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portion of the Ojibways, forming by far the main body of the tribe, who occupied the area of Lake Superior, and those bands who had already formed distinct villages on the headwaters of the Mississippi and its principal northeastern tributaries, were not engaged in the bloody transaction of the taking of Fort Michilimackinac, or at most, but a few of their old warriors who have all now fallen into their graves, were noted as having been accidentally present on the occasion of this most important event in the history of their tribe.

It is true that the war-club, tobacco, and wampum belt of war had been carried by the messengers of Pontiac and his lieutenant, the Mackinaw chieftain, to La Pointe, and the principal villages of the tribe on Lake Superior, but the Ojibways listened only to the advice and the words of peace of a French trader who resided at Sault Ste. Marie, and from this point (with an influence not even surpassed by that which his contemporary, Sir Wm. Johnson, wielded