, Robert Rogers, Diary of the Siege of Detroit in the War with Pontiac (ed. by Franklin B. Hough and published in 1860, forming pp. 121-135 of the fourth number of Munsell's Historical Series); Silas Farmer, The History of Detroit and Michigan, p. 234 et seq.; Moore, The Northwest under Three Flags, p. 102 et seq.; Bancroft, vol. iii., pp. 41-49, 62-63 and the contemporary accounts in Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society Collections, vol. viii., pp. 266-368. the purpose of killing a number of Indians who had fled there, but in this last project they were frustrated by Franklin who formed a body of militia and compelled the "Paxton Boys to retire without further bloodshed.* As these proceedings made the Indians restive, it was determined to send a strong force to the Ohio region, not only to afford protection but to impress the Indians with the English power. The regular army furnished 500 men, Pennsylvania 1,000 and Virginia a corps of volunteers, and the expedition, under command of Bouquet, started in October for the Ohio country.+ Near the mouth of the Sandy Creek a council with the Indians was held and the Delawares, Senecas and Shawnees delivered some Parkman, Conspiracy of Pontiac, vol. ii., pp. 115-155 and authorities there cited, particularly Rupp, History of York and Lancaster Counties; Heckewelder, Narrative of Moravian Missions; Loskiel, History of Moravian Missions; Watson's Annals of Philadelphia; Gordon, History of Pennsylvania; Hazard's Pennsylvania Register; Sparks, Writings of Franklin, vol. vii.; Barton, Memoirs of Rittenhouse; Sharpless, Two Centuries of Pennsylvania History, pp. 153-157; Weld, Life of Franklin, pp. 315-316, 322-327; Morse, Life of Franklin, p. 86 et seq. An expedition under John Bradstreet and Israel Putnam was also sent in the spring of 1764 to punish the Indians and to reinforce the garrison at Detroit, but Bradstreet allowed himself to be deceived into a supposed peace by the crafty warriors of the Delawares and Shawanese and the Indians were not molested by him in their depredations along the borders. For details see the Journal of Lieutenant John Montresor, in Collections of the New York Historical Society (1881); Mante, History of the Late War; Livingston, Life of Putnam, chap. xi.; King, Ohio, pp. 89-90. END OF PONTIAC'S CONSPIRACY. of their prisoners and promised to restore all other captives in the spring. At this time 206 were surrendered, of whom 81 were men and the others women and children.† To insure the performances of these promises, Bouquet marched further into their country and made an encampment at the juncture of the White Woman and the Tuscarawas, where in the spring the captives were released. The Missouri, Osage and Illinois tribes, however, would not consent to peace, and at a council held at Fort Chartres in the spring of 1765 threatened to continue the war, but upon being informed that the Delawares, Senecas, and Shawnees had made peace with the English, these tribes also consented to friendly relations. "I waged this "I waged this war," said Pontiac, "because, for two years together, the Delawares and Shawnees begged me to take up arms against the English. So I became their ally, and was of their mind." Now, however, he was desirous of peace and, plighting his word, he remained faithful to it until his assassination by an Illinois Indian in April, 1769.‡ renew * Buell, Sir William Johnson, pp. 230-232. King, Ohio, p. 93. For other accounts of the war and the various details of it see Moore, The Northwest under Three Flags, chaps. iv.-v.; C. W. Butterfield, History of Ohio: Bouquet's Expedition, in Magazine of Western History, vol. vii., pp. 560-575; J. T. Headley, Colonel Bouquet, in Harper's Magazine, vol. xxiii., p. 577 (October, 1861); William Smith, (ed.), An Historical Account of the Expedition against the Ohio Indians, in the Year 127 The subjugation of Canada and the Indian tribes in the northeast gave a wonderful impulse to the settlements in Maine which had been seriously retarded by the French and Indian war. The lower Kennebec was occupied by new settlers and habitations began to extend along the coast toward the Penobscot. Acadia was also settled by emigrants from New England; small townships were established on the upper Connecticut and a number of families crossed the Green Mountains toward Lake Champlain where they settled. From the Middle colonies and from Maryland and Virginia, settlers began to pour over the mountains and occupied lands on the Monongahela, which were claimed by the Six Nations as their property. Among the pioneers were large numbers of naturalized foreigners, especially of the Moravian faith; and even George Washington sent agents and surveyors to the Ohio country to mark out desirable tracts for future patenting.' 1764, under the command of Henry Bouquet, in Ohio Valley Historical Series (Cincinnati, 1868); Collections of the Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society, vol. xix., pp. 27-296; Fernow, The Ohio Valley in Colonial Days, chap. ix.; Reynolds, The Pioneer History of Illinois, chap. iv.; Moses, Illinois, Historical and Statistical, vol. i., chap. vii.; Silas Farmer, History of Detroit and Michigan, chap. xxxviii.; Cooley, Michigan, chap. iii.; Dillon, History of Indiana, chap. ix. * See Loskiel, History of the United Brethren; Fernow, The Ohio Valley in Colonial Days, p. 173; Herbert B. Adams, Maryland's Influence in Founding a National Commonwealth, in Maryland Historical Society Publications, no. xi., Apppp. 72-92 and ibid, Maryland's Influence upor Land Cessions to the United States, in J. H. U. Studies, 3d series, no. i., pp. 55–77. 128 ENGLISH OCCUPY THE WEST; ST. LOUIS FOUNDED. It was not until 1765, however, that the English made any successful efforts to secure possession of the left bank of the Mississippi. Mississippi. Major Arthur Loftus, in February, 1764, with about 400 soldiers, attempted to ascend the river from New Orleans in order to take possession of Fort Chartres and other northern ports, but about 240 miles from New Orleans the Indians attacked and repulsed the expedition.* Shortly afterward, another expedition under Lieutenant Fraser, sent out from Fort Pitt by Colonel Henry Bouquet for the same purpose, met a similar fate, Fraser escaping down the Mississippi to New Orleans.† In May, 1764, Sir William Johnson sent out a party under George Croghan to accomplish the task in which the others had failed. Early in June, Croghan reached the mouth of the Wabash, where he was attacked and captured by a party of Kickapoos and Mascoutins, who carried the captives to Vincennes, then a squalid village of about 80 Frenchmen and several hundred Indians. Croghan's men become separated but Croghan was later set free and at Ouiatanon, a French post at the Maumee portage, held a confer ence with the western chiefs and established harmonious relations.* He then went down the Maumee, reaching Detroit August 17, and there secured the friendship and allegiance of the assembled Indians. After accomplishing this he returned to New York and reported to Johnson.† Immediately upon receiving Croghan's report that conditions in the West were favorable to English occupancy, Sir William Johnson sent out a company of 120 soldiers under Captain Thomas Stirling to take possession. Early in October, Fort Chartres was reached, and on the 10th Louis Saint-Ange, the French commandant there, surrendered the fort to the authority of the English.‡ In 1764 St. Louis was founded by Pierre Laclède Liguest and a party of Frenchmen, who settled on a site previously selected by Liguest's stepson, Auguste Chouteau. An exodus. of the French from the Ohio and * King, Ohio, pp. 94-95. Croghan's three journals are printed in N. See the correspondence and other documents in N. Y. Col. Docs., vol. x., pp. 1157-1165; Mason, Chapters from Illinois History, pp. 232-238; Moses, Illinois, Historical and Statistical, vol. i., chap. viii.; Stone, Sir William Johnson, vol. ii.; B. A. Hinsdale, The Land Policy of the British Government from 1763 to 1775, in Ohio Archaological and Historical Quarterly, vol. i., pp. 207229; Winsor, The Mississippi Basin, pp. 457-464; Griffis, Sir William Johnson and the Six Nations, pp. 191-192. |