Pontiac – 6

The garrison at Ouiatenon situated on the Wabash (Indian Ouabache), near the present location of Lafayette (Indiana), was to have been massacred on June 1st.

Continuing Pontiac’s Uprising,
our selection from E.O. Randall. The selection is presented in eight easy 5 minute installments.

Previously in Pontiac’s Uprising.

Time: 1763
Place: Detroit

The garrison at Ouiatenon situated on the Wabash (Indian Ouabache), near the present location of Lafayette (Indiana), then in the very heart of the Western forest, as planned, was to have been massacred on June 1st. Through the information given by the French at the post, the soldiers were apprised of their intended fate and, through the intervention of the same French friends, the Indians were dissuaded from executing their sanguinary purpose. Lieutenant Jenkins and several of his men were made prisoners by stratagem; the remainder of the garrison readily surrendered.

On the present site of Fort Wayne (Indiana) was Fort Miami, * at the confluence of the Rivers St. Joseph and St. Mary, which unite to form the Maumee. The fort at this time was in charge of Ensign Holmes. On May 27th the commander was decoyed from the Fort by the story of an Indian girl, that a squaw lay dangerously ill in a wigwam near the stockade and needed medical assistance. The humane Holmes, forgetting his caution on an errand of mercy, walked without the gate and was instantly shot dead. The soldiers in the palisades, seeing the corpse of their leader and hearing the yells and whoopings of the exultant Indians, offered no resistance, admitted the red men and gladly surrendered on promise of having their lives spared.

[* There were several forts called Miami in those early days. This one was built in 1749-1750 by the French commandant, Raimond.]

Fort Presqu’île stood on the southern shore of Lake Erie at the site of the present town of Erie. The block-house, an unusually strong and commodious one, was in command of Ensign Christie, with a courageous and skillful garrison of twenty-seven men. Christie, learning of the attack on the other posts, “braced up” for his “visit from the hell-hounds” as he appropriately called the enemy. He had not long to wait. On June 15th about two hundred of them put in an appearance from Detroit. They sprang into the ditch around the fort and with reckless audacity approached to the very walls and threw fire-balls of pitch upon the roof and sides of the fortress. Again and again the wooden retreat was on fire, but amid showers of bullets and arrows the flames were extinguished by the fearless soldiers.

The savages rolled logs before the fort and erected strong breastworks, from behind which they could discharge their shots and throw their fire-balls. For nearly three days a terrific contest ensued. The savages finally undermined the palisades to the house of Christie, which was at once set on fire, nearly stifling the garrison with the smoke and heat, for Christie’s quarters were close to the block-house. Longer resistance was vain, “the soldiers, pale and haggard, like men who had passed through a fiery furnace, now issued from their scorched and bullet-pierced stronghold.” The surrendering soldiers were taken to Pontiac’s quarters on the Detroit River.

Three days after the attack on Presqu’île, Fort le Boeuf, twelve miles south on Le Boeuf Creek, one of the head sources of the Allegheny River, was surrounded and burned. Ensign Price and a garrison of thirteen men miraculously escaped the flames and the encircling savages and endeavored to reach Fort Pitt. About half of them succeeded; the remainder died of hunger and privation by the way.

Fort Venango, still farther south, on the Allegheny River, was captured by a band of Senecas, who gained entrance by resorting to the oft-employed treachery of pretending friendliness. The entire garrison was butchered, Lieutenant Gordon, the commander, being slowly tortured to death and the fort was burned to the ground. Not a soul escaped to tell the horrible tale.

Fort Ligonier, another small post, commanded by Lieutenant Archibald Blane, forty miles southeast of Fort Pitt, was attacked but successfully held out till relieved by Bouquet’s expedition.

Thus within a period of about a month from the time the first blow was struck at Detroit, Pontiac was in full possession of nine out of the twelve posts, so recently belonging to and, it was thought, securely occupied by the British. The fearful threat of the great Ottawa conspirator that he would exterminate the whites west of the Alleghanies was well-nigh fulfilled. Over two hundred traders with their servants fell victims to his remorseless march of slaughter and rapine and goods estimated at over half a million dollars became the spoils of the confederated tribes.

The result of Pontiac’s widespread and successful uprising struck untold terror to the settlers along the Western frontier of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. The savages, roused to the highest pitch of fury and weltering in the blood of their victims, were burning the cabins and crops of the defenseless whites and massacring the men, women and children. Many hundreds of the forest-dwellers with their families flocked to the stockades and protected posts. Particularly in the Pennsylvania country did dread and consternation prevail. The frontiersmen west of the Alleghanies fled east over the mountains to Carlisle, Lancaster and numbers even continued their flight to Philadelphia. Pontiac was making good his threat that he would drive the pale-faces back to the sea.

But Forts Niagara and Pitt were still in the possession of the “red-coats,” as the British soldiers were often called by the forest “redskins.” Following the total destruction of Le Boeuf and Venango, the Senecas made an attack on Fort Niagara, an extensive work on the east side of Niagara River, near its mouth as it empties into Lake Ontario. This fort guarded the access to the whole interior country by way of Canada and the St. Lawrence. The fort was strongly built and fortified and was far from the center of the country of the warpath Indians, for, with the exception of the Senecas, the Iroquois tribes inhabiting Eastern Canada and New York did not participate in Pontiac’s conspiracy. The attack on Fort Niagara, therefore, was half-hearted and after a feeble effort the besiegers despaired of success or assistance and abandoned the blockade, which only lasted a few days.

Continued.

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