river Ecorces, ten
miles south of Detroit, and here awaited the tribes whom
he had summoned to a council to be held 'on the 15th of
the moon'--the 27th of April. And at the appointed time
nearly five hundred warriors--Ottawas, Potawatomis,
Chippewas, and Wyandots--with their squaws and papooses,
had gathered at the meeting-place, petty tribal jealousies
and differences being laid aside in their common hatred
of 'the dogs dressed in red,' the British soldiers.

When the council assembled Pontiac addressed them with
fiery words. The Ottawa chief was at this time about
fifty years old. He was a man of average height, of darker
hue than is usual among Indians, lithe as a panther, his
muscles hardened by forest life and years of warfare
against Indian enemies and the British. Like the rush of
a mountain torrent the words fell from his lips. His
speech was one stream of denunciation of the British. In
trade they had cheated the Indians, robbing them of their
furs, overcharging them for the necessaries of life, and
heaping insults and blows upon the red men, who from the
French had known only kindness. The time had come to
strike. As he spoke he flashed a red and purple wampum
belt before the gaze of the excited braves. This, he
declared, he had received from their father the king of
France, who commanded his red children to fight the
British. Holding out the belt, he recounted with wild
words and vehement gestures the victories gained in the
past by the Indians over the British, and as he spoke
the blood of his listeners pulsed through their veins
with battle ardour. To their hatred and sense of being
wronged he had appealed, and he saw that every warrior
present was with him; but his strongest appeal was to
their superstition. In spite of the fact that French
missionaries had been among them for a century, they were
still pagan, and it was essential to the success of his
project that they should believe that the Master of Life
favoured their cause. He told them the story of a Wolf
(Delaware) Indian who had journeyed to heaven and talked
with the Master of Life, receiving instructions to tell
all the Indians that they were to 'drive out' and 'make
war upon' the 'dogs clothed in red who will do you nothing
but harm.' When he had finished, such chiefs as Ninevois
of the Chippewas and Takay of the Wyandots--'the bad
Hurons,' as the writer of the 'Pontiac Manuscript'
describes them to distinguish them from Father Potier's