On This Day in History: June 2

A brutal game of lacrosse

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Cartoon character Sterling Archer said “lacrosse” is Algonquin for “blood sport.” That’s not true, but it’s still pretty fucking badass. It’s so badass, in fact, that during a Native American rebellion, the Ojibwe and Sauk used the game to distract a British garrison then capture their fort. And yes, there was plenty of blood on that day of sport. 

--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: June 2, 1763--

It was called Pontiac’s War, named such after an Odawa war chief. The British were being dicks—big surprise—and Pontiac led an armed uprising against them in the Great Lakes region that lasted three years. Early in that war there was this matter of a game of lacrosse. 

The fort was called Michilimackinac, which is near Mackinaw City at the northern point of Michigan, the part that looks like a big mitten. The game the Ojibwe played against the Sauk was called baaga’adowe, which is a forerunner to what we now call lacrosse. The war was just beginning, and the fort commandant was pretty fucking clueless. There were hundreds of well-armed Native Americans outside the fort there to trade with French Canadians, who were warning the commandant that they were planning an uprising and the commandant literally said STFU or I’ll lock your ass up. 

The players said to the commandant hey we’re playing this ball game in honor of King George III’s upcoming birthday come out and watch and the commandant said oh hell yeah garrison life is boring I love a good game of sports ball. He brought most of his soldiers out with him, unarmed, to watch the match. 

About 500 sweaty, muscular men played the game of baaga’adowe as the commandant cheered. He paid no attention to the Native American women standing near the open gates wearing bulky blankets on such a hot day. The ball was whipped toward the open gate and the players ran toward it. The women whipped open their blankets to reveal knives and tomahawks, which the players grabbed and went on a killing spree of British soldiers. 

Who says watching sports is boring?

More than two dozen Englishmen were killed, and another dozen taken captive. The French were not harmed in the attack. The Native Americans held the fort for a year, but they didn’t really want it and eventually abandoned Michilimackinac. Their goal had been to drive the English out of their hunting, fishing, and trapping grounds. And they were successful, for a time. The war, and this battle in particular, led to the Royal Proclamation of 1763 that forbade colonization west of the Appalachian Mountains in order to prevent further conflict with the Native Americans living there. 

Well, the colonists were pissed because they wanted that land. It was one of the grievances against the British that began the American Revolutionary War a dozen years later. They weren’t just fighting for independence. That whole 1776 declaration thingy was also about fighting for the right to steal land from Native Americans. 

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