1763, Mat.] FATE OF TUE CAPTIVES. 269 



rumors they had heard. Naked corpses, gashed 

 with knives and scorched with fire, floated down 

 on the pure waters of the Detroit, whose fish came 

 up to nibble at the clotted blood that clung to their 

 ghastly faces. ^ 



1 "The Indians, fearing that the other barges might escape as the first 

 had done, changed their plan of going to the camp. They landed their 

 prisoners, tied them, and conducted them by land to the Ottawas village, 

 and then crossed them to Pondiac's camp, where they were all butchered. 

 As soon as the canoes reached the shore, the barbarians landed their 

 prisoners, one after the other, on the beach. They made them strip 

 themselves, and then sent arrows into different parts of their bodies. 

 These unfortunate men wished sometimes to throw themselves on the 

 ground to avoid the arrows ; but they were beaten with sticks and forced 

 to stand up until they fell dead ; after which those who had not fired fell 

 upon their bodies, cut them in pieces, cooked, and ate them. On others 

 they exercised different modes of torment by cutting their flesh with 

 flints, and piercing them with lances. They would then cut their feet and 

 hands off, and leave them weltering in tlieir blood till they were dead. 

 Others were fastened to stakes, and children employed in burning them 

 with a slow tire. No kind of torment was left untried by these Indians. 

 Some of the bodies were left on shore ; others were thrown into the river. 

 Even the women assisted their husbands in torturing their victims. They 

 sUtted them with their knives, and mangled them in various ways. There 

 were, however, a few whose lives were saved, being adopted to serve as 

 slaves." — Pontine MS. 



" The remaining barges proceeded up the river, and crossed to the 

 house of Mr. Meloche, where Pontiac and his Ottawas were encamped. 

 The barges were landed, and, the women having arranged themselves in 

 two rows, with clubs and sticks, the prisoners were taken out, one by 

 one, and told to run the gauntlet to Pontiac's lodge. Of sixty-six persons 

 who were brought to the shore, sixty-four ran the gauntlet, and were all 

 killed. One of the remaining two, who had had his thigh broken in the 

 firing from the shore, and who was tied to his seat and compelled to row, 

 had become by this time so much exhausted that he could not help him- 

 self. He was thrown out of the boat and killed with clubs. The other, 

 when directed to run for the lodge, suddenly fell upon his knees in the 

 water, and having dipped his hand in the water, he made the sign of the 

 cross on his forehead and breast, and darted out in the stream. An expert 

 swimmer from the Indians followed him, and, having overtaken him, 

 seized him by the hair, and crying out, ' You seem to love water ; you 

 shall have enough of it,' he stabbed the poor fellow, who sunk to rise no 

 more." — Gouin's Account, MS. 



