Capture of Mackinaw, 1763

              22 8 Wisconsin Historical Collections rvoi.viii
In a laughing rnaoner he replied: ''You don't expect he has come to decorate your ears with silver ear-bobs! No, he comes here simply to get the balance of our country! Not being satisfied with what he has already obtained, he proposes to remove us across the Mississippi, which country he represents to be far bet¬ ter than ours; he says there is an abundance of all kinds of game there; that the lakes and the rivers are full of fish and wild rice." Several of those who were listening, here interrupted the speaker with evident anxiety, saying,''Why don't he go himself and live in such a fine country, where there is an abundance of every¬ thing? He is mistaken! and you ought to have told him at oneenot to say any more about it." Shononee replied: '*That is what we did; but you know how the Kechemocoman (or the Great Knife, as they name the American) never gets rebuked at a refusal; but will persist, and try over and over again till he ac¬ complishes his purpose. I left our chief Oshkosh to debate with him, and I will not adhere to any proposition he may make."
Shononee then made running remarks about different tribes of Indians who had been removed from their country to distant lands, referring especially to the Winnebagoes and the Pottowat- tamies; and in winding up his remarks, said: "We know by those who have come back from the country whither they have been removed, to what dangers they are exposed;" and, after a pause, he added: "It is but the result of what Pontiac had fore¬ seen and foretold." The by-standers inquired who Pontiac was^, and what he had foreseen. Shononee then resumed by saying: "Pontiac lived before my time; but I will simply state to you what my ancestors have related to me in regard to him. He was^ they told me, a noble-minded Indian; he had come to Milwaukee at one time,* and then and there had assembled different tribes^ of Indians, and addressed them as follows:
"My Friends! I have come here to consult you in behalf of our common cause.   When the white man came across the ocean,
* See Grignon's "Recollections," Wis. Hist Colls., iii, 226, for some refer¬ ence to this grand Milwaukee assemblage early in 1763. Shononee's tradition shows that Pontiac was its master-spirit, and probably his Influence and elo¬ quence so alienated those Indians from the English, that Col. De Peyster, six¬ teen years thereafter, denominateid them as "those renegates of I^Iilwaukee— a horrid set of refractory Indians." L, C D.