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MICHIGAN CHAPTER 11 Pontiac Plans to Wipe Out the English Invaders
The fort at Detroit was at that time garrisoned by about three hundred regulars under the command of Major Henry Gladwin. Anticipating that there was likely to be trouble of a serious nature the commandant had already sent notice to General Amherst at New York of the threatening situation and asked for reinforcements. There were two small armed schooners in
the service of the English, the Beaver and the Gladwin, and one of these was despatched to Niagara for supplies and munitions. But Niagara was threatened, as well as Detroit. In fact all the English posts in the west were simultaneously attacked. The little garrison at Fort St. Joseph, at the mouth of the St. Joseph river on Lake Michigan, was captured and some of the officers and soldiers were brought to Detroit for exchange. At Michilimackinac the fort quickly fell into the hands of the Indians. The fort near the mouth of the Maumee was captured and partially destroyed. Detroit alone was able to maintain a stubborn resistance.
Here Pontiac undertook to gain possession of the fort by strategy. He had planned to have a council between the English officers and a number of his braves. During this council at a given signal the Indians were to make an attack with the guns which they had concealed under their blankets. Having murdered the officers the alarm was to be given and the Indians who had swarmed into the fort were to massacre the garrison and so gain complete control of the fort. Fortunately Gladwin had received warning the previous night of the plan and so had made every preparation to defeat it. The wife of St. Aubin, one of the principal settlers, had visited the Ottawa camp to buy venison and while there observed that the warriors were busy filing off their gun barrels so as to make them much shorter. She did not know that the purpose of this was to enable them to conceal these weapons under their blankets, but it struck her as a very unusual and suspicious proceeding.
MICHIGAN
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