Natives versus Settlers: Battle of Brownstown, August 5, 1812

Fighting a colonial war was always costly in money, men and materiel for any European power.  In North America, the French and British made frequent use of their Native auxiliaries, often sending trusted warriors to fight directly with soldiers of the other country, or the Americans, when resources were spread then.  During the War of 1812, the British had need of effective fighting men and commanders to lead them.  Tecumseh, a warrior with a proven track record, was a valuable asset. 

Brownstown was a Wyandot village located on Brownstown Creek near Fort Detroit, in what is now Gibraltar, Michigan.  The Wyandot of this village supported the U.S. and likely Major Thomas van Horne, on the way to the Raisin River to pick up beef on the hoof to return to Major General William Hull at Fort Detroit, thought he was safe enough.  Tecumseh and Roundhead, with 25 Shawnee, Chickamauga and Wyandot warriors quickly set him straight, ambushing Van Horne's party of 200 troops.  Van Horne's men, most of them untrained militia, lost their nerve and scattered, 18 killed, 12 wounded, and 70 missing.  Most of those missing later trickled in to Fort Detroit in the next few days.  Shawnee losses totaled 1 killed. 

The fact that Tecumseh was able to scatter a much larger force with his own was a testament to his own skill as a leader, the coordination of his troops, and the psychological effect of Native warriors on almost any battlefield.  It also showed up the lack of efforts by American forces to maintain this portion of the frontier against British and American attack.  Later, Hull would surrender Fort Detroit to the British after a badly handled siege that would lead to charges of misconduct.  He was later court-martialed and sentenced to death.  President James Madison pardoned him and his career was over.

 

Places: Fort Detroit

No vestige of this fort remains.  It's completely buried by the modern office complexes of Detroit, Michigan.  In its heyday, Fort Detroit covered the area between Larned Street, Griswold Street, and the Civic Center.  Even St. Anne's Church, the original Catholic parish of Detroit, is a building several generations removed from the structure that stood there in the 17th century.  But Fort Detroit played such a vital roll in frontier history that it deserves a post of its own.

The word Detroit is French for "strait" as in a naturally occurring canal connecting bodies of water between opposing land masses  The Detroit River, or Riviere du Detroit literally means the River of the Strait.  The Detroit River flows from Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie.  It is one of the interconnecting rivers that form the Great Lakes system and, by extension the Missouri and Mississippi systems.  Like Fort William Henry and Fort Carillon/Ticonderoga, this location was prime for a strategic fort designed to guard this waterway, and facilitate trade both by water and overland. 

Enter Antoine Laumet de la Mothe, Sieur de Cadillac (yes, the car brand founded in Detroit bears his name), French explorer and future Governor of Louisiana.  He quickly realized the prime location of this area for both trade and defense, keeping the English from using the Great Lakes and Northwest Territories as a backdoor into Quebec, and to monopolize the trade with the Natives.  The full name of the outpost was Fort Ponchartrain du Detroit, in honor of a court official to Louis XIV.  Pontchartrain would later have a lake named for him in Louisiana, but that's another story.  The Fort's cumbersome French designation would be shortened to Fort Detroit and thus it would remain.  The original fort was a wooden stockade with bastions or towers for defense.  Soon after it was completed, Ottawa and Huron Natives moved nearby to take advantage of the ready supply of trade goods offered by French traders stopping off at the Fort.  The Fort became a hub in the lucrative beaver fur trade, and also played a role in the various inter-tribal wars as Natives competed for trading rights. 

Fort Detroit was too far from the main theatres of war in the Northeast during the French and Indian War (1755-1762) and did not see combat.  Nevertheless, it was claimed by the British and turned over to them in 1763.  British military officials (read Lord Jeffrey Amherst) did not believe in winning the Natives' loyalty with trade goods and clamped down on the fur trade, especially with regard to firearms, ammo and alcohol.  These and other repressive measures triggered Pontiac's Rebellion (1764), in which the Fort would see plenty of action as a forward military base.  Pontiac's forces laid siege to the fort, but ultimately failed to capture it. 

Fort Detroit would be far from the main battlefields of the Revolutionary War but would still have an active role to play in the frontier theatre.  British officials supplied arms and ammo to Native auxiliaries operating out of Fort Detroit, and men attached to the British Indian Department such as Simon Girty, Alexander McKee and Thomas Elliott would work closely with the tribes, sometimes leading war parties with the tacit permission, if not outright say-so, of the British garrison.  No wonder backcountry commanders wanted to take the fort for their own and put it out of business, but they would never get the chance.  Natives in the Ohio Valley and Northwest Territories jealously guarded their hunting ranges and thus approaches to the fort, which would have to be taken by a long siege.  The fort would not be taken by siege, but by treaty.  Both Jay's Treaty of 1794 and the Treaty of Greenville of 1795 specifically claim Fort Detroit for the United States. 

In 1805 the original Fort Detroit burned to the ground.  Rather than rebuild it, the Americans named another nearby fort after it.  The British briefly reoccupied this new fort during the War of 1812 but were forced to give it up soon enough.  The new Fort Detroit was abandoned after the War of 1812 and crumbled into ruin as the city built up, around and over it, blotting out all trace. 

Natives versus Settlers: Lochry's Defeat, Augut 24, 1781

As the Revolutionary War ground to a weary halt with the siege and surrender of Yorktown in October, 1781, things were far from quiet on the frontier.  The British at Fort Detroit continued to encourage attacks by their Native auxiliaries against American outposts and settlements.  As was discussed in an earlier post, George Rogers Clark, the leading American commander in the backcountry, nourished a dream of taking Fort Detroit, but could never get his pet project off the ground.  One reason was lack of men. 

With the British bottled up on the Virginia coast, Washington believed he could spare a few men to assist Clark.  He sent 100 men under Archibald Lochry marching toward Fort Pitt (Pittsburgh) and a rendezvous with Clark.  They hadn't counted on Joseph Brant and his volunteer force, made up mostly of Native but even of some Whites were who willing to fight under his command.  Brant teamed up with Simon and George Girty and Alexander McKee to meet Clark in August, 1781.  At the last minute, they realized that Clark had a far larger force then they expected.  Simon and Alexander missed an opportunity to ambush part of Clark's men in their camp on the banks of Ohio River due to lack of reinforcements coming up in time.  Through captured prisoners, Brant learned of Lochry's force on its way to join Clark.  He and George Girty put their heads together and came up with a plan. 

Lochry's party landed on the banks of the Ohio River near the Great Miami River, expecting to meet up with Clark.  They had seen injured Americans left on the bank by Brant and believed they were picking up survivors of a routine brush between Natives and Settlers.  As Lochry's men came ashore, started breakfast and began making camp, Brant and George sprung their trap.  As Brant's men descended on them, Lochry's men tried to go for their guns, but some had left their weapons behind in the canoes.  The Americans headed that way, before realizing that Brant had dispatched men to take possession of the canoes.  There was no escape and Lochry called for his men to surrender.  The totals were 37 Americans dead and 64 captured.  Some of the dead were executed after they had surrendered, including Lochry.  A Shawnee encounter him sitting on a log unawares and killed him with a tomahawk blow.  Brant intervened before more prisoners could be killed. 

Brant hurried his prisoners toward Fort Detroit, intending to rendezvous with McKee, Simon and units of Butler's Ranger to go after Clark.  They received word that Clark had turned back and, once again, given up on Fort Detroit.  He was fortunate.  Had Simon and McKee been able to spring their part of the trap, or had Clark continued further upriver, he and his men would have suffered ambush after ambush by prepared Native war parties, resulting in disaster.  Meanwhile, the men of Lochry's command who survived were divided up amongst the various tribes.  Some were adopted into the tribes, others ritually executed, others turned in to the British at Fort Detroit where they spent several months in a prison in Montreal.  About half the survivors eventually made it back to their families. 

Lochry's Defeat spread alarm and panic on the frontier.  Clark would try a few more times to float his scheme to capture Fort Detroit, which ultimately make sense in hindsight, but few if any state authorities, let alone Washington, were prepared to release more men.  Though Clark may not have realized it yet, his spectacular career as the Washington of the West was in decline.  Two other commanders were also locked in drama of their own.  Simon Girty and Joseph Brant had never liked each other.  Simon dismissed Brant as a drinker and bragger.  Brant just wished Simon would go away.  After the battle, they met up in Detroit and began drinking.  Simon heard Brant bragging about the victory over Lochry and felt incensed that Brant was shading George Girty by not giving him any of the credit.  The two had words and both drew swords.  Brant slashed Simon on the front of his head and down his face.  Simon wounded Brant in the leg so badly that it almost had to be amputated.  Both would take months to recover and neither voluntarily entered each other's presence again.