England and France were, at this time, at peace in Europe, although the troops of both nations were about to engage in conflict, in the forests of America. Their position there was an anomalous one. England owned the belt of colonies on the east coast. France was mistress of Canada in the north, of Louisiana in the south, and, moreover, claimed the whole of the vast country lying behind the British colonies, which were thus cooped up on the seaboard. Her hold, however, of this great territory was extremely slight. She had strong posts along the chain of lakes from the Saint Lawrence to Lake Superior, but between these and Louisiana, her supremacy was little more than nominal.
The Canadian population were frugal and hardy, but they were deficient in enterprise; and the priests, who ruled them with a rod of iron, for Canada was intensely Catholic, discouraged any movements which would take their flocks from under their charge. Upon the other hand, the colonists of New England, Pennsylvania, and Virginia were men of enterprise and energy, and their traders, pushing in large numbers across the Alleghenies, carried on an extensive trade with the Indians in the valley of the Ohio, thereby greatly exciting the jealousy of the French, who feared that the Indians would ally themselves with the British colonists, and that the connection between Canada and Louisiana would be thereby cut.
The English colonists were greatly superior to the French in number; but they laboured under the disadvantage that the colonies were wholly independent of each other, with strong mutual jealousies, which paralysed their action and prevented their embarking upon any concerted operations. Upon the other hand, Canada was governed by the French as a military colony. The governor was practically absolute, and every man capable of bearing arms could, if necessary, be called by him into the field. He had at his disposal not only the wealth of the colony, but large assistance from France, and the French agents were, therefore, able to outbid the agents of the British colonies with the Indians.
For years there had been occasional troubles between the New England States and the French, the latter employing the Indians in harassing the border; but, until the middle of the eighteenth century, there had been nothing like a general trouble. In 1749 the Marquis of Galissoniere was governor general of Canada. The treaty of Aix la Chapelle had been signed; but this had done nothing to settle the vexed question of the boundaries between the English and French colonies. Meanwhile, the English traders from Pennsylvania and Virginia were poaching on the domain which France claimed as hers, ruining the French fur trade, and making friends with the Indian allies of Canada. Worse still, farmers were pushing westward and settling in the valley of the Ohio.
In order to drive these back, to impress the natives with the power of France, and to bring them back to their allegiance, the governor of Canada, in the summer of 1749, sent Celoron de Bienville. He had with him fourteen officers, twenty French soldiers, a hundred and eighty Canadians, and a band of Indians. They embarked in twenty-three birch-bark canoes, and, pushing up the Saint Lawrence, reached Lake Ontario, stopping for a time at the French fort of Frontenac, and avoiding the rival English port of Oswego on the southern shore, where a trade in beaver skins, disastrous to French interests, was being carried on, for the English traders sold their goods at vastly lower prices than those which the French had charged.
On the 6th of July the party reached Niagara, where there was a small French fort, and thence, carrying their canoes round the cataract, launched them upon Lake Erie. Landing again on the southern shore of the lake, they carried their canoes nine miles through the forest to Chautauqua Lake, and then dropped down the stream running out of it until they reached the Ohio. The fertile country here was inhabited by the Delawares, Shawanoes, Wyandots, and Iroquois, or Indians of the Five Nations, who had migrated thither from their original territories in the colony of New York. Further west, on the banks of the Miami, the Wabash, and other streams, was a confederacy of the Miami and their kindred tribes. Still further west, in the country of the Illinois, near the Mississippi, the French had a strong stone fort called Fort Chartres, which formed one of the chief links of the chain of posts that connected Quebec with New Orleans.
The French missionaries and the French political agents had, for seventy years, laboured hard to bring these Indian tribes into close connection with France. The missionaries had failed signally; but the presents, so lavishly bestowed, had inclined the tribes to the side of their donors, until the English traders with their cheap goods came pushing west over the Alleghenies. They carried their goods on the backs of horses, and journeyed from village to village, selling powder, rum, calicoes, beads, and trinkets. No less than three hundred men were engaged in these enterprises, and some of them pushed as far west as the Mississippi.
As the party of Celoron proceeded they nailed plates of tin, stamped with the arms of France, to trees; and buried plates of lead near them, with inscriptions saying that they took possession of the land in the name of Louis the Fifteenth, King of France.
Many of the villages were found to be deserted by the natives, who fled at their approach. At some, however, they found English traders, who were warned at once to leave the country; and, by some of them, letters were sent to the governor of Pennsylvania, in which Celoron declared that he was greatly surprised to find Englishmen trespassing in the domain of France, and that his orders were precise, to leave no foreign traders within the limits of the government of Canada.
At Chiningue, called Logstown by the English, a large number of natives were gathered, most of the inhabitants of the deserted villages having sought refuge there. The French were received with a volley of balls from the shore; but they landed without replying to the fire, and hostilities were avoided. The French kept guard all night, and in the morning Celoron invited the chiefs to a council, when he told them he had come, by the order of the governor, to open their eyes to the designs of the English against their lands, and that they must be driven away at once. The reply of the chiefs was humble; but they begged that the English traders, of whom there were, at that moment, ten in the town, might stay a little longer, since the goods they brought were necessary to them.
After making presents to the chiefs, the party proceeded on their way, putting up the coats of arms and burying the lead inscriptions. At Scioto a large number of Indians were assembled, and the French were very apprehensive of an attack, which would doubtless have been disastrous to them, as the Canadians of the party were altogether unused to war. A council was held, however, at which Celoron could obtain no satisfaction whatever, for the interests of the Indians were bound up with the English.
There can be no doubt that, had they been able to look into the future, every Indian on the continent would have joined the French in their effort to crush the English colonies. Had France remained master of America the Indians might, even now, be roaming free and unmolested on the lands of their forefathers. France is not a colonizing nation. She would have traded with the Indians, would have endeavoured to Christianize them, and would have left them their land and freedom, well satisfied with the fact that the flag of France should wave over so vast an extent of country; but on England conquering the soil, her armies of emigrants pressed west, and the red man is fast becoming extinct on the continent of which he was once the lord.
Celoron's expedition sailed down the Ohio until it reached the mouth of the Miami, and toiled for thirteen days against its shallow current, until they reached a village of the Miami Indians, ruled over by a chief called, by the French, La Demoiselle, but whom the English, whose fast friend he was, called Old Britain. He was the great chief of the Miami confederation.
The English traders there withdrew at the approach of the French. The usual council was held, and Celoron urged the chief to remove from this location, which he had but newly adopted, and to take up his abode, with his band, near the French fort on the Maumee. The chief accepted the Frenchman's gifts, thanked him for his good advice, and promised to follow it at a more convenient time; but neither promises nor threats could induce him to stir at once.
No sooner, indeed, had the French departed, than the chief gathered the greater part of the members of the confederation on that spot; until, in less than two years after the visit of Celoron, its population had increased eightfold, and it became one of the greatest Indian towns of the west, and the centre of English trade and influence.
Celoron reached Miami, and then returned northward to Lake Erie, and thence back to Montreal, when he reported to the governor that English influence was supreme in the valley of the Ohio.
In the following year, a company was formed in Virginia for effecting a settlement in Ohio, and a party proceeded west to the village of the chief called Old Britain, by whom they were received with great friendship, and a treaty of peace was solemnly made between the English and the Indians. While the festivities, consequent on the affair, were going on, four Ottawa Indians arrived from the French, with the French flag and gifts, but they were dismissed with an answer of defiance. If, at this time, the colonists could have cemented their alliance with the Indians, with gifts similar to those with which the French endeavoured to purchase their friendship, a permanent peace with the Indians might have been established; but the mutual jealousies of the colonies, and the nature of the various colonial assemblies, rendered any common action impossible. Pennsylvania was jealous of the westward advance of Virginia, and desired to thwart rather than to assist her.
The governors of New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia were fully conscious of the importance of the Indian alliance, but they could do nothing without their assemblies. Those of New York and Pennsylvania were largely composed of tradesmen and farmers, absorbed in local interests, and animated but by two motives; the cutting down of all expenditure, and bitter and continuous opposition to the governor, who represented the royal authority. Virginia and Pennsylvania quarrelled about their respective rights over the valley of the Ohio. The assembly of New York refused to join in any common action, saying, "We will take care of our Indians, and they may take care of theirs."
The states further removed from the fear of any danger, from the action of the Indians and French, were altogether lukewarm.
Thus, neither in the valley of the Ohio, nor on the boundaries of the New England states, did the Indians receive their promised gifts, and, as the French agents were liberal both in presents and promises, the Indians became discontented with their new friends, and again turned their eyes towards France. Old Britain, however, remained firm in his alliance; and the English traders, by constant presents, and by selling their goods at the lowest possible rates, kept him and his warriors highly satisfied and contented.
The French, in vain, tried to stir up the friendly tribes to attack Oswego on Lake Ontario, and the village of Old Britain, which were the two centres to which the Indians went to trade with the English; but they were unsuccessful until, in June, 1752, Charles Langlade, a young French trader, married to a squaw at Green Bay, and strong in influence with the tribes of that region, came down the lakes with a fleet of canoes, manned by two hundred and fifty Ottawa and Ojibwa warriors. They stopped awhile at the fort at Detroit, then paddled up the Maumee to the next fort, and thence marched through the forests against the Miamis.
They approached Old Britain's village in the morning. Most of the Indians were away on their summer hunt, and there were but eight English traders in the place. Three of these were caught outside the village, the remaining five took refuge in the fortified warehouse they had built, and there defended themselves.
Old Britain and the little band with him fought bravely, but against such overwhelming numbers could do nothing, and fourteen of them, including their chief, were killed. The five white men defended themselves till the afternoon, when two of them managed to make their escape, and the other three surrendered. One of them was already wounded, and was at once killed by the French Indians. Seventy years of the teaching of the French missionaries had not weaned the latter from cannibalism, and Old Britain was boiled and eaten.
The Marquis of Duquesne, who had succeeded Galissoniere as governor, highly praised Langlade for the enterprise, and recommended him to the minister at home for reward. This bold enterprise further shook the alliance of the Indians with the English, for it seemed to them that the French were enterprising and energetic, while the English were slothful and cowardly, and neglected to keep their agreements. The French continued to build forts, and Dinwiddie, governor of Virginia, sent George Washington to protest, in his name, against their building forts on land notoriously belonging to the English crown.
Washington performed the long and toilsome journey through the forests at no slight risks, and delivered his message at the forts, but nothing came of it. The governor of Virginia, seeing the approaching danger, made the greatest efforts to induce the other colonies to join in common action; but North Carolina, alone, answered the appeal, and gave money enough to raise three or four hundred men. Two independent companies maintained by England in New York, and one in South Carolina, received orders to march to Virginia. The governor had raised, with great difficulty, three hundred men. They were called the Virginia Regiment. An English gentleman named Joshua Fry was appointed the colonel, and Washington their major.
Fry was at Alexandria, on the Potomac, with half the regiment. Washington, with the other half, had pushed forward to the storehouse at Wills Creek, which was to form the base of operations. Besides these, Captain Trent, with a band of backwoodsmen, had crossed the mountain to build a fort at the forks of the Ohio, where Pittsburgh now stands.
Trent had gone back to Wills Creek, leaving Ensign Ward, with forty men, at work upon the fort, when, on the 17th of April, a swarm of canoes came down the Allegheny, with over five hundred Frenchmen, who planted cannon against the unfinished stockade, and summoned the ensign to surrender. He had no recourse but to submit, and was allowed to depart, with his men, across the mountains.
The French at once set to, to build a strong fort, which they named Fort Duquesne. While the governor of Virginia had been toiling, in vain, to get the colonists to move, the French had acted promptly,............