Near the centre of the settlement, on the west bank of the river, about twenty miles from Lake Erie, stood Fort Detroit, a miniature town.  It was in the form of a parallelogram and was surrounded by a palisade twenty-five feet high.  According to a letter of an officer, the walls had an extent of over one thousand paces.  At each corner was a bastion and over each gate a blockhouse.  Within the walls were about one hundred houses, the little Catholic church of Ste Anne’s, a council-house, officers’ quarters, and a range of barracks.  Save for one or two exceptions the buildings were of wood, thatched with bark or straw, and stood close together.  The streets were exceedingly narrow; but immediately within the palisade a wide road extended round the entire village.  The spiritual welfare of the French and Indian Catholics in the garrison was looked after by Father Potier, a Jesuit, whose mission was in the Wyandot village, and by Father Bocquet, a Recollet, who lived within the fort; Major Henry Gladwyn was in command.  He had a hundred and twenty soldiers, and two armed schooners, the Gladwyn and the Beaver, were in the river near by.

On the first day of May 1763, Pontiac came to the main gate of the fort asking to be allowed to enter, as he and the warriors with him, forty in all, desired to show their love for the British by dancing the calumet or peace dance.  Gladwyn had not the slightest suspicion of evil intent, and readily admitted them.  The savages selected a spot in front of the officers’ houses; and thirty of them went through their grotesque movements, shouting and dancing to the music of the Indian drum, and all the while waving their calumets in token of friendship.  While the dancers were thus engaged, the remaining ten of the party were busily employed in surveying the fort—­noting the number of men and the strength of the palisades.  The dance lasted about an hour.  Presents were then distributed to the Indians, and all took their departure.

Pontiac now summoned the Indians about Detroit to another council.  On this occasion the chiefs and warriors assembled in the council-house in the Potawatomi village south of the fort.  When all were gathered together Pontiac rose and, as at the council at the river Ecorces, in a torrent of words and with vehement gestures, denounced the British.  He declared that under the new occupancy of the forts in the Indian country the red men were neglected and their wants were no longer supplied as they had been in the days of the French; that exorbitant prices were charged by the traders for goods; that when the Indians were departing for their winter camps to hunt for furs they were no longer able to obtain ammunition and clothing on credit; and, finally, that the British desired the death of the Indians, and it was therefore necessary as an act of self-preservation to destroy them.  He once more displayed the war-belt that he pretended to have received from the king of France.