Wacousta | Page 7

civilisation had not been carried beyond the state of New York; and all
those countries which have, since the American revolution, been added
to the Union under the names of Kentucky, Ohio, Missouri, Michigan,
&c., were, at the period embraced by our story, inhospitable and
unproductive woods, subject only to the dominion of the native, and as
yet unshorn by the axe of the cultivator. A few portions only of the
opposite shores of Michigan were occupied by emigrants from the
Canadas, who, finding no one to oppose or molest them, selected the
most fertile spots along the banks of the river; and of the existence of
these infant settlements, the English colonists, who had never ventured
so far, were not even aware until after the conquest of Canada by the
mother- country. This particular district was the centre around which
the numerous warriors, who had been driven westward by the colonists,
had finally assembled; and rude villages and encampments rose far and
near for a circuit of many miles around this infant settlement and fort of
the Canadians, to both of which they had given the name of Detroit,
after the river on whose elevated banks they stood. Proceeding
westward from this point, and along the tract of country that diverged
from the banks of the Lakes Huron, Sinclair, and Michigan, all traces of
that partial civilisation were again lost in impervious wilds, tenanted

only by the fiercest of the Indian tribes, whose homes were principally
along the banks of that greatest of American waters, the Lake Superior,
and in the country surrounding the isolated fort of Michilimackinac, the
last and most remote of the European fortresses in Canada.
When at a later period the Canadas were ceded to us by France, those
parts of the opposite frontier which we have just described became also
tributary to the English crown, and were, by the peculiar difficulties
that existed to communication with the more central and populous
districts, rendered especially favourable to the exercise of hostile
intrigue by the numerous active French emissaries every where
dispersed among the Indian tribes. During the first few years of the
conquest, the inhabitants of Canada, who were all either European
French, or immediate descendants of that nation, were, as might
naturally be expected, more than restive under their new governors, and
many of the most impatient spirits of the country sought every
opportunity of sowing the seeds of distrust and jealousy in the hearts of
the natives. By these people it was artfully suggested to the Indians,
that their new oppressors were of the race of those who had driven
them from the sea, and were progressively advancing on their territories
until scarce a hunting ground or a village would be left to them. They
described them, moreover, as being the hereditary enemies of their
great father, the King of France, with whose governors they had buried
the hatchet for ever, and smoked the calumet of perpetual peace. Fired
by these wily suggestions, the high and jealous spirit of the Indian
chiefs took the alarm, and they beheld with impatience the "Red Coat,"
or "Saganaw," [Footnote: This word thus pronounced by themselves, in
reference to the English soldiery, is, in all probability, derived from the
original English settlers in Saganaw Bay.] usurping, as they deemed it,
those possessions which had so recently acknowledged the supremacy
of the pale flag of their ancient ally. The cause of the Indians, and that
of the Canadians, became, in some degree, identified as one, and each
felt it was the interest, and it may be said the natural instinct, of both, to
hold communionship of purpose, and to indulge the same jealousies
and fears. Such was the state of things in 1763, the period at which our
story commences,--an epoch fruitful in designs of hostility and
treachery on the part of the Indians, who, too crafty and too politic to

manifest their feelings by overt acts declaratory of the hatred carefully
instilled into their breasts, sought every opportunity to compass the
destruction of the English, wherever they were most vulnerable to the
effects of stratagem. Several inferior forts situated on the Ohio had
already fallen into their hands, when they summoned all their address
and cunning to accomplish the fall of the two important though remote
posts of Detroit and Michilimackinac. For a length of time they were
baffled by the activity and vigilance of the respective governors of
these forts, who had had too much fatal experience in the fate of their
companions not to be perpetually on the alert against their guile; but
when they had at length, in some degree, succeeded in lulling the
suspicions of the English, they determined on a scheme, suggested by a
leading chief, a man of more than ordinary character, which