Pesant, or execute him in his village and bring his head to Cadillac. After some delay he was surrendered to Cadillac, who, on account of his age and as a matter of policy, pardoned him.

MIAMI DISAFFECTION

The pardoning of Le Pesant was not approved by the Miami, who wanted him put to death. They accused Cadillac of acting in bad faith and went on the war-path. After killing three Frenchmen and destroying some property, they persuaded the Huron to raise a war-party to attack the French. This influenced the Iroquois to assemble a war-party for the same purpose.

Seeing himself menaced by a new danger, from an unexpected source, Cadillac wrote to the governor, asking for more troops and the means of strengthening the fort. He also succeeded in making a treaty of peace with the Miami. In the negotiation of this treaty, Cadillac made concessions to the Indians which they construed to mean that the commandant was afraid of them, and at the first opportunity they violated the provisions of the treaty. They were rudely awakened to the fact that it was not fear which caused Cadillac to make the concessions, for he now raised a large force and marched against them, compelling them to accept his terms of submission. This restored order at Detroit for a time.

FOX WAR OF 1712

Early in the year 1710, the British decided that the best way to end the war in America was the complete subjugation of New France and expeditions against the French strongholds were planned. That against Port Royal was successful, but the others ended in failure. The Indian, in forming alliances, likes to be on the winning side. After the French victories of 1710, a deputation of chiefs of the Five Nations visited Quebec to offer their services to Governor Vaudreuil. Their reception was so cool that it amounted almost to a rebuff, though they were given a number of presents before their final dismissal. Nettled at the treatment they had received, they went back to their people and advised them to ally themselves with the English.

In the spring of 1711, representatives of the band of Fox Indians living on the peninsula between Green Bay and Lake Michigan visited the Five Nations, with whom they formed an alliance. For several years these Indians had played no important part in history, but they now promised the English that they would surprise and capture the post at Detroit. They spent several months in perfecting their plans, and in enlisting the assistance of part of the Kickapoo and Mascouten tribes.

A large party of Fox and Kickapoo warriors, led by the chief Lamina, appeared at Detroit early in May, 1712, and encamped within a short distance of the fort, where they began to throw up earthworks. Bubuisson, the commandant, ordered them away, but Lamina informed him that they were the owners of the country and would encamp where they pleased. At that time there were only thirty soldiers in the garrison and the Huron and Ottawa men were still absent upon their winter hunt, so that Dubuisson was unable to drive them from the vicinity. The invaders killed animals and fowls without permission and even tried to pursue some of the inhabitants into the fort. An Indian named Joseph, who was acting as a spy for the French, informed Dubuisson that it was the intention of the red men to set fire to the fort. The garrison supply of wheat was

stored in a house belonging to a Mr. A. Mallette outside the stockade. Dubuisson had it brought into the fort and the house in which it had been stored, as well as Ste. Anne's Church and one or two other buildings, were pulled down or burned by the commandant, in order to prevent them from being occupied by the enemy.

On the 13th, De Vincennes arrived with a small reinforcement and about the same time the Indian allies returned from their hunting expedition. The tables were now turned. The beseigers became the beseiged. Parties were sent out to intercept any reinforcements. Saginaw, an Ottawa war chief, led one of these parties and cut off about one hundred and fifty Mascouten warriors who were trying to join Lamina. To escape the continued fire from the fort, the Fox warriors dug holes four or five feet deep, in which they concealed themselves, but Dubuisson ordered his men to erect scaffolds high enough to enable them to fire into the pits. The assailants were now in a precarious position. Closely held to their trenches, they were unable to obtain food or water, and every time. one of them exposed himself he was greeted by a bullet. This forced them to abandon the pits under cover of darkness and seek a safer position.

One morning, after the seige had been going on for several days, a number · of red blankets were seen waving as standards over the Fox camp. They were recognized as being of English manufacture and one of the chiefs boldly announced that the Fox Nation "acknowledged no father but the English." To this the head chief of the Pottawatomi replied:

"Wicked nations that you are, you hope to frighten us by all that red color which you exhibit in your village. Learn that if the earth is covered with blood it will be yours. You speak to us of the English. They are the cause of your destruction, because you have listened to their bad counsels. They are enemies of prayer and it is for that reason the Master of Life chastises them, as well as you. Don't you know as well as we do that the Father of all nations, who is at Montreal, sends continually parties of his young men to make war, and who take so many prisoners that they don't know what to do with them?"

At this point Dubuisson stopped the speaker, because he saw the Fox women were taking advantage of the parley to obtain water from the river, and hostilities were renewed. The enemy got possession of a house within easy gunshot of the fort and built a scaffold at one end of it, on which they placed some of their best marksmen. Dubuisson ordered a swivel gun to be hoisted to one of the scaffolds within the fort and the second shot from this piece demolished the Indians' platform and killed several of the "snipers." The next morning a white flag was displayed and Chief Peenoussa was conducted into the fort for a parley. He was told that three women held captive in the enemy's camp must be returned before any proposals for a truce would be entertained. About two hours later the women were brought to the fort. Peenoussa then asked permission to be allowed to retire from Detroit, but one of the Illinois chiefs informed him that as soon as he reentered his fort the firing would be resumed.

Failing to obtain a truce that would permit them to withdraw unharmed from the vicinity of the fort, the enemy then tried to set the fort on fire by shooting burning arrows inside the stockade. But the garrison had made provision for just such an emergency. Two large pirogues were kept filled with water and as fast as the flaming arrows set fire to the straw thatches the flames were extinguished with swabs fastened to long poles and saturated with water. The night following the nineteenth day of the siege was dark and rainy and

the invaders took advantage of it to withdraw. They were pursued the next morning by M. de Vincennes with a few French soldiers and a large body of Indians and were found near what is now known as Windmill Point, where they had intrenched themselves. In his report of the affair, Dubuisson says cannon were sent up from the fort to dislodge the enemy and about one thousand of them were killed, while his own loss was trivial. Subsequent events indicate that these figures were based more upon imagination than upon fact. The survivors returned to Green Bay, where they erected a large stockade on an eminence called Buttes des Morts (Hills of the Dead) and for years their scouting parties infested all the trails leading to the posts, killing and plundering the traders. They were secretly encouraged by the Iroquois and their irregular warfare was so successful that some of the Siouan tribes formed an alliance with them. This would hardly have occurred had their chastisement been as severe. as represented by Dubuisson.

By 1716 the situation had become so serious that Governor Vaudreuil determined to send an expedition against the Fox band at Green Bay. The expedition of 800 French and Indians was commanded by M. de Louvigny, who found the Indians in a position fortified by palisades. Artillery was brought into requisition and after a seige of a few days the occupants of the fort offered to capitulate, but the terms they offered were not satisfactory to Louvigny and the attack upon their stronghold was renewed. Finally they surrendered and placed in the hands of the French six sons of the six principal chiefs, to be taken to Montreal as a pledge that a deputation of Indians would be sent there the next spring to ratify a treaty of peace.

Notwithstanding this action, another Fox attack was made upon Detroit in 1717, but it was repulsed without loss or serious inconvenience to the garrison. Mrs. Sheldon Stewart, in her "History of Early Michigan," states:

"From this time until the close of 1724 there was a succession of conflicts with the savages. As soon as one 'bad affair' was settled, another would crop up and some real or fancied grievance would cause the hatchet to be dug up and war declared by some tribe upon the French at Detroit. The forts at this post and Michilimackinac were at a low ebb and poorly defended, and to the savages were subjects of contempt rather than terror. It is impossible to trace a connected chain of events at these points and only now and then can be found isolated incidents known to be authentic."

HURON AND OTTAWA QUARREL

For some time prior to 1738, jealousy among the Indian tribes about Detroit led to frequent petty quarrels, which sometimes threatened the safety of the post. In 1738 Desnoyelles, then commandant, summoned the chiefs to a council at his residence, hoping to allay the jealousies and restore harmony. At this council the head chief of the Huron Nation gave a belt to the Ottawa head chief, saying:

"We have made peace with the Flatheads of the West. We are now brothers and we invite you to regard them in the same way. We would be glad to have peace in the land. If you continue to send war parties against the Flatheads, some of our young men may go to warn them of their danger."

The Ottawa chief resented the advice of the Huron, accused him of interference in a matter which did not concern him or his tribe, and the Chippewa and Pottawatomi sided with the Ottawa. The result was that the council came

to an end without having accomplished its purpose, the ill feeling in fact being greater than it was before. Soon after the adjournment of the council, an Ottawa war party of about twenty young men started on a foray against one of the Flathead villages. As they were on the march they saw two Huron parties. Their intention was to surprise the Flathead village, but just as they were about ready to attack the cry of a raven was heard and the occupants of the village were immediately upon the alert.

The raven cry was distinctively a Huron signal and had two meanings, a warning of impending danger and a call of hunger. It appears, however, that the Flathead Indians understood it and when the Ottawa made their attack they found themselves between the Flathead warriors on one side and the Huron on the other. Nine of the Ottawa were slain and scalped and five more were captured. The others broke through the Huron line, killing one of the number, and returned to Detroit. When they arrived within hearing distance of their village they raised the cry of mourning instead of the scalp yell, which would have proclaimed a victory. They entered the village and told how they had been betrayed by Huron treachery. The entire tribe was in a great rage and threatened the destruction of the Huron village. The Huron chiefs denied that any of their young men had betrayed the Ottawa or had killed any of them. "We do not shed the blood of our brothers," said one of them, to which an infuriated Ottawa replied: "You are dogs; you are capable of shedding the blood of your father as well as that of your brothers." One of the survivors of the war party approached the Huron chief and in a voice full of passion said: We have been to war with the Flatheads many a time, but we never heard the cry of the raven before. I killed one of your men, Orontega, and when your warriors come home we shall see if he is missing. Then you will see that I am telling the truth."

Thoroughly alarmed at this manifestation of hostility, the Huron retired to their village and the women and children dared not go out to cultivate their crop of corn. The trouble was finally ended by the removal of the greater part of the Huron settlement to Bois Blanc Island, where they remained for several years. Desnoyelles, in the fall of 1738, issued an order to the inhabitants not to sell ammunition of any kind to the Indians.

PLOT OF 1747

In 1746 Mackinac (the Turtle), a powerful Chippewa chief, undertook to enlist all the northern tribes in a movement against the post of Detroit. Several of the tribes, including the northern Ottawa, joined in the alliance and a formidable body of Indians suddenly appeared before the fort. The garrison was called to arms and Pontiac, the Ottawa chief at Detroit, came to the aid of the French. Mackinac was driven off with a loss of several of his warriors.

Messengers were then sent to the Iroquois to ask their cooperation in another attack. In the spring of 1747 the Iroquois sent belts to the tribes living about Detroit and succeeded in winning several of them to a plot to murder the garrison and drive the French out of the country. The plan was for the massacre to take place on the night following a church holiday. As many of the Indians as possible were to get permission to sleep inside the palisades and during the night each was to arise at a given time and kill the people of the house in which he was lodged. An Indian woman had occasion to go into the loft of one of the houses and while there heard voices below. She listened intently and thus

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gained a knowledge of the plot. As soon as the plotters left the house she went to the residence of Father Richardie to tell him of what she had learned. priest happened to be absent, but she told a lay brother, who informed De Longueuil, the commandant.

De Longueuil called the Huron chiefs together, informed them that he knew of the plot, upbraided them for listening to the evil counsels of the Iroquois and threatened them with punishment. While engaged in the conspiracy, the Indians had paid little attention to the cultivation of their fields, with the result that only a small crop of corn had been raised. As the commandant controlled their winter supplies, they saw hunger staring them in the face. They therefore humbled themselves and promised allegiance for the future, whereupon they were pardoned by De Longueuil. The Huron Indians at Bois Blanc Island then moved up to Sandwich and settled around the mission house there, nearly opposite their old fort at Detroit.

The English were charged with being the instigators of this conspiracy, which was probably true, as the English traders were anxious to drive out the French, in order to gain control of the fur trade. This rivalry culminated in open war between the two nations, in which Detroit played an important part, and was finally surrendered to the English.