In close alliance with the Confederacy of the Three Fires
were the tribes dwelling to the west of Lake Michigan--the
Menominees, the Winnebagoes, and the Sacs and Foxes. These
tribes could put into the field about twelve hundred
warriors; but none of them took part in the war save in
one instance, when the Sacs, moved by the hope of plunder,
assisted the Chippewas in the capture of Fort Michilimackinac.
The Wyandots living on the Detroit river were a remnant
of the ancient Hurons of the famous mission near Lake
Simcoe. For more than a century they had been bound to
the French by ties of amity. They were courageous,
intelligent, and in every way on a higher plane of life
than the tribes of the Ottawa Confederacy. Their two
hundred and fifty braves were to be Pontiac's most
important allies in the siege of Detroit.
South of the Michigan peninsula, about the head-waters
of the rivers Maumee and Wabash, dwelt the Miamis,
numbering probably about fifteen hundred. Influenced by
French traders and by Pontiac's emissaries, they took to
the war-path, and the British were thus cut off from the
trade-route between Lake Erie and the Ohio.
The tribes just mentioned were all that came under the
direct influence of Pontiac. Farther south were other
nations who were to figure in the impending struggle.
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