Free The Invasion of Canada by Pierre Berton Page B

the presents are brought from the storehouse and heaped around a series of stakes, each of which bears the name of a tribe. Elliott makes a brief speech, calls the chiefs forward, points to the mounds of gifts – bales of blankets and calico cloth, great rolls of tobacco, stacks ofcombs, scissors, mirrors, needles, copper pots, iron kettles – and weapons. On a signal the young men dart forward, carry the presents to the waiting canoes. Within three minutes the lawn is empty.
    This lavish distribution disturbs the new commander of the British forces in Upper Canada, Brigadier-General Isaac Brock. How, he asks Governor General Craig, can the Indians be expected to believe the British are strictly neutral “after giving such manifest indications of a contrary sentiment by the liberal quantity of military stores with which they were dismissed”? Brock is critical of Elliott – “an exceedingly good man and highly respected by the Indians; but having in his youth lived a great deal with them, he has naturally imbibed their feelings and prejudices, and partaking in the wrongs they continually suffer, this sympathy made him neglect the considerations of prudence, which ought to have regulated his conduct.” In short, Elliott can help to start an Indian war.
    Sir James Craig agrees. He insists that Elliott and his colleagues “use all their influence to dissuade the Indians from their projected plan of hostility, giving them clearly to understand that they must not expect assistance from us.”
    Many months pass before Elliott is aware of this policy. Sir James is mortally ill with dropsy, his limbs horribly swollen, his energies sapped. Weeks go by before he is able to reply to Elliott’s request to maintain “the present spirit of resistance.” More weeks drag on before Elliott receives them. The regular mail service from Quebec extends no farther than Kingston and goes only once a fortnight. In the rest of Upper Canada post offices are almost unknown. Letters to York and Amherstburg often travel by way of the United States. It is March, 1811, before Elliott receives Craig’s statement of neutrality and the Indians have long since gone to their hunting camps, out of Elliott’s reach. He will not be in touch again for months. British policy has done an about-face on paper, but the Indians, goaded to the point of revolt by Harrison’s land hunger, are not aware of it. Events are starting to assume a momentum of their own.

    VINCENNES, INDIANA TERRITORY, July 30, 1811. Once again in the shade of an arbour on his estate of Grouseland, William Henry Harrison faces his Shawnee adversary in a great council. The stalemate continues over the disputed lands which, with Tecumseh’s threat still hanging over the territory, remain unsurveyed. The Governoris convinced that Tecumseh has come to Vincennes to strike a blow for the Indian cause-that here on Harrison’s home ground he intends to murder all the neutral chiefs and, if necessary, the Governor himself. He has ignored Harrison’s request to come with a small party; three hundred warriors have arrived on the outskirts of Vincennes by land and water.
    The town is in a panic; already in the back country some roving bands of Indians have been slaughtering white families encroaching on their territory. Harrison has responded with a show of force. On the day of Tecumseh’s arrival, July 27, he pointedly reviews some seven hundred militiamen. He places three infantry companies on duty, moving them about in such a way that the Indians will believe there are five. He shifts his dragoons about the town at night on foot and horseback in order to place Tecumseh’s followers in a state of “astonishment and Terror.”
    Tecumseh strides into the council with 170 warriors, all armed with knives, tomahawks, bows and arrows. Harrison meets him guarded by a force of seventy dragoons. Each man carries a sabre; each has two pistols stuck in his belt. In this warlike atmosphere the council