they belonged to small bands who lived among the Ottaways at Mackinaw, and who were scattered in Michigan among the Pottawatumies and other tribes. The main body of the tribe occupying Lake Superior, and the waters of the Mississippi firmly withstood every effort made by the British to induce them to enter into the war, and it is thus they have succeeded in holding their own in numbers, and in fact, gradually increasing, while other tribes, who have foolishly mingled in the wars of the whites, have become nearly extinct.
Agents were sent by the British government to the principal villages of the Ojibways, to invite them to join their arms against the Americans. Col. Dickson,[1] who had long been a trader amongst the Dakotas, and northern Ojibways, is mentioned as one of the most prominent and active of the British agents in levying the savage tribes, in an exterminating warfare against the men, women, and children of the United States.
He sent the British interpreter, St. Germain, in a light canoe, fully manned with Canadian voyageurs, from Fort William to Leech Lake, to obtain the co-operation of the Pillagers. He gave presents to Esh-ke-bug-e-coshe (Flat Mouth), the chief of the warlike band, and in public council he presented the wampum belts of the British agent, and delivered his message. The Pillager chieftain sent back the belts with the laconic answer: "When I go war against my enemies, I do not call on the whites to join my warriors. The white people have quarrelled among themselves, and I do not wish to meddle in their quarrels, nor do I intend ever, even to be guilty of breaking the window-glass of a white man's dwelling."
St. Germain next urged him to visit Col. Dickson at Ft. William, but the chief refused to go, and of all his war-
- ↑ For notices of Dickson, see Neill's History of Minnesota, 5th edition, 1883. Minnesota Historical Collections, Vol. I. p. 390.
