Sixty Years' War for the Great Lakes, 1754-1814

“Ignorant bigots and busy rebels”: The American Revolution in the Western Great Lakes

— 145 — “Ignorantbigotsandbusyrebels”:TheAmerican RevolutionintheWesternGreatLakes S u s a n S l e e p e r - S m i t h England’s attempt to govern the western Great Lakes, following the conquest of Canada, proved far from successful. Neither Native people nor their French fur-trader kin were receptive to the English. Pontiac reminded England that the French, not the Indians, lost the recent war. Many English officers often displaced blame for the uprising on French fur traders and, consequently, believed that their ability to control the region rested on removal of the people they disparagingly called the Interior French. But the French were not removed and those English officers who sought the cooperation and assistance of the Interior French proved more effective in garnering the support and assistance of Native people. English officers who blatantly disregarded the social processes of fur-trade society compounded the problems associated with fighting the revolutionary war and proved unable to recruit Indian warriors. TheInteriorFrenchwereusuallythedescendantsofFrenchfurtradersandIndian women.Kinnetworksofmixedancestrydescendantsnotonlyparalleledandextended but also further complicated the kinship structure of indigenous society. Most of these Interior French remained involved in the western Great Lakes fur trade and served as cultural mediators between their indigenous kin and New France officials. Those English officers who blatantly disregarded the intermediary role played by S u s a n S l e e p e r- S m i t h — 146 — the Interior French not only found their orders ignored but also endangered the lives of English traders who attempted to trade among the Indians. The complexity and diversity of this social landscape was apparent at many of the smaller fur-trade posts. This essay relies on the L’archevêque-Chevalier kin network, who married among the St. Joseph Potawatomi of southern Lake Michigan, to show how the Interior French and their Native kin either frustrated or facilitated English governance. Ultimately, kin networks affected the ability of the English to elicit the assistance of Great Lakes people in their struggle against the American rebels. Our story begins on Christmas Eve in 1772, just before midnight, when the irate Detroit commandant Henry Bassett sent a hastily written letter to General Gage requesting permission to attack the renegade French at old Fort St. Joseph, almost two hundred miles to the west. The story unfolded earlier that evening when a frightened and weary Cornelius Van Slyck arrived in Detroit after a harrowing, weeklong journey along frozen Indian trails. He had narrowly escaped death. . . . Mr. Van Slyck, a considerable trader of this place, is just arrived from St. Joseph, the Potawatomi Indians attempted murdering him and three servants about Ten Days since. He had one killed and another wounded so ill that he left him in the house and of course is put to death, the third was a Frenchman who made his escape to the fort . . . Mr. Van Slyck had received a slight wound in his face and with utmost difficulty had got here, he tells me that it was the fault of some French traders that are settled there. I’m informed there’s a certain (Louison Chevalier) a very bad man, that is married to a Squaw and encourages these murders. I’m told that this is the third time within three years.1 By the spring, Gage had not responded to Bassett’s request to march on St. Joseph and “root out these villains.” Once again, Bassett wrote to Gage and he included Potawatomi testimony to affirm the truth of Louis Chevalier’s attack on Van Slyck. He even took the precaution of appending to his letter “a true copy of the Indian signatures.” Pitchbaon: . . . you are not mistaken with respect to Louison Chevalier, for immediately after the bad Indians had struck the blow, and Mr. Van Slycke was fled he encouraged the Indians to go back and plunder, they said they were afraid as they had seen Mr. Van Slycke loading his guns (Louison Chevalier) then told them that The Am e ri c a n Re vol u ti on i n th e We stern Great Lakes — 147 — he was fled and that they must go and plunder, that there were a great deal of rum and goods left. We secured twenty blankets, three barrels of powder, three bags of ball, and one barrel of rum, etc., and etc.: all which we kept for Mr. Van Slycke and delivered them to him when he returned...