The city of Detroit, Michigan, 1701-1922; / Clarence M. Burton, editor-in-chief, William Stocking, associate editor, Gordon K. Miller, associated editor. [Vol. 2]

CITY OF DETROIT

869

stored in a house belonging to a Mr. A. Mallette outside the stockade. Dubuisson had it brought into the fort and the house in which it had been stored,
as well as Ste. Anne's Church and one or two other buildings, were pulled down
or burned by the commandant, in order to prevent them from being occupied
by the enemy.
On the 13th, De Vincennes arrived with a small reinforcement and about the
same time the Indian allies returned from their hunting expedition. The tables
were now turned. The beseigers became the beseiged. Parties were sent out
to intercept any reinforcements. Saginaw, an Ottawa war chief, led one of these
parties and cut off about one hundred and fifty Mascouten warriors who were
trying to join Lamina. To escape the continued fire from the fort, the Fox
warriors dug holes four or five feet deep, in which they concealed themselves,
but Dubuisson ordered his men to erect scaffolds high enough to enable them
to fire into the pits. The assailants were now in a precarious position. Closely
held to their trenches, they were unable to obtain food or water, and every time
one of them exposed himself he was greeted by a bullet. This forced them to
abandon the pits under cover of darkness and seek a safer position.
One morning, after the seige had been going on for several days, a number
of red blankets were seen waving as standards over the Fox camp. They were
recognized as being of English manufacture and one of the chiefs boldly announced that the Fox Nation "acknowledged no father but the English." To
this the head chief of the Pottawatomi replied:
"Wicked nations that you are, you hope to frighten us by all that red color
which you exhibit in your village. Learn that if the earth is covered with blood
it will be yours. You speak to us of the English. They are the cause of your
destruction, because you have listened to their bad counsels. They are enemies
of prayer and it is for that reason the Master of Life chastises them, as well as
you. Don't you know as well as we do that the Father of all nations, who is
at Montreal, sends continually parties of his young men to make war, and who
take so many prisoners that they don't know what to do with them?"
At this point Dubuisson stopped the speaker, because he saw the Fox women
were taking advantage of the parley to obtain water from the river, and hostilities were renewed. The enemy got possession of a house within easy gunshot
of the fort and built a scaffold at one end of it, on which they placed some of
their best marksmen. Dubuisson ordered a swivel gun to be hoisted to one of
the scaffolds within the fort and the second shot from this piece demolished the
Indians' platform and killed several of the "snipers." The next morning a
white flag was displayed and Chief Peenoussa was conducted into the fort for
a parley. He was told that three women held captive in the enemy's camp
must be returned before any proposals for a truce would be entertained. About
two hours later the women were brought to the fort. Peenoussa then asked
permission to be allowed to retire from Detroit, but one of the Illinois chiefs
informed him that as soon as he reentered his fort the firing would be resumed.
Failing to obtain a truce that would permit them to withdraw unharmed
from the vicinity of the fort, the enemy then tried to set the fort on fire by
shooting burning arrows inside the stockade. But the garrison had made provision for just such an emergency. Two large pirogues were kept filled with
water and as fast as the flaming arrows set fire to the straw thatches the flames
were extinguished with swabs fastened to long poles and saturated with water.
The night following the nineteenth day of the siege was dark and rainy and