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westward, along the banks of the Wabash and the Maumee dwelt the Miamas. The Illinois were scattered and degraded. Having early met the French traders, they became addicted to the habit of drinking, and soon sank from their native purity into a wretched degeneracy. There was no tribe in the whole lake region which adapted itself to the customs of civilization with better results than the Wyandot family. At this time their villages along the Detroit, and in the vicinity of Sandusky, presented a clean and tidy appearance. They were husbandmen of considerable industry, and their name ranked high in war and policy.

The English settlements were scattered along the eastern seaboard on a narrow strip of land bordered on the west by a dense forest. At this time Albany, N. Y., was, by far, the largest frontier town. It was from this place that traders or soldiers bound for the lake region, or the wilds of the great west, set out on their hazardous journey. These hardy adventurers would embark in a canoe, ascend the Mohawk, pass the old Dutch town of Schenectady, Fort Hunter and Fort Herkimer, finally reaching Fort Stanwix, at the head of the river navigation. They would then pass overland to Wood creek, carrying their canoes. Here they would embark, and by following its winding course, arrive at the Royal Blockhouse. At this point they entered the waters of the Oneida. Crossing its western extremity, and passing under the wooden ramparts of Fort Brewerton, they would descend the river Oswego, to the town of the same name, on the banks of Lake Ontario. Here the vast navigation of the lakes would be open before them.

The principal trail from the middle colonies to the Indian country was from Philadelphia westward, mounting the Alleghanies, and descending to the valley of the Ohio. As soon as peace had been established, after the war between the colonies, adventurous fur traders hastened over the mountains, hoping to become rich in the traffic of the wilderness markets, and forgetting the dangers with which they were surrounding themselves. These pioneer merchants would transport their merchandise on the backs of horses, threading the forests and

fording streams for many miles into the unknown wilderness of the Indian country. They were a rough, bold, yet happy set of men, and often as fierce and as fond of war and adventure as the savages themselves. They wore but little dress. A blanket coat, or a frock of smoked deer skin, a rifle on the shoulder, and a knife and tomahawk in the belt, formed their ordinary equipment. The principal trader, "the owner of the merchandise, would fix his headquarters at some large Indian town, whence he would dispatch his subordinates to the surrounding villages, with a suitable supply of blankets and red cloth, guns and hatchets, liquor, tobacco, paint, beads and hawk's bills." This traffic was attended with every description of irregularity. Rivalism, robbery and murder were frequent results; and, when it is considered that these adventurers were in a country where neither law nor morals had any foothold, such conduct will hardly be wondered at.

A visit to the more remote tribes of the Mississippi valley was attended with still greater risk. No Englishman, however, attempted this hazardous journey without losing his scalp, until several years after the conquest of Canada. The traveler bound to this region generally descended the Ohio in a canoe. "He might float," says Francis Parkman, "for more than eleven hundred miles down this liquid highway of the wilderness, and, except the deserted cabins of Logstown, a little below Fort Pitt, the remnant of a Shawnoe village at the mouth of the Sciota, and an occasional hamlet or solitary wigwam along the luxuriant banks, he would discern no trace of human habitancy through all this vast extent." The body of the Indian population lay to the north on the tributaries of this river, but scattering war parties were often to be encountered in this region. The traveler needed to exercise the greatest caution. If, perchance, he observed the blue smoke curling above the green bosom of the forest, betraying the camping ground of some war party, his light canoe was drawn into some hiding place on the bank of the river. When darkness closed in, the adventurer would again embark and float along in safety.

In the southern portion of the present state of Illinois were

to be seen the old French outposts, Kaskaskia, Cahokia and Vincennes. From the latter the traveler could paddle his canoe up the Wabash until he reached the little village of Ouatauon. From this point a trail led through the forest to the Maumee, where stood Fort Miami. This is the spot where Fort Wayne was afterwards built. From this Fort the traveler might descend the Maumee river to Lake Erie. Here he would have Sandusky on the right, or, further north, through the strait of Detroit, he would pass Fort Detroit, and enter the watery wastes of the northern lakes. Farther east, beyond the Alleghany, were Forts Presque Isle, Le Boeuf and Venango.

I have thus briefly pointed out the western outposts of civilization as they were to be found soon after the conquest of Canada, or at the commencement of the Pontiac War. We will now glance at the Indians in their military capacity, and see to what extent they were prepared to prosecute the war into which they were about to plunge.

CHAPTER IV.

THE INDIANS PREPARING FOR WAR - PONTIAC AND HIS AMBASSADORS -THE COUNCIL AT THE RIVER ECORCES PLAN FOR THE REDUCTION OF DETROIT- THE CONSPIRACY.

ALTHOUGH the Indians of the Northwest were poorly qualified to engage in a war with the English, they had good reasons for commencing it. A defeat could not be much worse than the insults to which they were every day subjected, and to stand quietly by and see their best hunting grounds invaded by English settlers, was not to be endured by Indian warriors who could boast as brave and sagacious a leader as Pontiac. The French missionaries and fur-traders who had formerly come among them, gave but little cause for alarm. These adventurers were, for the most part, satisfied with the proceeds of a traffic with the savages, or with telling them the story of the Cross; but it was not so with the English. He was essentially a husbandman, and for half a league around his little hut he claimed exclusive rights to the resources of the territory. When the Indian invaded these limits, he was treated with a haughty opposition, and ordered away. Thus the red men beheld the rapidly approaching ruin of their race, and hastened to avert it. Pontiac, whose penetrating mind could reach fartherest into the annals of coming events, warned those around him of the danger of allowing the English to make permanent settlements in their country, and counseled the tribes to unite, in one great effort, against their common foe. He did not support the common idea which prevailed among the infuriated Indians, of driving the English into the Atlantic ocean, for he well knew their military skill and power; but being persuaded by the French that the King of France was at that time advancing up the St. Lawrence with a mighty army, he resolved

to lead his warriors to battle with a view to restoring the French power in Canada, and to check the English in their progress westward.

Resolved on this course, Pontiac, at the close of the year 1762, sent out deputies to all the tribes. "They visited the country of the Ohio," says Parkman, "passed northward to the region of the Upper Lakes, and the wild borders of the river Ottawa, and far southward to the mouth of the Mississippi. Bearing with them the belt of wampum, broad and long as the importance of the message demanded, and the tomahawk stained red in token of war, they went from camp to camp, and village to village. Wherever they appeared the sachems and old men assembled to hear the words of the great Pontiac. Then the head chief of the embassy flung down the tomahawk on the ground before them, and holding the war belt in his hand, delivered with vehement gesture, word for word, the speech with which he was charged." Everywhere the speech was received with approval, the hatchet taken up, and the auditors stood pledged, according to the Indian custom, to aid in the projected war.

The onslaught was to begin in the following month of May. Each tribe was to surprise the garrison in his own immediate neighborhood, slaughter the soldiers, and then with a united effort all were to turn against the defenseless frontier settlements.

The reader will here be anxious to know the names of those nations who thus eagerly united under Pontiac against the English. With a few unimportant exceptions, they comprised the whole Algonquin family, the Wyandots, the Senecas, and several tribes of the lower Mississippi. Of the Six Nations, the Senecas were the only nation who joined in the league. The other five nations remained neutral, it is said, through the timely influence of Sir William Johnson.

Although on the very eve of an outbreak, the savages consealed their design with impenetrable secrecy. They continued to visit the various forts, and to solicit tobacco, amunition and

whisky in their usual manner. Now and then, enraged by English insolence, they would threaten the officers with the

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