Boys' Book of Indian Warriors and Heroic Indian Women — John Shaqi
Boys' Book of Indian Warriors and Heroic Indian WomenSabin, Edwin L. (Edwin Legrand)
History
Boys' Book of Indian Warriors and Heroic Indian Women
Sabin, Edwin L. (Edwin Legrand)
Indians of North America -- Biography; Indians of North America -- Wars
He had been told that peace had been declared between the French and
the English, but he had not believed. Now he was told again, by word
direct, that the king of France and the king of England had signed
peace papers; the country was English, his father the king of France
could not help him. He must stop his war, and "take the English by the
hand."
Weeks before this, the Indians to the south had withdrawn; his other
allies were fading into the forest. So, sullen and disappointed, he,
too, withdrew. His sun had set, but he tried to follow it
southwestward.
Before he gave his hand to the English he did attempt another war. The
tribes of the Illinois hesitated, in council.
"If you do not join my people," thundered Pontiac, "I will consume you
as the fire eats the dry grass of the prairies!"
The plot failed, but the Illinois did not forget his insulting words.
In April, 1769, while leaving a council with the Illinois beside the
Mississippi River, and wearing a blue-and-silver uniform coat given to
him years before by the brave General Montcalm of the French, he was
murdered by a Kaskaskia of the Illinois nation, in the forest which
became East St. Louis.
The Kaskaskia had been bribed by an English trader, with a barrel of
whiskey, to do the deed. There died Pontiac. He was buried, it is
said, on the site of the present Southern Hotel in St. Louis City.
The Illinois suffered from this foul crime. All of Pontiac's loyal
people--the Ottawas, the Potawatomis, the Sacs, the Foxes, the
Chippewas--rose against them and swept them from the face of the earth.
Now what of Catharine, who saved Detroit from Pontiac? She saved
Detroit, but Fort Detroit did not save _her_. Pontiac was no fool; he
very quickly had suspected her. He well knew that Major Gladwyn was
her friend, and that she had taken the moccasins in to him.
She was seized by the chief, beaten almost lifeless with a lacrosse
racquet, and condemned to the meanest of labor. After the siege, Major
Gladwyn made no effort to rescue her or reward her. At last, when an
old and miserable woman, she fell into a kettle of boiling maple sap,
and died.
CHAPTER VIII
LOGAN THE GREAT MINGO (1725-1774)
AND THE EVIL DAYS THAT CAME UPON HIM
During the French-and-Indian war with England, and during the war waged
by Pontiac, there was one prominent chief who did not take up the
hatchet. His name was the English one of John Logan. He was a Mingo,
or Iroquois, of a Cayuga band that had drifted south into east central
Pennsylvania.
There Chief Shikellemus, his father, had settled and had proved himself
a firm friend of the whites. Old Shikellemus invited the Moravian
missionaries to take refuge on his lands. He spoke good English. He
acted as agent between his people and the Province of Pennsylvania. He
was hospitable and shrewd, and ever refused to touch liquor because, as
he said, he "did not wish to become a fool."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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