The Winnebago at first defended themselves vigorously against the invading refugee tribes; however, this constant warfare greatly reduced their numerical strength. Further decimated by plagues, probably smallpox introduced by the whites, and by famine, the Winnebago were compelled to make peace with the invading Algonkians who eventually settled in great numbers along the Upper and Lower Fox rivers, the lower reaches of the Wolf River, and in the vicinity of Green Bay.
Fur trade with the western Indians was successfully blocked by the rampaging Iroquois for twenty odd years after Nicolet’s voyage of exploration into the Middlewest, but with the establishment of a brief peace, the Ottawa, who had assumed the position of middlemen in the fur trade, sent a large canoe fleet to the western Indians and soon returned with large quantities of furs which had been accumulated by the Indians during the Iroquois War.
On the return journey two young Frenchmen, Radisson and Groseilliers, went into Wisconsin with the Ottawa and became the first known white traders in the area. Other traders quickly followed their example, and by 1670, the fur trade in Wisconsin was proceeding at a good pace.
The Indians, even before actually being visited by the whites, had received European implements by trade with other Indians and soon learned the superiority of iron knives and axes over those of stone. The arrival of the white traders with their guns, kettles, cloth, brandy, and many other trade items was eagerly awaited by the Indians of what is now Wisconsin.
As early as 1668, Perrot and traders with him had brought furs to Green Bay (La Baye). Great activity in the fur trade was quick to follow with the French traders using guns and brandy particularly as an inducement to increase the tempo of fur trapping by the Indian. The Indian was as anxious to obtain the white man’s goods as the
16 trader was to obtain the Indian’s furs. This formed the basis for an understanding mutually agreeable to Indian and trader alike.
The fur trade, during the French Regime, went through many changes due to changing circumstances, and the issuing of different regulations from time to time. The discovery of new western lands and tribes spurred literally hundreds of Canadian youths to seek these virgin territories and the riches in furs to be had there. At first traders persuaded the Indians to make the long trip to Montreal with their furs. The presence of so many traders in the forests, however, soon made these long trips unnecessary. By the time Perrot began trading in Wisconsin the traders were carrying their goods to the Indians in their own country.
Regulations required that all traders must be licensed, or buy Conges as they were called. Twenty-five of these were issued each year and permitted the trader to take a designated load of goods into the interior to be traded for the Indian’s furs. The presence of great numbers of unlicensed traders in the woods was responsible for an edict from the king declaring such illegal traders to be outlaws. The punishment for such activities was death. These outlaw traders were known as coureurs de bois and were actually never hampered too much by the stringent laws passed against them.
During the latter part of the 17th century outposts were built to help control the trade. Nicolas Perrot built posts at Mt. Trempealeau, at Lake Pepin, and at the mouth of the Wisconsin River. The Sieur DuLhut (Duluth) built posts in the Lake Superior region.
Since these terms are often misused, it might be best to briefly describe the following occupations: A bourgeois, was an owner of goods and a license; the hired men were called engages; those hired men who only carried the goods and paddled the canoe for a stipulated daily hire were called voyageurs. The coureursdeboisand sometimes the voyageurswere usually the ones who often remained in the forests and “went native.”
PIERRE RADDISON (COURTESY OF WISCONSIN STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY).
The impact of the white man’s civilization was bound to profoundly change the life and geography of the Indians, and, particularly in the early French period, this change was extremely rapid. Three groups were actively working to institute changes in the Indian pattern of life. These were the fur trader, whose goods revolutionized the material culture of the natives, the Jesuit missionaries who hoped to convert the tribes to Christianity, and the French government itself, which attempted at various times to relocate the tribes, form confederacies, and even to “civilize” them.
The fur trader was the only one of the three groups who really succeeded in materially changing the Indian’s way of life, although his success was unintentional. So completely did the materials of the white man replace those of the Indian that within a few short generations almost no one knew how to make stone tools and weapons, pottery vessels, bows and arrows, and many other aboriginal products which were abandoned as rapidly as superior goods of the whites were made available.
The change in tools and weapons naturally changed the Indians’ pattern of life in many ways, but the entire economy of the tribes was affected greatly by the fur trade. The Indian’s need for the white man’s goods was great and he became more and more dependent upon the trader. As the tempo of fur trading increased, the Indian began devoting almost all of his time to hunting and trapping until, in a sense, he became an employee in a great “furtrade factory” with the goods he received from the trader representing his wages. Much of the Indian’s old life of freedom gradually disappeared, since failure to obtain guns or powder and bullets meant starvation for the Indian and his family.
JESUIT MISSIONARY.
Perhaps the worst effect of the contact between the Europeans and the Indians was the introduction of brandy, always an effective persuader in bargaining, and the introduction of European diseases, particularly venereal disease and smallpox, the latter in some instances wiping out entire tribes. The tendency for tribes to congregate around fur-trade areas at the behest of the traders also had a detrimental effect upon the Indians. In the Fox River valley and around Green Bay this overpopulation resulted in famine and the voluntary exodus of some tribes before 1700, among them the Miami and some of the Kickapoo and Mascouten.
It should be noted that the adoption of new materials and living habits was not entirely one-sided. The white man learned how to use the Indian’s birch-bark canoe, many of his foods, tobacco, moccasins, snow shoes, and often buckskin clothing.
Both the Jesuits and the French military deliberately aimed at changing the Indian’s way of life but their aims were in direct opposition to one another. The Jesuits were not interested in “civilizing” the Indians. They desired to see these simple people maintained in their original ignorance except for their belief in the
“One True God,” and such simple improvements in agriculture and other techniques as would improve their lot as mission Indians. The Jesuits, not without some justification, regarded contact between their charges and the French traders and soldiers as having a demoralizing influence.
Despite great heroism and prodigious efforts on the part of the missionaries, permanent effects on the Indians by the Jesuits was to prove almost negligible. The Wisconsin Indian was highly war-like and found it difficult to appreciate the humility preached by the missionary. The Indian regarded such behavior as effeminate.
MENOMINI INDIAN MEDICINE LODGE CEREMONY (PAINTING BY A. O. TIEMANN).
FATHER JACQUES MARQUETTE (COURTESY OF MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY).
Nevertheless, the story of their efforts to Christianize the tribes, and the valor of these missionaries in exploring unknown territory, makes a fascinating story in our state’s history. Not the least among such heroic deeds was the great voyage of exploration by Father Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet. Traveling up the Fox River, crossing over on foot at what is now Portage, Wisconsin, and proceeding down the
Wisconsin River, the two explorers entered the Mississippi River on the seventeenth of June, 1673. They explored the great river as far south as the Arkansas River and then returned, by way of the Illinois River. This great discovery made known a continuous water route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, and opened to the French the interior of a vast continent.
It was the desire to exploit and unify this vast wilderness empire that led the French leaders to attempt deliberate changes in the Wisconsin Indian geography and political structure. This was necessary in order to strengthen the Wisconsin tribes and keep them fighting the Iroquois who consistently raided the western Indians and the French settlements along the St. Lawrence.
LaSalle conceived the idea of a great Indian confederacy which, it was hoped, would be able to successfully oppose the mighty Iroquois, and so built forts in the Illinois country to help defend the area. The Wisconsin Mascouten and Kickapoo left this area, partly because of their desire to join the confederacy and partly because of population pressure in the Fox River valley.
The year before the Iroquois invasions of 1680, DuLhut helped to strengthen the French cause by negotiating peace between the Dakota Sioux and their enemy of long standing, the Chippewa, and also reconciling the Dakota Sioux and Assiniboine, who had been warring for thirty years.
Nicolas Perrot probably was the most influential French officer ever to have worked with the Wisconsin tribes. It was mainly through his constant efforts that they were kept from going over to the Iroquois when the tribes felt that the French had abandoned them. Perrot was probably the only Frenchman to remain consistently on friendly terms with the Foxes, who eventually were to engage the French in the bloodiest Indian war ever to be fought on Wisconsin soil. Perrot constantly travelled from village to village organizing raids against the Iroquois, raids which eventually assisted in forcing
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the Iroquois to sue for peace. The French, through the efforts of men like LaSalle, Perrot, and DuLhut, had once again secured a firm hold on the western tribes, but the Iroquois warfare of the 1680’s had caused a slump in the fur trade. The trade was, moreover, soon to receive a blow which was to almost completely kill all official commerce between the Indians and the French for a number of years. This was the issuance of a royal edict by the French King, May 21, 1696, revoking all fur trade licenses and prohibiting all colonials from carrying goods to the western country.
There were really two main causes for the issuance of this edict. One was a slump in the beaver market caused by the great flood of furs into France and a decline in beaver hat production, due partly to the emigration of the Huguenots who were the main hat felters; the other cause for the edict was the anger of the Jesuits, aroused by the sale of brandy to the Indians by the traders and soldiers.
It was hoped that the Indian tribes would make the journey to Montreal themselves to trade their furs, but it was soon discovered that most tribes either would not or could not make such a journey for purposes of trade. The result, of course, was severe hardship for the Indians of Wisconsin. Lack of gunpowder and lead restricted their hunting abilities and made it more difficult for them to defend themselves against the Iroquois and other hostile tribes. The Indians were becoming increasingly dependent upon the French to the extent that they had lost much of the freedom they had enjoyed as a self-sufficient people.
The rapid abandonment of the western posts followed the fur trade ban. The commanders of these outposts, for the most part, did not consider it worthwhile to stay on in that capacity if they could not enrich themselves by means of the Indian trade.
Peace was finally arranged between the Iroquois and the French and their Indian allies in 1700. The Iroquois had suffered heavily from the raids by the western Indians. They claimed to have lost more
than half their warriors. With the fear of Iroquois raids ended, the confederacies of western tribes quickly fell apart, and the latter turned to fighting among themselves as they had always done in the past.
The French military now decided on a concentration policy. The western posts were to be restricted to three main centers. These were to be at Detroit, New Orleans, and near Tonty’s post in the Illinois country. Fairly large numbers of troops were stationed at these posts to provide adequate defense, and the western tribes were to be concentrated in these areas. This would facilitate the fur trade by permitting the Indians to trap their furs and bring them directly to the trading centers. The French government also hoped to “civilize” the Indians, teaching them to farm the land, learn the French language, and eventually even participate in the colonial economy.
The concentration policy was foredoomed to failure. The Wisconsin tribes, of whom many were hereditary enemies, only needed a spark to set them at one another’s throats. This led to trouble at Detroit which resulted in the bloody Fox Wars, long, costly fighting for the French which contributed much towards their final downfall in the New World.
CHAPTER THREE
THE FOX WARS AND THE FALL OF NEW FRANCE
SAUK AND FOX WARRIORS (FROM MAXIMILIAN).
Events occurring in Wisconsin during the first half of the Eighteenth Century were to bode little good for the French,
and were to contribute towards the final downfall of New France at the hands of the British. For a good share of the years between 1701 and 1738 the French were to be largely occupied with the attempt to subjugate the Fox Indians and their allies.
Not only were the expeditions against the Fox to prove costly to the French, but the enmity of the Fox required shiftings of trade routes. As an inevitable result, friction between the French and English traders developed, since the Fox at times blocked both the Fox River in Wisconsin and the Illinois River to the French traders. The determined resistance of the Fox also prevented the fruition of French hopes to dominate the western tribes and influence them to espouse the French cause. Furthermore, the difficulty experienced by the French military in conquering a relatively small group of Wisconsin Indians did little to further French prestige among other western tribes.
The First Fox War was actually the result of the French concentration policy. Within a few years after the founding of Detroit in 1701 by the Sieur de Cadillac there were almost 6000 Indians in the vicinity of the fort. The Fox, meanwhile, determined to prevent the carrying of guns to their enemy, the Dakota Sioux, were halting French traders attempting to proceed up the Fox River on their journey to the Sioux country on the Upper Mississippi. A French fort in the Sioux country was also abandoned after the loss of several men due to attacks by the Fox.
Cadillac, realizing the need for some measure to bring these warlike tribesmen under control, in 1710 invited the Fox, along with the other tribes resident around Green Bay, to come and reside near Detroit. At this crucial time, when so much depended on the leadership of a Frenchman experienced in handling the tribes, Cadillac, probably the most capable Colonial officer of the times, was sent to Louisiana as governor of that colony. The new commandant at Detroit had none of Cadillac’s ability with the Indians.
The arrival of the Fox and their allies, the Kickapoo, Sauk, and Mascouten, was the signal for trouble. These tribesmen were feared as well as hated by the other Indians about Detroit. After a band of Mascouten were attacked by the Ottawa near the St. Joseph River, during the winter of 1711-1712, the Fox, in revenge, immediately attacked the Ottawa and Huron at the Detroit post.
The Detroit commandant sided with the Ottawa and Huron and permitted them to seek refuge in the French fort. Shortly after, the Fox erected a stockade of their own and made preparations for a long fight. The French and their allies were reinforced by a large band of Illinois, Missouri, Osage, Potawatomi, and Menomini. This greatly superior force laid siege to the Fox fort and the latter soon offered to surrender. The French and their Indian supporters, however, were now determined to completely exterminate their enemies.
After a siege of nineteen days, the Fox attempted to escape by taking advantage of cover offered on a dark, rainy night. They were pursued, overtaken, and the great majority of them were slaughtered. This was a victory for the French, but a very costly one, for the Fox and their allies still had a great many warriors in the forests of Wisconsin. These, in retaliation, began a war of extermination against the allies of the French who had participated in the Detroit massacre and the hunted tribesmen soon complained that their people were starving because they dared not hunt in the forests lest their men be slain by the vengeful Fox.
The summer of 1716 saw the first white army ever to invade the forests of Wisconsin. The Sieur de Louvigny, in May of that year, left Montreal with an army of several hundred French and a force of mission Indians determined to compel the Fox to sue for peace. He arrived in Wisconsin with his army augmented by western tribesmen, and coureurs deboiswho had been granted pardons for joining the expedition at their own expense. With this total force amounting to about 800 men, Louvigny besieged the fortified Fox village, situated
near Little Lake Butte des Morts. While the French kept up a fire with two small cannon and a grenade mortar, they sank a trench towards the Fox fort determined to mine the place and blow it up.
The Fox surrendered after three days of fighting and agreed to accept terms which Louvigny thought very severe, but which his Indian allies regarded as overmild. The terms included the requirement that the Fox pay for the costs of the expedition against them by means of furs yet to be gathered, to give up prisoners taken from the allies of the French, to furnish a number of hostages to guarantee their future good behavior, and to cede their territory to the French King.
The peace temporarily halted the bloody warfare of the four preceding years and permitted the fur trade to be resumed. The concentration policy had proven to be a failure, and shortly after the death of Louis XIV, in 1715, the posts were once more occupied and the licensing system for the fur trade was restored. A fort was built at La Baye (Green Bay) in 1717, and a post was occupied at Chequamegon Bay to keep the Chippewa from attacking the Fox and causing a resumption of war, and also to regulate the fur trade in that area.
EARLY FORT AT MICHILLIMACKINAC (MUSEUM MURAL BY GEORGE PETER).
The quite considerable friction between the colonies of Canada and Louisiana provided the background for the events which led directly to the Second Fox War. There was considerable argument as to the exact boundaries of Illinois which now was annexed to Louisiana, although originally settled by Canadians. The Fox took advantage of these feelings of hostility by attacking the Illinois in the vicinity of Kaskaskia, even killing Frenchmen in this area. The Fox claimed the Illinois would not return Fox prisoners as they had promised according to treaty. The Canadian governor, Vaudreuil, tended to side with the Fox in the argument.
After the death of Vaudreuil, his temporary successor, Baron de Longueuil ordered the Sieur de Lignery, commandant at Mackinac, to enforce a peace between the Fox, Kickapoo, and Mascouten, and their enemies, the Illinois. The Fox promised to obey this demand, and in order to ensure their obedience, a new post was built in the Sioux country. This was rendered necessary by the fact that the Dakota Sioux had now become allies of the Fox, and the French intended to make sure that no aid would be coming to the Fox from that warlike tribe. The three forts in the northwest, at Chequamegon Bay, La Baye, and on the upper Mississippi in the Sioux country were to be maintained rather steadily until near the end of the French regime.
Meanwhile the Fox chief Kiala had succeeded in forming an alliance against the French between the Fox and their long-time allies the Kickapoo and Mascouten, and a series of other tribes including, in addition to the nearby Winnebago, such far distant tribes as the Abnaki and Seneca in the East, and the Dakota Sioux, Missouri, Iowa, and Oto in the West. Kiala hoped by this means to form a hostile circle about the French which would end in their complete defeat, a plan similar to that later attempted by Pontiac, and Tecumseh.
The Marquis de Beauharnois, appointed governor of Canada to replace Vaudreuil, was determined that the raids on the Illinois and
25 the French at Kaskaskia must be stopped. A French army once more was sent against the Fox. This time, headed by the Sieur de Lignery, the expedition numbered about four hundred French and approximately one thousand Indians. Warned by the Potawatomi, the Fox escaped from their villages and the army arrived at each to find it deserted. At Little Lake Butte des Morts the soldiers refused to go farther and Lignery had to be satisfied with the burning of the Fox and Winnebago villages and their stores of food.
Despite the poor showing of Lignery’s expedition against the Fox, Kiala’s confederacy began to fall apart. Even their old allies, the Mascouten and Kickapoo, were persuaded by the French to turn against them, and the Sioux, closely watched by the French, no longer could give the Fox refuge in their country. Discouraged by these losses and defeated by the French under the capable Paul Marin, the Fox decided to flee to the Iroquois country. The Fox had long been secretly treating with the English and the Seneca, a member tribe of the Iroquois Confederacy and hoped to find a friendly reception in their country.
Warned by the Mascouten and Kickapoo regarding the plans of the Fox, French officers from nearby posts hastily gathered together Indian allies and prepared to attack their fleeing enemies. The Fox, warned by their scouts of the force advancing against them, hastily erected a stockade and prepared to fight for their lives. They managed to fight off the besiegers for twenty-three days. Then on a stormy night they attempted flight but were quickly overtaken. Almost all of the band were either slaughtered or taken as slaves.
After the few survivors of this disaster, seeking refuge in their village near the mouth of the Wisconsin River, were attacked by Detroit Indians, Kiala and three other chiefs offered to give themselves up, asking mercy for themselves and the fifty surviving warriors, supposedly all that were left of the entire tribe. De Villiers accepted the surrender and hastened to Montreal with his prisoners. De
Villiers was ordered to return and kill off the rest of the Fox, taking only the women and children as prisoners. These were to be sold into slavery, like Kiala, who was fated to end his days as a slave in the West Indies.
De Villiers returned to the Sauk village at Green Bay and demanded that the Sauk release the remnant of Fox survivors. The Sauk declined to release warriors with whom they had strong blood ties, and in an attempt to force an entrance, one of de Villiers’ sons was killed. The French quickly retaliated and in the exchange of fire de Villiers himself was killed by a twelve year old boy, who later became renowned as the Sauk Chief Blackbird. In the battle that followed, the Sieur Duplessis, the Sieur de Repentigny, and six other Frenchmen quickly met the same fate. The Sauk and Fox, too, lost heavily and fled to the vicinity of the present-day city of Menasha. The bloody battle that ensued there, it is said, accounts for the name Butte des Morts, or Hill of the Dead.
As a result of this battle, the remainder of the Fox and the Sauk amalgamated and for all practical purposes became one tribe. They fled into Iowa where they erected a new fort, and gradually their ranks were swelled by Fox released from captivity by tribes now secretly in sympathy with the Sauk and Fox. One more expedition was sent against them, led by the Sieur de Noyelles, but although he followed the Sauk and Fox to the vicinity of the Des Moines River, they were so well entrenched that it was impossible to dislodge them and the expedition returned home without success. Eventually the Fox Wars were brought to an end through a policy of conciliation inaugurated in 1740 by Paul Marin, the new commandant at La Baye. Force had, in the long run, proven a failure in the campaign to completely subjugate the Fox.
SAUK AND FOX CHIEF (FROM GEO. CATLIN).
Throughout the first half of the Eighteenth Century the French, as we have seen, had been occupied with more or less constant warfare with the Fox. This warfare was the dominant note in the history of Wisconsin for this period, and in general, the role of other Wisconsin tribes during this era was that of serving as allies either of the French or of the Fox.
The failure of Noyelles’ expedition against the Fox had helped to lower French prestige among the western tribes, and in 1736 the Sioux, angered by French friendship for the Chippewa and Cree, murdered a French officer, a priest, and a party of nineteen voyageurs. From this time on the Sioux could no longer be numbered among the allies of the French. By 1739, the SiouxChippewa War flamed into action and the Sioux were driven westward from the areas in Wisconsin now held by the Chippewa.
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Warfare between the English and the French in America again was to seriously affect the western tribes. This conflict, lasting from 1744 to 1748, saw the fur trade with the western tribes reach extremely low proportions. Goods were very scarce due to the loss of French ships at the hands of British fighting vessels, and this failure to produce sufficient goods for the Indians, in addition to the already declining prestige of the French, encouraged some of the western tribes to seek more favorable relations with the British. Most of the Huron, under Chief Nicolas, began trading with the British, and many other western tribes exhibited the same inclination.
The end of the current conflict with the English enabled the French to regain control of these tribes, but the Miami had moved into Ohio and established a large village called Pickawillany which became a fairly permanent camp for a number of English traders. Several expeditions against this village by the French failed. In 1752, however, Charles de Langlade, later famed as one of Wisconsin’s pioneer French settlers at Green Bay, who was part French and part Ottawa and who thus had tremendous influence among the Indians, led an expedition against Pickawillany which enjoyed remarkable
28 success. The village was destroyed, the English traders captured, and the Miami returned to French allegiance.
For a while France again enjoyed supremacy in the West. In 1755, Langlade and his contingent of Wisconsin and Mackinac braves participated in the famous battle culminating in “Braddock’s Defeat”. Chippewa, Menomini, Potawatomi, and Winnebago were said to be present at this engagement, and for many years thereafter trophies of this battle were to be found in Wisconsin Indian lodges. Despite this severe defeat of the British and American Colonials, the fortunes of the French were destined to take a turn for the worse. By 1761, Wisconsin was under British control, and in 1763, France formally surrendered the rest of her American possessions to England. She had ceded Louisiana to Spain the year before.
Much had happened to Wisconsin’s Indians during this period, roughly from 1700 to 1760. The long and bloody Fox Wars had wrought hardship on the other tribes as well as on the Fox. The Sioux-Chippewa war had resulted in the Sioux being forced to relinquish most of their Wisconsin territory to the Chippewa. The Potawatomi Indians, who had fought under Langlade and participated in the killing of the unarmed English and Americans at Fort William Henry, were visited by a grim vengeance in the form of smallpox, contracted from the English soldiers and brought back by the tribes to their own country where it raged virtually unchecked. Great numbers of Indians lost their lives as a result.
Other tribes left Wisconsin, some never to return. The Kickapoo and Mascouten were now in Illinois and Indiana. The Potawatomi were below Lake Michigan at St. Joseph. Thus many of the tribes here when the French traders and missionaries first arrived, no longer were in the Wisconsin scene. The tribes remaining here were destined to know new masters, the British, who were to control the fur trade in Wisconsin until the end of the War of 1812.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE PERIOD OF BRITISH CONTROL
PONTIAC.
British military control of Wisconsin was ushered in with the arrival of Ensign James Gorrell at Green Bay on the twelfth of October, 1761. With the aid of his two non-commissioned officers and fifteen privates, Gorrell set about to restore the old French fort which he renamed Fort Edward Augustus, in honor of the Duke of York. His next task was to win over the French habitantsabout the fort and to gain the sympathy of the Indians in the area for the British cause. Apparently Gorrell was quite successful in both tasks.
The French habitantsabout the posts taken over by the British found it rather easy, for the most part, to transfer their allegiance to the British Crown since they were given the same privileges they enjoyed under French authority. Moreover, the British traders found it more advantageous to form partnerships with the more experienced French traders than to attempt to supersede them.
British success with the Indians varied according to local conditions at the different forts. The British were not inclined to give presents as liberally as the French had done, and it was not British policy to fraternize or intermarry with their savage allies. The feeling of inferiority prompted by this treatment caused resentment among many tribes.
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In central Wisconsin, however, Gorrell’s diplomatic treatment of the Indians, added to the fact that the Sauk, Fox, Winnebago, and Menomini held a certain amount of resentment towards the French, swung these tribes over to the British. The promises of medals and commissions to the Indian chiefs, and the fact that the British trade goods were cheaper by far than those offered by the French, also tended to offset the more arrogant treatment of the tribes by the British.
Gorrell’s success with the Indians of central Wisconsin was very important to Wisconsin history, for in 1763 the British were
TRADERS PORTAGING (PAINTING BY T. LINDBERG).
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compelled to deal with a widespread Indian uprising largely led by Pontiac, chief of an Ottawa tribe from around the Straits of Mackinac, and one of the most able Indian leaders who ever lived. It was Pontiac’s plan to drive all the British and Colonials into the sea by means of an alliance of Indian tribes from the Alleghenies to the Mississippi River, and from the Ohio River to the Great Lakes. Pontiac’s chief claim to greatness lies in his remarkable feat of keeping a number of tribes together for a seven-month siege of Detroit, a unique event in Indian warfare.
In addition to the attack on Detroit, concerted attacks were made on other British posts, of which a number fell, including the one at Mackinac. The failure of the Indians to take Forts Detroit, Pitt, and Niagara assured defeat for Pontiac’s campaign.
On June 2, 1763, the Chippewa Indians took Fort Mackinac by a clever subterfuge. They faked a game of LaCrosse in front of the stockade and pretended accidentally to knock the ball into the fort. As the players rushed after the ball they seized guns from the watching Indian women who had concealed the weapons under their blankets. Most of the garrison was massacred before they had a chance to defend themselves.
The loyalty to the British of Wisconsin’s Sauk, Fox, Winnebago, and Menomini Indians, and the timely arrival of a delegation of Sioux, sworn enemies of the Chippewa, probably saved Green Bay from a similar fate.
Etherington hastily summoned Gorrell to his assistance. Gorrell abandoned Fort Edward Augustus at Green Bay and with the aid of 90 men of the Sauk, Fox, Menomini, and Winnebago tribes succeeded in obtaining the prisoners’ release from the Indians. The party then proceeded on to Montreal. British military occupation of Wisconsin was not resumed until the War of 1812.
The Pontiac rebellion also served to bring the problems relating to the Indians home to the British Government and probably helped as an incentive to the issuance of the Proclamation of 1763. British subjects were now forbidden to purchase lands west of the Appalachian mountains without special license. It was hoped that this would prevent further encroachments by white settlers upon Indian lands. Trade with the Indians was to be permitted where licenses with the various colonial governments had been procured. Moreover, since Wisconsin was not included in the limits of any of the colonies, Wisconsin was left without any government other than that exercised by the military at Mackinac. This matter was not rectified until 1774 when the Quebec Act placed Wisconsin under the authority of the Governor of Canada.
Mackinac became the seat of Wisconsin’s fur trade when the fort was rebuilt there in 1764. It was the only fort northwest of Detroit with government officers and Indian agents. By 1767, large numbers of traders were coming into the Wisconsin area. The Indians by this time were so dependent on the white trader that any interruption in the supply of goods flowing to the Indians worked severe hardships upon them.
Wisconsin’s fur trade was still largely controlled by Montreal investors, mostly British. The actual traders, however, who contacted the Indians were still primarily Frenchmen, and this was to remain so throughout Wisconsin’s fur-trade period. Some competition in Wisconsin was given to the British by Spanish and French traders from Louisiana, which had become Spanish territory by the peace treaty in 1763. But the British managed to retain the bulk of the northwest fur trade with the Indians.
Wisconsin’s Indians did not participate strongly in the American Revolution, but they did take part in some action. Charles de Langlade, half French, half Ottawa Indian leader who helped the French so efficiently during the French and Indian War, now espoused the British cause as ardently as he had the French.
