Indian chiefs saw in these forts and cultivated strips
of land a desire to exterminate the red man and steal
his territory; and they were not far wrong.
Outside influences, as well, were at work among the
Indians. Soon after the French armies departed, the
inhabitants along the St Lawrence had learned to welcome
the change of government. They were left to cultivate
their farms in peace. The tax-gatherer was no longer
squeezing from them their last sou as in the days of
Bigot; nor were their sons, whose labour was needed on
the farms and in the workshops, forced to take up arms.
They had peace and plenty, and were content. But in the
hinterland it was different. At Detroit, Michilimackinac,
and other forts were French trading communities, which,
being far from the seat of war and government, were slow
to realize that they were no longer subjects of the French
king. Hostile themselves, these French traders naturally
encouraged the Indians in an attitude of hostility to
the incoming British. They said that a French fleet and
army were on their way to Canada to recover the territory.
Even if Canada were lost, Louisiana was still French,
and, if only the British could be kept out of the west,
the trade that had hitherto gone down the St Lawrence
might now go by way of the Mississippi.
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