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Chapter 22 – Fighting the British and Indians for Detroit and
Downriver
Pontiac’s Council- Wikimedia Commons
Britain and France fought for supremacy of the fur trade and for the rich lands and commerce of
the Ohio Valley. The French and Indian War ended with a British victory and domination of the
Ohio Valley until long after the American Revolution. The Indians had divided loyalties. The
Iroquois sided with the English, but the Ottawa, especially Chief Pontiac, whose village was
located on the Ecorse River, had become disillusioned with British designs on Indian land.
Beginning in 1762, Pontiac traveled long distances, visiting Native American villages and urging
his allies to attack the British. He decided that he would call a council of Indian Nations to
formulate a plan to drive the English intruders off of Indian land. Representatives from the
various Native American groups in the area and from the East attended the Council on the
Riviere Ecorces in the spring of 1763, including Chippewa, Ottawa, Shawnee, Delaware, Miami,
Potawatomi and Huron tribes. There were probably others too. Chief Pontiac addressed the
assembled tribes on the bank of the Rivere de Ecorces.
“God said, I am the maker of heaven and Earth, the trees, lakes, rivers, men and all that Thou
seest or hast seen on the Earth or in the heavens and because I love you, you must do my will and
you must also avoid that which I hate; I hate you to drink as you do until you lose your reason; I
implore you not to fight one another; you take two wives or run after other people’s wives; you
do know I hate such conduct; you should have but one wife, and keep her until death. You sing
the medicine song, thinking you speak to me; you deceive yourselves; it is to the Manito that you
speak; he is a wicked spirit who induces you to evil and for want of knowing Me, you listen to
him…”
In the remainder of his speech, Pontiac exhorted the Native tribes to return to the ways of the
Great Spirit and advised them that the Great Spirit wanted them to “drive from your lands those
dogs in red clothing; they are only an injury to you. When you want anything, apply to me, as
your brothers do, and I will do both.”
Inspired by Pontiac’s words spoken against the midnight murmuring of the River Ecorse, the
Native Americans devised an ingenious plan. Each group was to concentrate on simultaneously
capturing one fort from Detroit to Niagara, making it impossible for the British troops to help
each other. Under Pontiac’s leadership, the Ottawa were assigned to capture Detroit. On May7,
1763, sixty tribal leaders met at the east gate of the Fort (Griswold and Jefferson) with Major
Gladwin in the Council House. The signal was a belt of wampum which green side up meant
attack and white side up meant don’t attack. Ecorse .
Major Gladwin heard of the attack from an Indian squaw and the British left with the wampum
white side up. Two days later, Major Gladwin denied Pontiac admission to the fort and
successfully defended Detroit during the long siege. The Native Americans captured every fort
west of Niagara one by one except Detroit. On October 13, 1763, the official peace treaty was
signed in St. Louis between France and Britain giving all French possessions in North America
to the British. Pontiac offered peace and retreated to his ancestral home on the Maumee River.
Six years later, he was murdered in East St. Louis and buried under the street.
When Major Thompson Maxwell told the story of the Pontiac War and the attempt to massacre
the garrison at Detroit in 1763 to C.C.Trowbridge of Detroit, he elaborated on the story of the
Indian squaw who told Major Gladwin of Pontiac’s plot for taking the fort. He said that Major
Gladwin had noticed this particularly attractive squaw and he discovered that she could make
moccasins from elk skin. He asked her to make him a pair.
On the day that Pontiac and his men were to capture the Detroit garrison, the squaw lingered at
the fort, seemingly reluctant to leave. When the officer of the day questioned her, she offered
him the elk skin. He refused to take it, knowing that it belonged to Major Gladwin. He escorted
the squaw to Major Gladwin and after much persuasion and Major Gladwin’s promise not to
reveal the source of his information, she told him about Pontiac’s plot to take the Fort at Detroit.
Battle of Brownstown
On July 5, 1812, General William Hull and his American army arrived in Detroit and by July 12,
1812, General Hull and his forces had crossed the Detroit River between Detroit and Sandwich
above Fort Amherstburg in an invasion of Upper Canada. General Hull issued a proclamation
assuring Canadians that “I come to protect and not to injure you.”1
The American Army was twice the size of the British detachment so when the Essex Militia
stationed in Sandwich met them at a bridge over the River Canard on July 16, 1812, the
Americans pushed back the British. The British withdrew to Amherstburg, but General Hull
worried about his supply lines and lack of heavy artillery to batter Fort Amherstburg, so he did
not follow up his victory. The Americans set up camp at Francois Baby’s farm on the Detroit
River and General Hull issued a proclamation that convinced about 500 Canadian Militiamen to
desert. The Americans followed the British towards Amherstburg, but Canadian ships anchored
1
James J. Talman, Basic Documents in Canadian History (Toronto: D. Van Nostrand Company, 1959)p. 78.
near the mouth of the River Canard and British troops and Indians stopped the Americans from
advancing to Amherstburg. General Hull wanted to use his large guns against Fort Malden at
Amherstburg, so he delayed the attack for two weeks while the guns were being readied.
The British were not yet strong enough to push the Americans off Canadian soil, so they focused
their military efforts against Hull’s supply lines. Groups of British regulars, Canadian Militia and
Indians fanned out from Fort Amherstburg, jeopardizing American communication and supply
lines on the west bank of the Detroit River. They attacked two key American supply lines and in
early August 1812, Captain Henry Brush led an American relief column from the River Raisin in
Monroe to Detroit, bringing in cattle and other supplies to General Hull’s Army. Captain Brush
sent a messenger to General Hull who was encamped at the Canadian town of Sandwich, near
present day Windsor, Ontario. The message advised him that Shawnee Chief Tecumseh and
some of his warriors had crossed the Detroit River and advanced to the vicinity of Brownstown,
and that British regulars were probably escorting and advising him.2
Captain Brush asked General Hull to send him troops from Detroit to protect his supply column.
General Hull sent a detachment of troops consisting of 280 regulars and more than 330 Ohio
Volunteer troops under Lieutenant-Colonel James Miller to escort the supply train back to
Detroit. On August 4, 1812, Major Thomas Van Horne, commander, and 200 Ohio militia
marched south down the road they had just cut through the Black Swamp to bring supplies to
Detroit. As Major Van Horne and his men crossed Brownstown Creek, three miles north of the
village, Adam Muir with 205 British regulars, Canadian militia and Native Americans ambushed
the supply train. Tecumseh and 24 of his Indian warriors ambushed one of the supply columns.
Amidst the confusion of crackling rifles, flitting shadows and revolving battle lines the
Americans and Canadian retreated, regrouped, and finally Adam Muir and his troops retired to
their bots and sailed back to Fort Malden, Amherstburg and Miller and his troops returned to
Detroit. Some of the Indians chased Americans as far as the Ecorse River before they melted
into the woods and the Americans marched on to Detroit.3
The American casualties in the Battle of Brownstown included 18 men killed, 12 wounded and
70 men missing. Adam Muir’s casualties included three killed, 13 wounded, and two missing
from the 41st Regiment, one killed and two wounded from the Canadian Militia and two killed
and six wounded from the Native American contingent.
Silas Farmer wrote in his History of Detroit and Wayne County and Early Michigan, Volume 2,
that the Americans and the Canadians fought a running battle from near Ecorse to Slocum’s
Island below Trenton. At Trenton he said the “routed Army took to their boats,” meaning Adam
Muir and his Canadian forces. According to Silas Farmer who is writing in 1890, the remains of
a causeway over Monguagon Creek on the Payne farm where the fleeing army crossed still
existed. He wrote that the dead bodies of Indians and white men were buried where they fell and
that bones of the fallen were found all the way along the slope from Ecorse to Trenton.
Silas Farmer also wrote that about 1860 when John Copeland built a saw mill at Ecorse on the
site of the Salliotte and Raupp Mill, the bones of more than 100 people were dug up, and Daniel
2
The Battle at Brownstown: American and British accounts, Columbian Centinel, September 12, 1812. Parks
Canada Teacher Resources Centre.
3
Ibid.
Goodell reburied them under a pear tree in his orchard. He said that the only remaining relic of
the battle besides flint heads and old muskets was a stone on the farm of Charles Conrad, about
five miles west of Trenton. The words “John Brown taken prisoner by the Indians, 1814,” were
rudely scratched on the stone.
The skirmish outside of Brownstown did not turn the tide of the war 0f 1812, but it did reveal
that the American supply line to Ohio was not secure and convinced General Hull that the British
and Indian forces outnumbered him, a conviction that would ultimately lead to the surrender of
Detroit to the British.4
References
Farmer, Silas.History of Detroit and Wayne County and Early Michigan, Volume 2. Detroit:
Pub. By S. Farmer & Co, for Munsell & Co, New York, 1890. “Monguagon TownshipOrganization and Officers.” P.1321
Gilpin, Alec Richard.The War of 1812 in the Old Northwest. East Lansing, Michigan: The
Michigan State University Press, 1950.
Hitsman, J. Mackay. The Incredible War of 1812. Robin Brass Studio, 1999.
Quimby, Robert Sherman. The U.S. Army in the War of 1812. East Lansing, Michigan: Michigan
State University Press, 1997.
Burton, Clarence M. "Battle of Monguagon". The City of Detroit, Michigan, 1701-1922. Ann
Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Library, 2005-1922. pp. 1004–1009. Retrieved 01-102015.
4
The Battle at Brownstown: American and British accounts, Columbian Centinel, September 12, 1812. Parks
Canada Teacher Resources Cenre.