1769.] DEATH OF PONTIAC. 813 



Neither mound nor tablet marked the burial- 

 place of Pontiac. For a mausoleum, a city has 

 risen above the forest hero ; and the race whom 

 he hated with such burning rancor trample with 

 unceasing footsteps over his forgotten grave. 



similar mistakes, may easily have arisen from the fact that he was accus- 

 tomed to assume authority over the warriors of any tribe with whom he 

 chanced to be in contact. 



Morse says, in his Report, 1822 : " In the war kindled against these 

 tribes, [Peorias, Kaskaskias, and Cahokias,] by the Sauks and Foxes, in 

 revenge for the death of their chief, Pontiac, these 3 tribes were nearly 

 exterminated. Few of them now remain. About one hundred of the 

 Peorias are settled on Current River, W. of the Mississippi ; of the Kas- 

 kaskias 36 only remain in Illinois." — Morse, 363. 



General Gage, in his letter to Sir William Johnson, dated July 10, 

 176-, says : " The death of Pontiac, committed by an Indian of the Illi- 

 nois, believed to have been excited by the English to that action, had 

 drawn many of the Ottawas and other northern nations towards their 

 country to revenge his death." 



" From Miami, Pontiac went to Fort Chartres on the Illinois. In a 

 few years, the English, who had possession of the fort, procured an Indian 

 of the Peoria [Kaskaskia] nation to kill him. The news spread like 

 lightning through the country. The Indians assembled in great numbers, 

 attacked and destroyed all the Peorias, except about thirty families, which 

 were received into the fort. These soon began to increase. They 

 removed to the Wabasli, and were about to settle, when the Indians col- 

 lected in the winter, surrounded their village, and killed the whole, except- 

 ing a few children, who were saved as prisoners. Old INIr. Gouin was 

 there at the time. He was a trader ; and, when the attack commenced, 

 was ordered by the Indians to sliut his house and not suffer a Peoria to 

 enter." — Gouin' s Account, MS. 



Pontiac left several children. A speech of his son Shegenaba, in 

 1775, is preserved in Force's American Archives, 4th Series, III. 1542. 

 There was another son, named Otussa, whose grave is on the Maumee. 

 In a letter to tlie writer, Mr. H. R. Schoolcraft says, " I knew Atoka, a 

 descendant of Pontiac. He was the chief of an Ottawa village on the 

 Maumee. A few years ago, he agreed to remove, with his people, to the 

 west of the Mississippi " 



