Читать книгу Canada and its Provinces - Adam Shortt - Страница 24

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Amherst had asked to be relieved of his command, and in November he was replaced by General Gage. Gage, unlike his predecessor, was fully alive to the critical nature of the situation, and at once made preparations for an active campaign in the spring.

In June 1764 Colonel Bradstreet, who had won renown in 1758 by his capture of Fort Frontenac, was sent up the Great Lakes with a force of 1200 men. At Niagara he found an immense gathering of over 2000 savages whom Sir William Johnson had summoned to a council. There were present Indians from the north of Lake Superior, from the Mississippi, from the Illinois country, and even, it is said, from the Hudson Bay region. Treaties of peace were concluded with the various tribes represented, and a strip of land four miles wide on each side of the river between Lakes Ontario and Erie was ceded to the British government.

After these negotiations were ended Bradstreet took leave of Johnson and continued his journey. At Presqu'Isle alleged delegates from the Shawnees and Delawares waited on him, and he very unwisely concluded a treaty of peace with them, instead of punishing them for their depredations, as he had been instructed to do. Wyandots, Miamis and Ottawas met him at Sandusky, and these too he treated in a friendly manner. He then proceeded to Detroit, where he arrived on August 26, much to the relief of Gladwyn and his garrison, who had now been in a state of siege for over fifteen months, and at all times in danger and compelled to be on the alert.

Pontiac had fled to the Maumee, still breathing defiance. His followers in the vicinity of Detroit were ready to make peace. An open-air meeting was held on September 7, 1764, at which Ottawas, Ojibwas, Pottawatamies, Miamis, Sacs, Wyandots and others were present. These acknowledged the sovereignty of the king of England. In these treaties Bradstreet showed an over-eagerness to make friends with the savages, and thus to some extent injured the British cause. The treaties were duly signed, but the warriors in the Ohio country and elsewhere continued their work of tomahawking and scalping. General Gage disavowed the treaties, and Bouquet ignored a message sent him by Bradstreet telling him that there was now no occasion to invade the Ohio country, as, by his diplomacy, peace had been brought to that region. Bouquet, in the autumn of 1764, marched through the Ohio wilderness to Fort Pitt with a force sufficient to crush down all opposition. His daring and stern attitude towards the savages brought about an effective peace in the Ohio valley.

In the following year a body of troops was sent to Fort Chartres, and St Ange, the commander, handed over the last post held by the French on the east of the Mississippi.

Affairs dragged on slowly to a conclusion. In August 1765 George Croghan, the deputy superintendent of Indian Affairs under Sir William Johnson, after a perilous journey of over a year among the Indian tribes of the Ohio and the Illinois country, arrived at Detroit and summoned a general meeting of the savages for the purpose of securing peace. Pontiac was present on this occasion, and his spirit seems now to have been broken. Bouquet and Gladwyn, the one by his aggressive work in the field, the other by his gallant defence of Detroit, had destroyed his hopes, and he was ready to make peace. The Indians submitted to the terms offered and agreed to bury the hatchet, and Pontiac, with affected humility, said: 'I now deliver my pipe to Sir William Johnson that he may know that I have made peace, and taken the King of England to be my father, in the presence of all nations now assembled.' The Pontiac War was thus practically brought to a close. By the Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1768) the boundaries of the Indian territory were defined and the British were granted the right to settle, under certain conditions, along the Western frontier.

The war had been a destructive one: over two hundred traders had been killed; several hundred British soldiers had been slain; forts and private property had been destroyed; and hundreds of women and children had been carried into captivity. Trade and settlement had been retarded, and it took some years for the Western country to recover from the results of Pontiac's War. But good came out of evil. Through bitter experience the attitude of the British towards the savages was changed, and, under the direction of Sir William Johnson, a policy was inaugurated that kept the natives, with few exceptions, loyal to the British during two great wars, the War of the Revolution and the War of 1812.

Pontiac's fate was a tragic one. After agreeing to the peace at Detroit he moved about from tribe to tribe like an unquiet spirit. At the French forts on the western side of the Mississippi he was still a welcome guest, but the French could in no way help him to regain his old power. The English he still hated, but he was impotent to do them injury. His deeds were remembered, and the traders in the hinterland had vengeance in their hearts against one who had slain so many of their friends. In 1769, near the Fort of St Louis, he was treacherously tomahawked by an Illinois warrior, bribed, probably, to the deed by an English trader.