Chapter V: Pontiac, the Red Napoleon (2)

"I do not doubt, my brothers, that this war is very troublesome to you, for our warriors are continually passing and repassing through your settlement. I am sorry for it. Do not think I approve of the damage that is done by them; and as a proof of this, remember the war with the Foxes and the part which I took in it. It is now seventeen years since the Ojibways of Michillimackinac, combined with the Sacs and Foxes, came down to destroy you. Who then defended you? Was it not I and my young men? Mickinac, great chief of all these nations, said in council that he would carry to his village the head of your commandant--that he would eat his heart and drink his blood. Did I not take your part? Did I not go to his camp, and say to him, that if he wished to kill the French he must first kill me and my warriors? Did I not assist you in routing them and driving them away? And now you think I would turn my arms against you! No, my brothers; I am the same French Pontiac who assisted you seventeen years ago. I am a Frenchman, and I wish to die a Frenchman; and now I repeat to you that you and I are one--that it is for both our interests that I should be avenged. Let me alone. I do not ask you for aid, for it is not in your power to give it. I only ask provisions for myself and men. Yet, if you are inclined to assist me, I shall not refuse you. It would please me, and you yourselves would be sooner rid of your troubles; for I promise you, that as soon as the English are driven out, we will go back to our villages, and there await the arrival of our French father. You have heard what I have to say; remain at peace, and I will watch that no harm shall be done to you, either by my men or by the other Indians."

Pontiac promptly took measures for bringing the disorders complained of to a close, while at the same time he provided sustenance for his warriors, a veritable commissary department, "and, in doing this, he displayed," as Parkman says, "a policy and forecast scarcely paralleled in the history of his race." He first forbade the commission of farther outrages, on the penalty of condign punishment. He next visited in turn the families of the Canadians, and, inspecting the property belonging to them, he assigned to each the share of provisions which it must furnish for the support of the Indians. The contributions thus levied were all collected at the house of Meloche, near Parent's creek, whence they were regularly issued to the Indians of the different camps.

Knowing that the character and habits of an Indian would render him incapable of being a judicious commissary, Pontiac availed himself of Canadian help, employing one Quilleriez and several others to discharge, under his eye, the duties of this office. But he did another thing which revealed his genius for command, and proved him to be an Indian Napoleon. Anxious to avoid offending the Canadians, yet unable to make compensation for the provisions he had levied, Pontiac issued _promissory notes,_ drawn upon birch-bark, and signed with the figure of an otter, the totem to which he belonged. Under this was drawn the representation of the particular article for which the bill was valid--as a gun, a bag of corn, a deer, a hog, or a beef. These bills passed current among the Canadians and Indians of the period, and were faithfully redeemed after the war. As Goodrich says, "The 'Pontiac treasury notes,' we believe, were never below par. Repudiation was unknown under savage rule in Michigan and Canada. Let the barbarian chief enjoy the full applause due to his financial honor. His modern successors might find something in his example worthy of imitation."

Not one of the Ottawa tribe dared to infringe the command he had given, that the property of the Canadians should be respected. They would not so much as cross the cultivated fields but followed the beaten paths; in such awe did they stand of his displeasure. A few young Wyandots, however, still committed nightly depredations on the hog-pen of Baby, an old friend of Pontiac. The Canadian complained of the theft to Pontiac, and desired his protection. The great chief hastened to the assistance of his friend, and, arriving about nightfall at the house, walked to and fro among the barns and enclosures. At a late hour he saw the dark forms of hog thieves stealing through the gloom. "Go back to your village, you Wyandot dogs," he shouted; "if you tread again on this man's land, you shall die." They slunk away abashed; and from that time forward Baby's property was safe. Pontiac could claim no legitimate authority over the Wyandots, but his powerful spirit forced respect and obedience from all who approached him.

One night at an early period of the siege, Pontiac entered the house of Baby, and seating himself by the fire, looked for some time steadily at the embers. At length, raising his head, he said he had heard that the English had offered the Canadian a bushel of silver for the scalp of his friend. Baby declared that the story was false, and assured him that he would never betray him. Pontiac studied his features keenly for a moment and replied: "My brother has spoken the truth, and I will show him that I believe him." So saying, he wrapped his blanket around him, and "lay like a warrior taking his rest," in peaceful slumber until morning.

Some time after this our old friend Rogers, of Rogers' Rangers, arrived at Detroit with a detachment of troops, and the next day sent a bottle of brandy by a friendly Indian, as a present to Pontiac. The other chiefs urged him not to drink it for fear of poison. Pontiac heard them through, and boldly replied "It is not possible that this man, who knows my love for him, and who is also sensible of the great favors I have done him, can think of taking away my life"; then putting the cup to his lips he drank a draught without betraying the slightest apprehension. He could practice treachery himself, yet scorned to suspect it in white men.

Weeks rolled by with no change in the situation at Detroit. The British commander-in-chief at New York, unmindful of the Indian outbreak, had, as usual in the spring, sent a detachment up the lakes with food, ammunition and reenforcements for the different forts.

On May 30 some faint specks appeared on the distant watery horizon. They grew larger and blacker. The sentry in the bastion called aloud to the officers, who eagerly ran to look with spy-glasses. They recognized the banner of St. George, floating at the masthead of the leading boat of the long expected fleet. The officer at once gave command for a salute of welcome. When the sound of the booming cannon died away, every ear was strained to catch the response. It soon came, but instead of artillery, it was a faint but unmistakable _war-whoop._ The faces of the English grew pale. The approaching flotilla was watched with breathless anxiety. When it was well in view, a number of dark and savage forms rose up in the boats. _The flotilla was in the hands of the Indians._ In the foremost of the eighteen barges there were four prisoners and only three Indians. In the others, the Indians outnumbered the white men and compelled them to row. Just as the leading boat was opposite the Beaver, the one small schooner which lay at anchor before the fort (the Gladwyn having been sent to hasten and escort this very flotilla) one of the soldiers was seen to seize a savage by the hair and belt and throw him overboard. The Indian held fast to his enemy's clothes, and drawing himself upward, stabbed him again and again with his knife and then dragged him overboard. Both sank grappled in each other's arms. The two remaining Indians leaped out of the boat. The prisoners turned, and pulled for the distant schooner, shouting aloud for aid. The Indians on shore opened a heavy fire upon them, wounding one of their number, and the light birch canoes gave chase, gaining on them at every stroke of the oar. Escape seemed hopeless, when the report of a cannon burst from the side of the schooner. The ball narrowly missed the foremost canoe, beating the water in a line of foam which almost capsized the frail craft. At this the pursuers drew back in dismay; and the Indians on shore, being in turn saluted by a second shot, ceased firing and scattered among the bushes. The prisoners thus rescued were greeted as men snatched from the jaws of death.

This, in brief, was their story. Lieutenant Cuyler had left Fort Niagara on May 13 with twenty barges, ninety-six men and a plentiful supply of provisions and ammunition. Coasting along the northern shore of Lake Erie, they had passed the armed schooner Gladwyn without seeing it, and, of course, knew nothing of the Indian hostilities. On the twenty-eighth of the month, the flotilla landed at Point Pelee, not far from the mouth of the Detroit river. The boats were drawn on the beach, and the party prepared to encamp. A man and a boy went to gather firewood at a short distance from the spot, when an Indian leaped out of the woods, seized the boy by the hair, and tomahawked him. The man ran into the camp shouting that the woods were full of Indians. The report was true, for Pontiac had stationed the Wyandots at this very spot to intercept trading boats or parties of troops. Cuyler quickly formed his soldiers into a semicircle before the boats, just as the Indians opened fire. For an instant there was a hot blaze of musketry on both sides; then the Indians broke out of the woods in a body, and rushed fiercely upon the center of the line, which gave way in every part; the men flinging down their guns, running panic-stricken to the boats and struggling with ill-directed efforts to shove them into the water. Five were set afloat, and pushed off from the shore, crowded with terrified soldier's, huddled together like sheep in the shambles. Never was rout more complete or soldiers more unnerved and demoralized.

Cuyler, seeing himself deserted by his men, as he afterward stated, waded up to his neck in the lake and climbed into one of the retreating boats. The Indians, on their part, pushed two more boats afloat and went in pursuit of the fugitives, three boatloads of whom allowed themselves to be _captured without resistance._ Think of it, two boatloads of Indians capture _three boatloads of English,_ who seemingly made no effort to escape the fate of horrible torture which awaited all but a few, who were enslaved. The other two boats, in one of which was Cuyler himself, effected their escape, and returning to Niagara, he reported his loss to Major Wilkins, the commanding officer. Between thirty and forty men, some of whom were wounded, were crowded in these two boats. These, with the three rescued at Detroit, were all of the ninety-six which survived the ill-fated expedition.

The little schooner Gladwyn, having passed the flotilla probably in the night or during a fog, reached Niagara without mishap. She was still riding at anchor in the smooth river above the falls, when Cuyler and the remnant of his men returned and reported the terrible disaster that had befallen him. This officer, and the survivors of his party, with a few other troops spared from the garrison of Niagara, were ordered to embark on board of her, and make the best of their way back to Detroit. The force, amounting to sixty men, with such ammunition and supplies as could be spared from the fort, was soon under sail. In due time they entered the Detroit river, and were almost in sight of the fort, but the critical part of the undertaking still remained.

The river was in some places narrow, and more than eight hundred Indians were on the alert to intercept their passage. On the afternoon of the 23d the schooner began to move slowly up the river, with a gentle breeze, which gradually died away, and left the vessel becalmed in the narrow channel opposite Fighting Island, and within gunshot of an Indian ambush.

Of the sixty men on board all were crowded below deck except ten or twelve, in hopes that the Indians, encouraged by this apparent weakness, might make an open attack. At sunset the guards on board the vessel were doubled. Hours wore on, and nothing had broken the deep repose of the night. At last, the splash of muffled oars was heard. Dark objects came moving swiftly down the stream toward the vessel. The men were ordered up from below and took their places in perfect silence. A blow on the mast with a hammer was to be the signal for firing. The Indians, gliding stealthily over the water in their birch canoes, thought the prize was theirs. At last the hammer struck the mast. The slumbering vessel burst into a blaze of cannon and musketry, which illumined the night like a flash of lightning. Grape and musket shot flew, tearing among the canoes, sinking some outright, killing fourteen Indians, wounding about twenty more and driving the rest in consternation to the shore. As the enemy opened fire from their breastwork, the schooner weighed anchor, and, drifting with the river's tide, floated down out of danger. Several days afterward, with a favoring wind, she again attempted to ascend. This time she was successful, for though the Indians fired at her constantly from the shore, no man was hurt. As she passed the Wyandot village she sent a shower of grape among its yelping inhabitants, by which several were killed; and then, furling her sails, lay peacefully at anchor by the side of her companion vessel, abreast of the fort.

The schooner brought to the garrison a much-needed supply of men, ammunition and provisions. She also brought the important news that a treaty of peace was concluded between France and England. But Pontiac refused to believe it, and his war went on.

The two schooners in the river were regarded by the Indians with mingled rage and superstition; not alone on account of the broadsides with which their camps were bombarded, but the knowledge that the vessels served to connect the isolated garrison with the rest of the world. They determined, therefore, to destroy them. The inventive genius of Pontiac caused a fire raft to be constructed by lashing together a number of canoes, piled high with a vast quantity of combustibles. A torch was applied in several places, and the thing of destruction was pushed off into the current.

But fortune or Providence protected the schooners, the blazing raft passed within a hundred feet of them, and floating harmlessly down the stream, consumed nothing but itself. This attempt was several times repeated, but Gladwyn, on his part, provided boats and floating logs, which were moored by chains at some distance above the vessels, and foiled every attempt.

In the meantime, unknown to the garrison, Captain Dalyell was on his way to Detroit with twenty-two barges, bearing two hundred and eighty men, with several small cannon, and a fresh supply of provisions and ammunition. Under cover of night and fog they reached the fort in safety, but not until they sustained an attack from the Indians which resulted in the loss of fifteen men. With this expedition was Major Rogers, commander of the famous Rogers's Rangers, and twenty of his men.

{Illustration: Hollow Horn, Sioux (Upper Brule).}

Captain Dalyell had a conference with Gladwyn, and requested permission to march out on the following night and attack the Indian camp. The commander, better acquainted with the position of affairs, opposed it; but Dalyell urged the matter so strongly, Gladwyn gave a reluctant consent. About two o'clock on the morning of July 31, the gates were silently opened, and two hundred and fifty men marched up the road along the river's shore. In the river, keeping abreast of the troops, two bateaux, each carrying a swivel gun, were rowed with muffled oars. As there was no moon shining, everything seemed favorable to strike a deadly blow at the camp of Pontiac. But though they knew it not, that vigilant and crafty chieftain was apprised of this movement by his spies, and with several hundred Indians lay in ambush at the bridge across Parent's creek, a mile and a half from the fort. As the English drew near the dangerous pass they could discern the house of Meloche, mentioned before, upon a rising ground to the left, while in front the bridge was dimly visible, and the ridges beyond it seemed like a wall of blackness, partly due to the fog rising from the river. The advance guard were half way over the bridge and the main body just entering upon it. Suddenly there was a wild war-whoop in the darkness, and the ridges, fences, trees and anything which could afford shelter to a savage, burst into flame. Half the advance guard fell at the first discharge; the terrified survivors fled to the rear, and in a moment the whole column was thrown into confusion. Dalyell rushed to the front and did what he could to rally his men. His clarion voice rang out above this infernal din. But all in vain. He received several wounds, and was in the act of rescuing a disabled soldier when he was killed. It is said that Pontiac ordered the head of the gallant captain to be cut off and set upon a post. The total command was demoralized by his fall. In this crisis Major Rogers and his twenty rangers, followed by a number of the regulars, took possession of a strong house, which commanded the road, owned by a Canadian named Campau. Barricading the windows, they held the savages at bay and covered the retreat. Captain Grant hurried forward and took another strong position near the river. From here he ordered the two armed bateaux to return to a point opposite Campau's house, and open a fire of swivels in order to scatter the Indians and rescue Rogers and his men. This was promptly done, and the gallant Rogers and his handful of rangers, who, by their courage, saved the command from total destruction, were in turn rescued, just as the savage horde was about to overpower them by sheer force of numbers. The rangers made their way to the fort under cover of the cannonade.

The fight at Bloody Run, as Parent's creek has since been called, cost the garrison at Detroit fifty-nine men killed and wounded, according to Parkman, while Thatcher, strange to say, estimates the loss of the English at _seventy men killed_ and _forty wounded._ This was the last important event attending the prosecution of the siege.

Not long after this, the schooner Gladwyn, having been sent down to Niagara with letters and dispatches, made the trip in safety. She was now returning, having on board Horst, her master; Jacobs, her mate, and a crew of ten men, besides six Iroquois Indians, supposed to be friendly to the English. She entered the Detroit river on the night of September 3, and in the morning the six Indians asked to be put ashore, and the request was foolishly granted.

That they went at once to Pontiac with a report of the weakness of the crew there can be no doubt. Certain it is, the wind failing, the schooner anchored about nine miles below the fort. Here she was attacked by three hundred and fifty Indians, at night. The savages swarmed over the sides of the vessel by scores, but they were met with such desperate courage and furious resistance that in a few minutes the English had killed and wounded more than twice their own number. There were only twelve men on board and they killed and wounded twenty-seven Indians; of the wounded, eight died in a few days. But resistance was useless. Ten or fifteen Indians surrounded each gallant defender. Just as all seemed over, Jacobs, the mate, shouted, "Fire the magazine, boys, and blow her up!" This desperate command saved her and her crew. Some Wyandots understood the meaning of the words, and gave the alarm to their companions. With a wild cry of terror the Indians leaped from the vessel into the water, and all were seen swimming and diving in all directions, to escape the explosion. The savages did not renew the attack.

The next morning the Gladwyn sailed up the river, reaching the fort safely. Six of her crew escaped unhurt; of the other six, two, including Horst, the master, were killed and four seriously wounded, while the Indians had seven men killed outright, and about twenty wounded, of whom eight were known to have died within a few days. The whole action lasted but a few minutes, but the fierceness of the struggle is apparent from the loss on both sides. The survivors of the little crew each received a medal.

The news of the disaster at Bloody Run, following on the heels of the ill-fated Cuyler's expedition, was conveyed to Niagara by the schooner Gladwyn on the last voyage, just recorded.

These disasters at the siege of Detroit, together with the fact that nine out of the twelve forts on the frontier had been captured by Pontiac's warriors, forced Sir Jeffrey Amherst to the reluctant conclusion that the tribes had risen in a general insurrection. As commander-in-chief of these English forces, he saw the time had come for decisive action with a large force if he would regain what was lost, and force the Indians into subjection.

Accordingly, he dispatched two armies, from different points, into the heart of the Indian country. The command of the first was given to Colonel Boquet, with orders to advance from Philadelphia to Fort Pitt, and thence to penetrate into the midst of the Delawares and Shawnees. The other army, under Colonel Bradstreet, was to ascend the lakes and force the tribes of Detroit and the regions beyond to unconditional submission.

The first expedition, that under Colonel Boquet, was very successful. He met the Indians at Bushy Run, and in a two-days' battle--one of the best contested ever fought between white and red men--routed them completely. He now compelled the Indians to sue for peace and surrender their captives.

News of Boquet's victory, and the approach of Colonel Bradstreet with a force of three thousand men, soon reached the Indians besieging Detroit, in the summer of 1764. Pontiac was too well aware of the superiority of the English arms to indulge a hope of resisting successfully so great a force in battle. Many of his allies were now ready to desert him and make peace with the English. Early in the summer of 1764, a grand council was held at Niagara by Sir William Johnson and Colonel Bradstreet, who stopped there on his way to Detroit and the Northwest. Nearly two thousand Indians attended, including representatives from twenty-two different tribes, eleven of them Western--a fact strikingly indicating the immense train of operations managed by the influence of Pontiac. Before Bradstreet and his army reached Detroit, Pontiac and his Ottawas abandoned the siege, at least temporarily, and repaired to the Illinois. His allies at Detroit made a treaty of peace with Colonel Bradstreet, and thus ended the siege which had continued a year, but, as Rogers says, "_he_ (Pontiac) _would not be personally concerned in it,_ saying, that when he made a peace, it should be such a one as would be useful and honorable to himself and to the King of Great Britain. _But he has not as yet proposed his terms._"

What the great chief attempted to do about this time was to rally the western tribes of Indiana and Illinois into a new confederation to resist the English invaders to the last. Crossing over to the Wabash, he passed from village to village, among the Kickapoos and the three tribes of the Miamis, rousing them by his eloquence and breathing into them his own fierce spirit of resistance.

He next, by rapid marches, crossed to the banks of the Mississippi, and summoned the four tribes of the Illinois to a general council. But these degenerate savages, beaten by the surrounding tribes for several generations past, had lost their warlike spirit, and though still noisy and boastful, they had become "like women, using only tongues for weapons." They showed no zeal for fight, nor did they take any interest in the schemes of the great war chief of the Ottawas.

But Pontiac knew how to deal with such cravens. Frowning on the cowering assembly, he exclaimed: "If you hesitate, I will consume your tribes as a fire consumes the dry grass on the prairie." They did not hesitate, but professed concurrence in his views at once. It is quite probable, however, those threatening words cost Pontiac his life, as will be seen. Even cowards have good memories.

Leaving the Illinois, he hastened to Fort Chartres, at the head of four hundred warriors, and demanded men and ammunition, which St. Ange, the commander, politely refused to grant. He also sent an embassy all the way to New Orleans to demand help from the French government, and to convey a war belt to the distant tribes of Louisiana, urging them, in the name of the mighty Pontiac, to prevent the English from ascending the Mississippi, which his military genius foresaw they would attempt. In this he was right, but their attempts were completely foiled.

The principal mission of the ambassadors was, however, a complete failure. The government was about to be transferred from France to Spain. The Governor granted an interview and explained the true situation. From France no help was to be expected.

When the report of this embassy reached Pontiac, he saw that all was lost. The foundation of all his ambitious schemes had been French interference. He had believed a lie and rested his hopes on a delusion. As Mason says, "His solitary will, which had controlled and combined into cooperation a hundred restless tribes, had breathed life into a conspiracy continental in its proportions, and had exploded a mine ramifying to forts, isolated by hundreds of miles of unbroken wilderness, could no longer uphold the crumbling fabric. His stormy spirit had warred with destiny, and had been conquered."

For the proud Pontiac there remained but two alternatives destruction or submission. With a hell of hate in his heart he chose the latter. At Fort Quiatenon, on the Wabash, near the site of Lafayette, Indiana, he met George Croghan, the commissioner appointed by Sir William Johnson, and formally tendered the traditional calumet of peace. Pontiac and his retinue also accompanied Croghan to Detroit, and in the same old council-hall where he and his sixty chiefs had attempted to destroy the garrison, the terms of peace were arranged, and ratified by representatives from Ojibway and Pottawatomie tribes, August 27, 1764.

Pontiac's speech on this occasion, in reply to that of Croghan, is rich in figures and symbols, and is, therefore, quoted in full:

"Father, we have all smoked out of this pipe of peace. It is your children's pipe; and as the war is over, and the Great Spirit and Giver of Light, who has made the earth and everything therein, has brought us all together this day for our mutual good, I declare to all nations that I have settled my peace with you before I came here, and now deliver my pipe to be sent to Sir William Johnson, that he may know I have made peace, and taken the King of England for my father, in the presence of all the nations now assembled; and whenever any of those nations go to visit him, they may smoke out of it with him in peace. Fathers, we are obliged to you for lighting up our old council-fire for us, and desiring us to return to it; but we are now settled on the Miami river, not far from hence. Whenever you want us you will find us there.

"Our people love liquor, and if we dwelt near you in our old village of Detroit, our warriors would be always drunk, and quarrels would arise between us and you."

The wise chief could see that drunkenness was the bane of his whole unhappy race, and therefore chose to be remote from the white settlement. He kept his young men away from whisky. When will the white chiefs be as wise and keep whisky away from their young men?

The following spring, 1766, Pontiac was as good as his word, and visited Sir William Johnson at his castle on the Mohawk, and in behalf of the tribes lately banded in his confederation concluded a treaty of peace and amity.

From this time he disappears from the page of history, only to reappear in the closing scene in the eventful drama of his life. He is believed to have lived like a common warrior, with a remnant of his tribe, in different parts of what is now the States of Indiana and Illinois.

In April, 1769, he went to St. Louis, and made a two days' visit with his old friend, St. Ange, who was then in command at that post, having offered his services to the Spaniards after the cession of Louisiana. St. Ange, Pierre Chouteau and other principal inhabitants of the little settlement, entertained him and his attendant chiefs with cordial hospitality for several days. But hearing that there was a large assembly of Illinois Indians at Cahokia, on the Illinois side of the river, Pontiac, against the advice of his friends, determined to go over and see what was going forward. It was at this time he was arrayed in the full uniform of a French officer, which had been presented to him by the Marquis of Montcalm as a token of esteem, and this fact tended to excite uneasiness, as well as to enrage the English traders at Cahokia, who believed the chief did it to add insult to injury.

The gathering in progress proved to be a trading and drinking bout, in which the remorseless English traders, as usual, plied the Indians with whisky in order to swindle them, while intoxicated, out of their furs. The place was full of Illinois Indians, but Pontiac held them in contempt, and accepted the hospitality of the friendly Creoles of Cahokia, and, at such primitive entertainment the whisky bottle would not fail to play its part. Pontiac soon became intoxicated himself, and starting to the neighboring woods was shortly afterward heard singing magic songs, in the mystic influence of which he reposed the greatest confidence.

An English trader, named Williamson, was then in the village, who, in common with the rest of his countrymen, regarded Pontiac with the greatest distrust, probably augmented by the visit of the chief to St. Louis, and while the opportunity was favorable, determined to effect his destruction. Approaching a strolling Indian of the Kaskaskia band of the Illinois tribe, he bribed him with a barrel of whisky and a promise of a further reward to murder the great chief.

It will be remembered that Pontiac incurred the hatred of this tribe by saying to them when in council, "If you hesitate, I will consume your tribes as the fire consumes the dry grass on the prairie." No doubt those words had been rankling in the hearts of the Illinois Indians ever since, for an Indian never forgets a friend or forgives an injury, and now the hour of revenge has come. The bargain was quickly made. The assassin glided up behind Pontiac in the forest and buried a tomahawk in the mighty brain in which all ambitions were dead forever.

Thus basely terminated the career of the warrior whose great natural endowments made him the greatest of his race, but his memory is still cherished by the remnant of the tribes who felt the power of his influence.

The body was soon found, and the village became a pandemonium of howling savages. His few friends seized their arms to wreak vengeance on the perpetrator of the murder, but the Illinois, interposing in behalf of their countryman, drove them from the town. Foiled in their attempt to obtain retribution they fled to the tribes over whom Pontiac had held sway, to spread the tidings and call them to avenge his murder. Meanwhile St. Ange procured the body of his guest, and mindful of his former friendship, buried it with warlike honors near the fort under his command at St. Louis.

A war of extermination was declared against the abettors of this crime. Swarms of Ottawas, Sacs, Foxes, Pottawatomies and other northern tribes who had been fired by the eloquence, or led to victory by the martyred chief, descended on the prairies of Illinois, and whole villages and tribes were extirpated to appease his shade.

It was at this time that the famous "Starved Rock" took its expressive but unpoetical name. It is a rocky bluff about six miles below the beautiful city of Ottawa, Illinois, named after the tribe of which Pontiac was head chief. The great rock overhangs the sluggish Illinois river on the left bank, and is about one hundred and twenty-five feet high and inaccessible except by a narrow and difficult path in the rear. Its top is nearly an acre in extent. Here La Salle and Tonty built a palisade, which they named Fort St. Louis, and collected at its base about twenty thousand Indians, whom they formed into a defensive league against the encroachments of the dreaded Iroquois.

Tradition states, that in the war of extermination which followed the cold-blooded and unprovoked murder of Pontiac in time of peace, a remnant of the Illinois Indians made their last stand at this famous stronghold. Here they were besieged by a vastly superior force of Pottawatomies. But the besieged knew that a few warriors could defend this rock against a host, and defied their enemies for a time and kept them at bay. Hunger and thirst, more formidable enemies, however, soon accomplished what the foe was unable to effect. Their small quantity of provisions quickly failed, and their supply of water was stopped by the enemy severing the cords of rawhide attached to the vessels by which they elevated it from the river below. Thus environed by relentless foes, they took a last lingering look at their beautiful hunting grounds, spread out like a panorama on the gently rolling river and slowly gave way to despair.

{Illustration: Starved Rock.}

Charles Lanman says of this tragic event, "Day followed day, and the last lingering hope was abandoned. Their destiny was sealed, and no change for good could possibly take place, for the human bloodhounds that watched their prey were utterly without mercy. The feeble white-haired chief crept into a thicket and breathed his last. The recently strong warrior, uttering a protracted but feeble yell of exultation, hurled his tomahawk at some fiend below and then yielded himself up to the pains of his condition. The blithe form of the soft-eyed youth parted with his strength, and was compelled to totter and fall upon the earth and die. Ten weary, weary days passed on, and the strongest man and the last of his tribe was numbered with the dead."

Years afterward their bones were seen whitening on the summit of this lofty fortress, known since as "Starved Rock."

All this horrible torture and slaughter was because a brutal English Indian trader (and most of them were brutal) bribed an Indian already drunk on the whisky he had supplied, to murder probably one of the greatest warriors and rulers of all history, considering his environment.

"But," as Parkman, the great chieftain's biographer, strikingly says, "Could his shade have revisited the scene of murder, his savage spirit would have exulted in the vengeance which overwhelmed the abettors of the crime. Tradition has but faintly preserved the memory of the event and its only annalists, men who held the intestine feuds of the savage tribes in no more account than the quarrels of panthers or wildcats, have left but a meager record. Yet enough remains to tell us that over the grave of Pontiac more blood was poured out in atonement than flowed from the hecatombs of slaughtered heroes on the corpse of Patroelus.

"Neither mound nor tablet marked the burial-place of Pontiac. For a mausoleum, a city has risen above the forest hero, and the race whom he hated with such burning rancor tramples with unceasing footsteps over his forgotten grave. {FN} But he became a model and inspiration for subsequent chiefs."

Michigan, where his eventful life was largely spent, and Illinois, where it ended, have each a beautiful city preserving his name. It is also embalmed in tradition and legend. And nature, kinder than man, had built for him a colossal monument which will endure for ages, and be known throughout all time as "Starved Rock."

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{FN} F. M. Crunden, Librarian, Public Library of St. Louis, wrote the author: "It is believed that Pontiac was buried on the site of the present Southern Hotel here; and a tablet marking his burial-place is there now."