Pontiac's War (also known as Pontiac's Conspiracy or Pontiac's Rebellion) was launched in 1763 by a loose confederation of
Native Americans dissatisfied with British rule in the
Great Lakes region
The Great Lakes region of North America is a binational Canadian–American region that includes portions of the eight U.S. states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin along with the Canadian p ...
following the
French and Indian War
The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the ...
(1754–1763). Warriors from numerous nations joined in an effort to drive British soldiers and settlers out of the region. The war is named after
Odawa leader
Pontiac Pontiac may refer to:
*Pontiac (automobile), a car brand
*Pontiac (Ottawa leader) ( – 1769), a Native American war chief
Places and jurisdictions Canada
*Pontiac, Quebec, a municipality
** Apostolic Vicariate of Pontiac, now the Roman Catholic D ...
, the most prominent of many indigenous leaders in the conflict.
The war began in May 1763 when Native Americans, alarmed by policies imposed by British General
Jeffrey Amherst, attacked a number of British forts and settlements. Eight forts were destroyed, and hundreds of colonists were killed or captured, with many more fleeing the region. Hostilities came to an end after
British Army
The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...
expeditions in 1764 led to peace negotiations over the next two years. The Natives were unable to drive away the British, but the uprising prompted the British government to modify the policies that had provoked the conflict.
Warfare on the North American frontier was brutal, and the killing of prisoners, the targeting of civilians, and other atrocities were widespread. In an incident that became well-known and frequently debated, British officers at
Fort Pitt attempted to infect besieging Indians with blankets that had been exposed to
smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...
. The ruthlessness of the conflict was a reflection of a growing racial divide between indigenous peoples and British colonists. The British government sought to prevent further racial violence by issuing the
Royal Proclamation of 1763
The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was issued by King George III on 7 October 1763. It followed the Treaty of Paris (1763), which formally ended the Seven Years' War and transferred French territory in North America to Great Britain. The Procla ...
, which created a boundary between colonists and Natives.
Naming the war
The conflict is named after its most well-known participant, the Odawa leader named Pontiac. An early name for the war was the "Kiyasuta and Pontiac War," "Kiyasuta" being an alternate spelling for
Guyasuta
Guyasuta (c. 1725–c. 1794; see, Kayahsotaˀ, either "he stands up to the cross" or "he sets up the cross") was an important Native American leader of the Seneca people in the second half of the eighteenth century, playing a central role i ...
, an influential
Seneca
Seneca may refer to:
People and language
* Seneca (name), a list of people with either the given name or surname
* Seneca people, one of the six Iroquois tribes of North America
** Seneca language, the language of the Seneca people
Places Extrat ...
/
Mingo
The Mingo people are an Iroquoian group of Native Americans, primarily Seneca and Cayuga, who migrated west from New York to the Ohio Country in the mid-18th century, and their descendants. Some Susquehannock survivors also joined them, and ...
leader. The war became widely known as "Pontiac's Conspiracy" after the 1851 publication of
Francis Parkman
Francis Parkman Jr. (September 16, 1823 – November 8, 1893) was an American historian, best known as author of '' The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life'' and his monumental seven-volume '' France and England in North Am ...
's ''The Conspiracy of Pontiac''. Parkman's book was the definitive account of the war for nearly a century and is still in print.
In the 20th century, some historians argued that Parkman the extent of Pontiac's influence in the conflict, so it was misleading to name the war after him.
Francis Jennings
Francis "Fritz" Jennings (1918November 17, 2000) was an American historian, best known for his works on the colonial history of the United States. He taught at Cedar Crest College from 1968 to 1976, and at the Moore College of Art from 1966 to 1 ...
(1988) wrote that "Pontiac was only a local Ottawa war chief in a 'resistance' involving many tribes." Alternate titles for the war have been proposed, such as "Pontiac's War for Indian Independence," the "Western Indians' Defensive War" and "The Amerindian War of 1763." Historians generally continue to use "Pontiac's War" or "Pontiac's Rebellion," with some 21st century scholars arguing that 20th century historians had underestimated Pontiac's importance.
Origins
In the decades before Pontiac's War, France and Great Britain participated in a series of wars in Europe that involved the
French and Indian Wars
The French and Indian Wars were a series of conflicts that occurred in North America between 1688 and 1763, some of which indirectly were related to the European dynastic wars. The title ''French and Indian War'' in the singular is used in the U ...
in North America. The largest of these wars was the worldwide
Seven Years' War
The Seven Years' War (1756–1763) was a global conflict that involved most of the European Great Powers, and was fought primarily in Europe, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific. Other concurrent conflicts include the French and Indian War (1754 ...
, in which France lost
New France
New France (french: Nouvelle-France) was the area colonized by France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Great Britain and Spai ...
in North America to Great Britain. Most fighting in the North American theater of the war, generally called the
French and Indian War
The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the ...
in the United States, or the War of Conquest (French: Guerre de la Conquête) in French Canada, came to an end after British General
Jeffrey Amherst captured French
Montréal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-p ...
in 1760.
British troops occupied forts in the
Ohio Country and
Great Lakes region
The Great Lakes region of North America is a binational Canadian–American region that includes portions of the eight U.S. states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin along with the Canadian p ...
previously garrisoned by the French. Even before the war officially ended with the
Treaty of Paris (1763)
The Treaty of Paris, also known as the Treaty of 1763, was signed on 10 February 1763 by the kingdoms of Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain, Kingdom of France, France and Spanish Empire, Spain, with Kingdom of Portugal, Portugal in agree ...
, the British Crown began to implement policy changes to administer its vastly expanded American territory. The French had long cultivated alliances amongst indigenous polities, but the British post-war approach essentially treated the indigenous nations as conquered peoples. Before long, Native Americans found themselves dissatisfied with the British occupation.
Tribes involved
![Pontiac's war region](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Pontiac%27s_war_region.png)
Indigenous people involved in Pontiac's War lived in a vaguely defined region of New France known as the ''pays d'en haut'' ("the upper country"), which was claimed by France until the Paris peace treaty of 1763. Natives of the ''pays d'en haut'' were from many different tribal nations. These tribes were linguistic or ethnic groupings of
anarchic
Anarchy is a society without a government. It may also refer to a society or group of people that entirely rejects a set hierarchy. ''Anarchy'' was first used in English in 1539, meaning "an absence of government". Pierre-Joseph Proudhon adopted ...
communities rather than centralized political powers; no individual chief spoke for an entire tribe, and no nations acted in unison. For example,
Ottawas
The Odawa (also Ottawa or Odaawaa ), said to mean "traders", are an Indigenous American ethnic group who primarily inhabit land in the Eastern Woodlands region, commonly known as the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada. They ha ...
did not go to war as a tribe: Some Ottawa leaders chose to do so, while other Ottawa leaders denounced the war and stayed clear of the conflict.
The tribes of the ''pays d'en haut'' consisted of three basic groups. The first group was composed of tribes of the Great Lakes region:
Ottawas
The Odawa (also Ottawa or Odaawaa ), said to mean "traders", are an Indigenous American ethnic group who primarily inhabit land in the Eastern Woodlands region, commonly known as the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada. They ha ...
,
Ojibwe
The Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa, or Saulteaux are an Anishinaabe people in what is currently southern Canada, the northern Midwestern United States, and Northern Plains.
According to the U.S. census, in the United States Ojibwe people are one of ...
s, and
Potawatomis, who spoke
Algonquian languages
The Algonquian languages ( or ; also Algonkian) are a subfamily of Indigenous languages of the Americas, indigenous American languages that include most languages in the Algic languages, Algic language family. The name of the Algonquian language f ...
, and
Hurons
The Wyandot people, or Wyandotte and Waⁿdát, are Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands. The Wyandot are Iroquoian Indigenous peoples of North America who emerged as a confederacy of tribes around the north shore of Lake Ontario w ...
, who spoke an
Iroquoian language
The Iroquoian languages are a language family of indigenous peoples of North America. They are known for their general lack of labial consonants. The Iroquoian languages are polysynthetic and head-marking.
As of 2020, all surviving Iroquoian ...
. They had long been allied with French ''habitants'' with whom they lived, traded, and intermarried. Great Lakes Indians were alarmed to learn they were under British sovereignty after the French loss of North America. When a British garrison took possession of
Fort Detroit
Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit or Fort Detroit (1701–1796) was a fort established on the north bank of the Detroit River by the French officer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac and the Italian Alphonse de Tonty in 1701. In the 18th century, Fre ...
from the French in 1760, local Indians cautioned them that "this country was given by God to the Indians." When the first Englishman reached Fort Michilimackinac, Ojibwe chief Minavavana told him "Englishman, although you have conquered the French, you have not yet conquered us!"
The second group was made up of tribes from eastern
Illinois Country
The Illinois Country (french: Pays des Illinois ; , i.e. the Illinois people)—sometimes referred to as Upper Louisiana (french: Haute-Louisiane ; es, Alta Luisiana)—was a vast region of New France claimed in the 1600s in what is n ...
, which included
Miamis
The Miami ( Miami-Illinois: ''Myaamiaki'') are a Native American nation originally speaking one of the Algonquian languages. Among the peoples known as the Great Lakes tribes, they occupied territory that is now identified as North-central Indi ...
,
Wea
The Wea were a Miami-Illinois-speaking Native American tribe originally located in western Indiana. Historically, they were described as either being closely related to the Miami Tribe or a sub-tribe of Miami.
Today, the descendants of the ...
s,
Kickapoos
The Kickapoo people ( Kickapoo: ''Kiikaapoa'' or ''Kiikaapoi''; es, Kikapú) are an Algonquian-speaking Native American and Indigenous Mexican tribe, originating in the region south of the Great Lakes. Today, three federally recognized Kickap ...
,
Mascouten
The Mascouten (also ''Mascoutin'', ''Mathkoutench'', ''Muscoden,'' or ''Musketoon'') were a tribe of Algonquian-speaking Native Americans located in the Midwest. They are believed to have dwelt on both sides of the Mississippi River, adjacent to ...
s, and
Piankashaw
The Piankeshaw, Piankashaw or Pianguichia were members of the Miami tribe who lived apart from the rest of the Miami nation, therefore they were known as Peeyankihšiaki ("splitting off" from the others, Sing.: ''Peeyankihšia'' - "Piankeshaw Pers ...
s. Like the Great Lakes tribes, these people had a long history of close relations with the French. Throughout the war, the British were unable to project military power into the Illinois Country, which was on the remote western edge of the conflict. The Illinois tribes were the last to come to terms with the British.
The third group consisted of tribes of the
Ohio Country: Delawares (
Lenape
The Lenape (, , or Lenape , del, Lënapeyok) also called the Leni Lenape, Lenni Lenape and Delaware people, are an indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, who live in the United States and Canada. Their historical territory includ ...
),
Shawnee
The Shawnee are an Algonquian-speaking indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. In the 17th century they lived in Pennsylvania, and in the 18th century they were in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, with some bands in Kentucky a ...
s,
Wyandots, and
Mingo
The Mingo people are an Iroquoian group of Native Americans, primarily Seneca and Cayuga, who migrated west from New York to the Ohio Country in the mid-18th century, and their descendants. Some Susquehannock survivors also joined them, and ...
s. These people had migrated to the Ohio valley earlier in the century to escape British, French, and
Iroquois
The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...
domination. Unlike the Great Lakes and Illinois Country tribes, Ohio tribes had no great attachment to the French regime, though they had fought as French allies in the previous war in an effort to drive away the British. They made a separate peace with the British with the understanding that the British Army would withdraw. But after the departure of the French, the British strengthened their forts rather than abandoning them, and so the Ohioans went to war in 1763 in another attempt to drive out the British.
Outside the ''pays d'en haut'', the influential Iroquois did not, as a group, participate in Pontiac's War because of their alliance with the British, known as the
Covenant Chain
The Covenant Chain was a series of alliances and treaties developed during the seventeenth century, primarily between the Iroquois Confederacy (Haudenosaunee) and the British colonies of North America, with other Native American tribes added. Firs ...
. However, the westernmost Iroquois nation, the
Seneca tribe
The Seneca () ( see, Onödowáʼga:, "Great Hill People") are a group of Indigenous Iroquoian-speaking people who historically lived south of Lake Ontario, one of the five Great Lakes in North America. Their nation was the farthest to the west w ...
, had become disaffected with the alliance. As early as 1761, Senecas began to send out war messages to the Great Lakes and Ohio Country tribes, urging them to unite in an attempt to drive out the British. When the war finally came in 1763, many Senecas were quick to take action.
Amherst's policies
![Amherst](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Amherst.jpg)
General
Jeffrey Amherst, the British
commander-in-chief in North America, was in charge of administering policy towards American Indians, which involved military matters and regulation of the
fur trade
The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals have been the mos ...
. Amherst believed that, with France out of the picture, the Indians would have to accept British rule. He also believed the Indians were incapable of offering any serious resistance to the British Army. Therefore, of the 8,000 troops under his command in North America, only about 500 were stationed in the region where the war erupted. Amherst and officers such as Major
Henry Gladwin
Major-General Henry Gladwin (1729 or 1730 – 22 June 1791) was a British army officer in colonial America and the British commander at the Siege of Fort Detroit during Pontiac's Rebellion in 1763. He served in the disastrous campaign of Ed ...
, commander at
Fort Detroit
Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit or Fort Detroit (1701–1796) was a fort established on the north bank of the Detroit River by the French officer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac and the Italian Alphonse de Tonty in 1701. In the 18th century, Fre ...
, made little effort to conceal their contempt for Indians; those involved in the uprising frequently complained that the British treated them no better than slaves or dogs.
Additional Indian resentment came from Amherst's decision in February 1761 to cut back on gifts given to the Indians. Gift giving had been an integral part of the relationship between the French and the tribes of the ''pays d'en haut''. Following an Indian custom that carried important symbolic meaning, the French gave presents (such as guns, knives, tobacco, and clothing) to village chiefs, who distributed them to their people. The chiefs gained stature this way, enabling them to maintain the alliance with the French. The Indians regarded this as "a necessary part of diplomacy which involved accepting gifts in return for others sharing their lands." Amherst considered this to be bribery that was no longer necessary, especially as he was under pressure to cut expenses after the war. Many Indians regarded this change in policy as an insult and an indication the British looked upon them as conquered people rather than as allies.
Amherst also began to restrict the amount of ammunition and gunpowder that traders could sell to Indians. While the French had always made these supplies available, Amherst did not trust Indians, particularly after the
"Cherokee Rebellion" of 1761, in which
Cherokee
The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, t ...
warriors took up arms against their former British allies. The Cherokee war effort had failed due to a shortage of gunpowder; Amherst hoped future uprisings could be prevented by limiting its distribution. This created resentment and hardship because gunpowder and ammunition helped Indians provide food for their families and skins for the fur trade. Many Indians believed the British were disarming them as a prelude to war.
Sir William Johnson, the Superintendent of the Indian Department, warned Amherst of the danger of cutting back on presents and gunpowder, to no avail.
Land and religion
Land was also an issue in the coming of Pontiac's War. While the French colonists had always been relatively few, there seemed to be no end of settlers in the British colonies. Shawnees and Delawares in the Ohio Country had been displaced by British colonists in the east, and this motivated their involvement in the war. Indians in the Great Lakes region and the Illinois Country had not been greatly affected by white settlement, although they were aware of the experiences of tribes in the east. Dowd (2002) argues that most Indians involved in Pontiac's War were not immediately threatened with displacement by white settlers, and that historians have overemphasized British colonial expansion as a cause of the war. Dowd believes that the presence, attitude, and policies of the British Army, which the Indians found threatening and insulting, were more important factors.
Also contributing to the outbreak of war was a religious awakening which swept through Indian settlements in the early 1760s. The movement was fed by discontent with the British as well as food shortages and epidemic disease. The most influential individual in this phenomenon was
Neolin
Neolin (meaning ''the enlightened'' in Algonquian) was a prophet of the Lenni Lenape (also known as ''Delaware'') from the village of Muskingum in Ohio. His dates of birth and death are unknown.
Inspired by a religious vision in 1761, Neolin ...
, known as the "Delaware Prophet," who called upon Indians to shun the trade goods, alcohol, and weapons of the colonists. Melding Christian doctrines with traditional Indian beliefs, Neolin said the
Master of Life was displeased with Indians for taking up the bad habits of white men, and that the British posed a threat to their very existence. "If you suffer the English among you," said Neolin, "you are dead men. Sickness, smallpox, and their poison
lcoholwill destroy you entirely." It was a powerful message for a people whose world was being changed by forces that seemed beyond their control.
Outbreak of war, 1763
Planning the war
![Pontiac chief](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/Pontiac_chief.png)
Although fighting in Pontiac's War began in 1763, rumors reached British officials as early as 1761 that discontented American Indians were planning an attack. Senecas of the Ohio Country (Mingos) circulated messages ("war belts" made of
wampum
Wampum is a traditional shell bead of the Eastern Woodlands tribes of Native Americans. It includes white shell beads hand-fashioned from the North Atlantic channeled whelk shell and white and purple beads made from the quahog or Western Nor ...
) calling for the tribes to form a confederacy and drive away the British. The Mingos, led by
Guyasuta
Guyasuta (c. 1725–c. 1794; see, Kayahsotaˀ, either "he stands up to the cross" or "he sets up the cross") was an important Native American leader of the Seneca people in the second half of the eighteenth century, playing a central role i ...
and Tahaiadoris, were concerned about being surrounded by British forts. Similar war belts originated from Detroit and the Illinois Country. The Indians were not unified, and in June 1761, natives at Detroit informed the British commander of the Seneca plot. William Johnson held a large council with the tribes at Detroit in September 1761, which provided a tenuous peace, but war belts continued to circulate. Violence finally erupted after the Indians learned in early 1763 of the imminent French cession of the ''pays d'en haut'' to the British.
The war began at Fort Detroit under the leadership of Pontiac and quickly spread throughout the region. Eight British forts were taken; others, including Fort Detroit and Fort Pitt, were unsuccessfully besieged. Francis Parkman's ''The Conspiracy of Pontiac'' portrayed these attacks as a coordinated operation planned by Pontiac. Parkman's interpretation remains well known, but later historians argued there is no clear evidence the attacks were part of a master plan or overall "conspiracy." Rather than being planned in advance, modern scholars believe the uprising spread as word of Pontiac's actions at Detroit traveled throughout the ''pays d'en haut'', inspiring discontented Indians to join the revolt. The attacks on British forts were not simultaneous: most Ohio Indians did not enter the war until nearly a month after Pontiac began the siege at Detroit.
Early historians believed French colonists had secretly instigated the war by stirring up the Indians to make trouble for the British. This belief was held by British officials at the time, but subsequent historians found no evidence of official French involvement in the uprising. According to Dowd (2002), "Indians sought French intervention and not the other way around." Indian leaders frequently spoke of the imminent return of French power and the revival of the Franco-Indian alliance; Pontiac even flew a French flag in his village. Indian leaders apparently hoped to inspire the French to rejoin the struggle against the British. Although some French colonists and traders supported the uprising, the war was launched by American Indians for their own objectives.
Middleton (2007) argues that Pontiac's vision, courage, persistence, and organizational abilities allowed him to activate an unprecedented coalition of Indian nations prepared to fight against the British. Tahaiadoris and Guyasuta originated the idea to gain independence for all Indians west of the Allegheny Mountains, although Pontiac appeared to embrace the idea by February 1763. At an emergency council meeting, he clarified his military support of the broad Seneca plan and worked to galvanize other tribes into the military operation he helped to lead, in direct contradiction to traditional Indian leadership and tribal structure. He achieved this coordination through the distribution of war belts, first to the northern Ojibwa and Ottawa near Michilimackinac, and then to the Mingo (Seneca) on the upper Allegheny River, the Ohio Delaware near Fort Pitt, and the more westerly Miami, Kickapoo, Piankashaw, and Wea peoples.
Siege of Fort Detroit
![Pontiac in 1763](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/Pontiac_in_1763.jpg)
Pontiac spoke at a council on the banks of the
Ecorse River
The Ecorse River is an U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed November 7, 2011 river in southern Michigan. Because of its small size, it is often identified as Ecorse Creek. ...
on April 27, 1763, about 10 miles (15 km) southwest of Detroit. Using the teachings of Neolin to inspire his listeners, Pontiac convinced a number of Ottawas,
Ojibwas,
Potawatomis, and
Hurons
The Wyandot people, or Wyandotte and Waⁿdát, are Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands. The Wyandot are Iroquoian Indigenous peoples of North America who emerged as a confederacy of tribes around the north shore of Lake Ontario w ...
to join him in an attempt to seize
Fort Detroit
Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit or Fort Detroit (1701–1796) was a fort established on the north bank of the Detroit River by the French officer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac and the Italian Alphonse de Tonty in 1701. In the 18th century, Fre ...
. On May 1, he visited the fort with 50 Ottawas to assess the strength of the garrison. According to a French chronicler, in a second council Pontiac proclaimed:
It is important for us, my brothers, that we exterminate from our lands this nation which seeks only to destroy us. You see as well as I that we can no longer supply our needs, as we have done from our brothers, the French.... Therefore, my brothers, we must all swear their destruction and wait no longer. Nothing prevents us; they are few in numbers, and we can accomplish it.
On May 7, Pontiac entered Fort Detroit with about 300 men carrying concealed weapons, hoping to take the stronghold by surprise. The British had learned of his plan, however, and were armed and ready. His strategy foiled, Pontiac withdrew after a brief council and, two days later, laid siege to the fort. He and his allies killed British soldiers and settlers they found outside of the fort, including women and children. They ritually
cannibalized one of the soldiers, as was the custom in some Great Lakes Indian cultures. They directed their violence at the British and generally left French colonists alone. Eventually more than 900 warriors from a half-dozen tribes joined the siege.
After receiving reinforcements, the British attempted to make a surprise attack on Pontiac's encampment. Pontiac was ready and defeated them at the
Battle of Bloody Run
The Battle of Bloody Run was fought during Pontiac's War on July 31, 1763, on what now is the site of Elmwood Cemetery in the Eastside Historic Cemetery District of Detroit, Michigan. In an attempt to break Pontiac's siege of Fort Detroit, ...
on July 31, 1763. The situation remained a stalemate at Fort Detroit, and Pontiac's influence among his followers began to wane. Groups of Indians began to abandon the siege, some of them making peace with the British before departing. Pontiac lifted the siege on October 31, 1763, convinced that the French would not come to his aid at Detroit, and removed to the
Maumee River where he continued his efforts to rally resistance against the British.
Small forts taken
![Pontiac's war](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Pontiac%27s_war.png)
Before other British outposts had learned of Pontiac's siege at Detroit, Indians captured five small forts in attacks between May 16 and June 2.
Fort Sandusky Fort Sandusky refers to at least three separate military forts that were built by French and English forces at three different sites in the area of Sandusky Bay and the Sandusky River in northern Ohio. They were the French Fort Sandoske (built 1749 ...
, a small blockhouse on the
Lake Erie
Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also has t ...
shore, was the first to be taken. It had been built in 1761 by order of General Amherst, despite the objections of local
Wyandots who warned the commander they would burn it down. On May 16, 1763, a group of Wyandots gained entry under the pretense of holding a council, the same stratagem that had failed in Detroit nine days earlier. They seized the commander and killed 15 soldiers and a number of British traders, among the first of about 100 traders who were killed in the early stages of the war. They ritually scalped the dead and burned the fort to the ground, as the Wyandots had threatened a year earlier.
Potawatomis captured
Fort St. Joseph (site of present
Niles, Michigan
Niles is a city in Berrien and Cass counties in the U.S. state of Michigan, near the Indiana border city of South Bend. In 2010, the population was 11,600 according to the 2010 census. It is the larger, by population, of the two principal cities ...
) on May 25, 1763, using the same method as at Sandusky. They seized the commander and killed most of the fifteen-man garrison.
Fort Miami (present
Fort Wayne, Indiana
Fort Wayne is a city in and the county seat of Allen County, Indiana, United States. Located in northeastern Indiana, the city is west of the Ohio border and south of the Michigan border. The city's population was 263,886 as of the 2020 Censu ...
) was the third fort to fall. On May 27, the fort commander was lured out by his Indian mistress and shot dead by
Miamis
The Miami ( Miami-Illinois: ''Myaamiaki'') are a Native American nation originally speaking one of the Algonquian languages. Among the peoples known as the Great Lakes tribes, they occupied territory that is now identified as North-central Indi ...
. The nine-man garrison surrendered after the fort was surrounded.
In the Illinois Country, , Kickapoos, and Mascoutens took
Fort Ouiatenon
Fort Ouiatenon, built in 1717, was the first fortified European settlement in what is now Indiana, United States. It was a palisade stockade with log blockhouse used as a French trading post on the Wabash River located approximately three miles ...
, about west of present
Lafayette, Indiana
Lafayette ( , ) is a city in and the county seat of Tippecanoe County, Indiana, United States, located northwest of Indianapolis and southeast of Chicago. West Lafayette, on the other side of the Wabash River, is home to Purdue University, whi ...
, on June 1, 1763. They lured soldiers outside for a council, then took the 20-man garrison captive without bloodshed. These Indians had good relations with the British garrison, but emissaries from Pontiac had convinced them to strike. The warriors apologized to the commander for taking the fort, saying "they were Obliged to do it by the other Nations." In contrast with other forts, the Indians did not kill their captives at Ouiatenon.
The fifth fort to fall,
Fort Michilimackinac
Fort Michilimackinac was an 18th-century French, and later British, fort and trading post at the Straits of Mackinac; it was built on the northern tip of the lower peninsula of the present-day state of Michigan in the United States. Built aroun ...
(present
Mackinaw City
Mackinaw City ( ) is a village in Emmet and Cheboygan counties in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 846 at the 2010 census, the population increases during summertime, including an influx of tourists and seasonal workers who serve ...
,
Michigan
Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...
), was the largest fort taken by surprise. On June 4, 1763, Ojibwas staged a game of
stickball
Stickball is a street game similar to baseball, usually formed as a pick-up game played in large cities in the Northeastern United States, especially New York City and Philadelphia. The equipment consists of a broom handle and a rubber ball, ...
with visiting
Sauks. The soldiers watched the game, as they had done on previous occasions. The Indians hit the ball through the open gate of the fort, then rushed in and seized weapons that Indian women had smuggled into the fort. They killed about 15 of the 35-man garrison in the struggle; they later tortured five more to death.
Three forts in the Ohio Country were taken in a second wave of attacks in mid-June.
Senecas
The Seneca () ( see, Onödowáʼga:, "Great Hill People") are a group of Indigenous Iroquoian-speaking people who historically lived south of Lake Ontario, one of the five Great Lakes in North America. Their nation was the farthest to the west w ...
took
Fort Venango
Fort Venango, a small British fort built in 1760 near the present-day site of Franklin, Pennsylvania, replaced Fort Machault, a French fort built at the confluence of French Creek and the Allegheny River. The French burned their fort in 1759 afte ...
(near present
Franklin, Pennsylvania
Franklin is a city and the county seat of Venango County, Pennsylvania. The population was 6,097 in the 2020 census. Franklin is part of the Oil City, PA Micropolitan Statistical Area.
Franklin is known for its three-day autumn festival in Oc ...
) around June 16, 1763. They killed the entire 12-man garrison, keeping the commander alive to write down the Seneca's grievances, then burned him at the stake. Possibly the same Senecas attacked
Fort Le Boeuf
Fort Le Bœuf (often referred to as Fort de la Rivière au Bœuf) was a fort established by the French during 1753 on a fork of French Creek (in the drainage area of the River Ohio), in present-day Waterford, in northwest Pennsylvania. The fort ...
(present
Waterford, Pennsylvania
Waterford is a Borough (Pennsylvania), borough in Erie County, Pennsylvania, Erie County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 1,475 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Erie, Pennsylvania, Erie Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Waterfor ...
) on June 18, but most of the 12-man garrison escaped to Fort Pitt.
The eighth and final fort to fall,
Fort Presque Isle
Fort Presque Isle (also Fort de la Presqu'île) was a fort built by French soldiers in summer 1753 along Presque Isle Bay at present-day Erie, Pennsylvania, to protect the northern terminus of the Venango Path. It was the first of the French p ...
(present
Erie, Pennsylvania
Erie (; ) is a city on the south shore of Lake Erie and the county seat of Erie County, Pennsylvania, United States. Erie is the fifth largest city in Pennsylvania and the largest city in Northwestern Pennsylvania with a population of 94,831 a ...
), was surrounded by about 250 Ottawas, Ojibwas, Wyandots, and Senecas on June 19. After holding out for two days, the garrison of 30 to 60 men surrendered on the condition that they could return to Fort Pitt. The Indians agreed, but then took the soldiers captive, killing many.
Siege of Fort Pitt
Colonists in western Pennsylvania fled to the safety of Fort Pitt after the outbreak of the war. Nearly 550 people crowded inside, including more than 200 women and children. Simeon Ecuyer, the Swiss-born British officer in command, wrote that "We are so crowded in the fort that I fear disease… the smallpox is among us."
Delawares
The Lenape (, , or Lenape , del, Lënapeyok) also called the Leni Lenape, Lenni Lenape and Delaware people, are an indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, who live in the United States and Canada. Their historical territory includ ...
and others attacked the fort on June 22, 1763, and kept it under siege throughout July. Meanwhile, Delaware and
Shawnee
The Shawnee are an Algonquian-speaking indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. In the 17th century they lived in Pennsylvania, and in the 18th century they were in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, with some bands in Kentucky a ...
war parties raided into Pennsylvania, taking captives and killing unknown numbers of settlers. Indians sporadically fired on
Fort Bedford Fort Bedford was a French and Indian War-era British military fortification located at the present site of Bedford, Pennsylvania. The fort was a star-shaped log fortress erected in the summer of 1758.
Background
Fort Bedford was constructed dur ...
and
Fort Ligonier
Fort Ligonier is a British fortification from the French and Indian War located in Ligonier, Pennsylvania, United States. The fort served as a staging area for the Forbes Expedition of 1758. During the eight years of its existence as a garrison, F ...
, smaller strongholds linking Fort Pitt to the east, but they never took them.
Before the war, Amherst had dismissed the possibility that Indians would offer any effective resistance to British rule, but that summer he found the military situation becoming increasingly grim. He wrote the commander at Fort Detroit that captured enemy Indians should "immediately be put to death, their extirpation being the only security for our future safety." To Colonel
Henry Bouquet
Henry Bouquet (born Henri Louis Bouquet; 1719 – 2 September 1765) was a Swiss mercenary who rose to prominence in British service during the French and Indian War and Pontiac's War. He is best known for his victory over a Native American ...
, who was preparing to lead an expedition to relieve Fort Pitt, Amherst wrote on about June 29, 1763: "Could it not be contrived to send the small pox among the disaffected tribes of Indians? We must on this occasion use every stratagem in our power to reduce them." Bouquet responded that he would try to spread smallpox to the Indians by giving them blankets that had been exposed to the disease. Amherst replied to Bouquet on July 16, endorsing the plan.
As it turned out, officers at Fort Pitt had already attempted what Amherst and Bouquet were discussing, apparently without having been ordered by Amherst or Bouquet. During a parley at Fort Pitt on June 24, Captain Ecuyer gave representatives of the besieging Delawares two blankets and a handkerchief that had been exposed to smallpox, hoping to spread the disease to the Indians and end the siege.
William Trent
William Trent (February 13, 1715–1787) was an American fur trader and merchant based in colonial Pennsylvania. He was commissioned as a captain of the Virginia Regiment in the early stages of the French and Indian War, when he served on the wes ...
, the fort's militia commander, wrote in his journal that "we gave them two Blankets and an Handkerchief out of the Small Pox Hospital. I hope it will have the desired effect." Trent submitted an invoice to the British Army, writing that the items had been "taken from people in the Hospital to Convey the Smallpox to the Indians." The expense was approved by Ecuyer, and ultimately by General
Thomas Gage
General Thomas Gage (10 March 1718/192 April 1787) was a British Army general officer and colonial official best known for his many years of service in North America, including his role as British commander-in-chief in the early days of th ...
, Amherst's successor.
Historian and folklorist
Adrienne Mayor
Adrienne Mayor (born 1946) is a historian of ancient science and a classical folklorist.
Mayor specializes in ancient history and the study of "folk science", or how pre-scientific cultures interpreted data about the natural world, and how these ...
(1995) wrote that the smallpox blanket incident "has taken on legendary overtones as believers and nonbelievers continue to argue over the facts and their interpretation." Peckham (1947), Jennings (1988), and Nester (2000) concluded the attempt to deliberately infect Indians with smallpox was successful, resulting in numerous deaths that hampered the Indian war effort. Fenn (2000) argued that "circumstantial evidence" suggests the attempt was successful.
Other scholars have expressed doubts about whether the attempt was effective. McConnell (1992) argued the smallpox outbreak among the Indians preceded the blanket incident, with limited effect, since Indians were familiar with the disease and adept at isolating the infected. Ranlet (2000) wrote that previous historians had overlooked that the Delaware chiefs who handled the blankets were in good health a month later; he believed the attempt to infect the Indians had been a "total failure." Dixon (2005) argued that if the scheme had been successful, the Indians would have broken off the siege of Fort Pitt, but they kept it up for weeks after receiving the blankets. Medical writers have expressed reservations about the efficacy of spreading smallpox through blankets and the difficulty of determining if the outbreak was intentional or naturally occurring.
Bushy Run and Devil's Hole
On August 1, 1763, most of the Indians broke off the siege at Fort Pitt to intercept 500 British troops marching to the fort under Colonel Bouquet. On August 5, these two forces met at the
Battle of Bushy Run
The Battle of Bushy Run was fought on August 5–6, 1763, in western Pennsylvania, between a British column under the command of Colonel Henry Bouquet and a combined force of Delaware, Shawnee, Mingo, and Huron warriors. This action occurred du ...
. Although his force suffered heavy casualties, Bouquet fought off the attack and relieved Fort Pitt on August 20, bringing the siege to an end. His victory at Bushy Run was celebrated by the British; church bells rang through the night in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
, and
King George praised him.
This victory was followed by a costly defeat.
Fort Niagara
Fort Niagara is a fortification originally built by New France to protect its interests in North America, specifically control of access between the Niagara River and Lake Ontario, the easternmost of the Great Lakes. The fort is on the river's e ...
, one of the most important western forts, was not assaulted, but on September 14, 1763, at least 300 Senecas, Ottawas, and Ojibwas attacked a supply train along the
Niagara Falls
Niagara Falls () is a group of three waterfalls at the southern end of Niagara Gorge, spanning the border between the province of Ontario in Canada and the state of New York in the United States. The largest of the three is Horseshoe Falls, ...
portage. Two companies sent from Fort Niagara to rescue the supply train were also defeated. More than 70 soldiers and teamsters were killed in these actions, which colonists dubbed the "
Devil's Hole Massacre," the deadliest engagement for British soldiers during the war.
Paxton Boys
![Paxton massacre](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/Paxton_massacre.jpg)
The violence and terror of Pontiac's War convinced many western Pennsylvanians that their government was not doing enough to protect them. This discontentment was manifested most seriously in an uprising led by a vigilante group known as the
Paxton Boys
The Paxton Boys were Pennsylvania's most aggressive colonists according to historian Kevin Kenny. While not many specifics are known about the individuals in the group their overall profile is clear. Paxton Boys Lived in hill country northwest of ...
, so-called because they were primarily from the area around the Pennsylvania village of Paxton (or
Paxtang
Paxtang is a borough in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, United States. As of the 2020 census it had a population of 1,640. The borough is a suburb of Harrisburg and is one of the earliest colonial settlements in South Central Pennsylvania.
History ...
). The Paxtonians turned their anger towards American Indians—many of them Christians—who lived peacefully in small enclaves in the midst of white Pennsylvania settlements. Prompted by rumors that an Indian war party had been seen at the Indian village of Conestoga, on December 14, 1763, a group of more than 50 Paxton Boys marched on the village and murdered the six
Susquehannock
The Susquehannock people, also called the Conestoga by some English settlers or Andastes were Iroquoian Native Americans who lived in areas adjacent to the Susquehanna River and its tributaries, ranging from its upper reaches in the southern p ...
s they found there. Pennsylvania officials placed the remaining 14 Susquehannocks in protective custody in
Lancaster, but on December 27, the Paxton Boys broke into the jail and killed them. Governor
John Penn issued bounties for the arrest of the murderers, but no one came forward to identify them.
The Paxton Boys then set their sights on other Indians living within eastern Pennsylvania, many of whom fled to Philadelphia for protection. Several hundred Paxtonians marched on Philadelphia in January 1764, where the presence of British troops and Philadelphia militia prevented them from committing more violence.
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...
, who had helped organize the militia, negotiated with the Paxton leaders and brought an end to the crisis. Afterwards, Franklin published a scathing indictment of the Paxton Boys. "If an ''Indian'' injures me," he asked, "does it follow that I may revenge that Injury on all ''Indians''?"
British response, 1764–1766
Indian raids on frontier settlements escalated in the spring and summer of 1764. The hardest hit colony was Virginia, where more than 100 settlers were killed. On May 26 in
Maryland
Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...
, 15 colonists working in a field near
Fort Cumberland
A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...
were killed. On June 14, about 13 settlers near
Fort Loudoun in Pennsylvania were killed and their homes burned. The most
notorious raid occurred on July 26, when four Delaware warriors killed and scalped a school teacher and ten children in what is now
Franklin County, Pennsylvania
Franklin County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 155,932 Its county seat is Chambersburg.
Franklin County comprises the Chambersburg–Waynesboro, PA Metropolitan Statistical Area, wh ...
. Incidents such as these prompted the Pennsylvania Assembly, with the approval of Governor Penn, to reintroduce the scalp bounties offered during the French and Indian War, which paid money for every enemy Indian killed above the age of ten, including women.
General Amherst, held responsible for the uprising by the
Board of Trade, was recalled to London in August 1763 and replaced by Major General
Thomas Gage
General Thomas Gage (10 March 1718/192 April 1787) was a British Army general officer and colonial official best known for his many years of service in North America, including his role as British commander-in-chief in the early days of th ...
. In 1764, Gage sent two expeditions into the west to crush the rebellion, rescue British prisoners, and arrest the Indians responsible for the war. According to historian
Fred Anderson, Gage's campaign, which had been designed by Amherst, prolonged the war for more than a year because it focused on punishing the Indians rather than ending the war. Gage's one significant departure from Amherst's plan was to allow William Johnson to conduct a peace treaty at Niagara, giving Indians an opportunity to "bury the hatchet."
Fort Niagara treaty
From July to August 1764, Johnson conducted a
treaty at Fort Niagara with about 2,000 Indians in attendance, primarily Iroquois. Although most Iroquois had stayed out of the war, Senecas from the
Genesee River
The Genesee River is a tributary of Lake Ontario flowing northward through the Twin Tiers of Pennsylvania and New York in the United States.
The river provided the original power for the Rochester area's 19th century mills and still provides h ...
valley had taken up arms against the British, and Johnson worked to bring them back into the
Covenant Chain
The Covenant Chain was a series of alliances and treaties developed during the seventeenth century, primarily between the Iroquois Confederacy (Haudenosaunee) and the British colonies of North America, with other Native American tribes added. Firs ...
alliance. As restitution for the Devil's Hole ambush, the Senecas were compelled to cede the strategically important Niagara portage to the British. Johnson even convinced the Iroquois to send a war party against the Ohio Indians. This Iroquois expedition captured a number of Delawares and destroyed abandoned Delaware and Shawnee towns in the
Susquehanna Valley
The Susquehanna Valley is a region of low-lying land that borders the Susquehanna River in the United States, U.S. states of New York (state), New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. The valley consists of areas that lie along the main branch o ...
, but otherwise the Iroquois did not contribute to the war effort as much as Johnson had desired.
Two expeditions
![Indians giving a talk to Bouquet](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Indians_giving_a_talk_to_Bouquet.jpg)
Having secured the area around Fort Niagara, the British launched two military expeditions into the west. The first expedition, led by Colonel
John Bradstreet
Major General John Bradstreet, born Jean-Baptiste Bradstreet (21 December 1714 – 25 September 1774) was a British Army officer during King George's War, the French and Indian War, and Pontiac's War. He was born in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia ...
, was to travel by boat across Lake Erie and reinforce Detroit. Bradstreet was to subdue the Indians around Detroit before marching south into the Ohio Country. The second expedition, commanded by Colonel Bouquet, was to march west from Fort Pitt and form a second front in the Ohio Country.
Bradstreet left
Fort Schlosser
Fort Schlosser was a fortification built in Western New York in the United States around 1760 by British Colonial forces, in order to guard the upper entrance to the portage around Niagara Falls, north of Porter-Barton Dock or Schlosser's Land ...
in early August 1764 with about 1,200 soldiers and a large contingent of Indian allies enlisted by
Sir William Johnson. Bradstreet felt that he did not have enough troops to subdue enemy Indians by force, and so when strong winds on Lake Erie forced him to stop at
Fort Presque Isle
Fort Presque Isle (also Fort de la Presqu'île) was a fort built by French soldiers in summer 1753 along Presque Isle Bay at present-day Erie, Pennsylvania, to protect the northern terminus of the Venango Path. It was the first of the French p ...
on August 12, he decided to negotiate a treaty with a delegation of Ohio Indians led by Guyasuta. Bradstreet exceeded his authority by conducting a peace treaty rather than a simple truce, and by agreeing to halt Bouquet's expedition, which had not yet left Fort Pitt. Gage, Johnson, and Bouquet were outraged when they learned what Bradstreet had done. Gage rejected the treaty, believing that Bradstreet had been duped into abandoning his offensive in the Ohio Country. Gage may have been correct: the Ohio Indians did not return prisoners as promised in a second meeting with Bradstreet in September, and some Shawnees were trying to enlist French aid in order to continue the war.
Bradstreet continued westward, unaware his unauthorized diplomacy was angering his superiors. He reached Fort Detroit on August 26, where he negotiated another treaty. In an attempt to discredit Pontiac, who was not present, Bradstreet chopped up a peace belt Pontiac had sent to the meeting. According to historian
Richard White, "such an act, roughly equivalent to a European ambassador's urinating on a proposed treaty, had shocked and offended the gathered Indians." Bradstreet also claimed the Indians had accepted British sovereignty as a result of his negotiations, but Johnson believed this had not been fully explained to the Indians and that further councils would be needed. Bradstreet had successfully reinforced and reoccupied British forts in the region, but his diplomacy proved to be controversial and inconclusive.
Colonel Bouquet, delayed in Pennsylvania while mustering the militia, finally set out from Fort Pitt on October 3, 1764, with 1,150 men. He marched to the
Muskingum River
The Muskingum River (Shawnee: ') is a tributary of the Ohio River, approximately long, in southeastern Ohio in the United States. An important commercial route in the 19th century, it flows generally southward through the eastern hill country o ...
in the Ohio Country, within striking distance of a number of Indian villages. Treaties had been negotiated at Fort Niagara and Fort Detroit, so the Ohio Indians were isolated and, with some exceptions, ready to make peace. In a council which began on October 17, Bouquet demanded that the Ohio Indians return all captives, including those not yet returned from the French and Indian War. Guyasuta and other leaders reluctantly handed over more than 200 captives, many of whom had been adopted into Indian families. Not all of the captives were present, so the Indians were compelled to surrender hostages as a guarantee that the other captives would be returned. The Ohio Indians agreed to attend a more formal peace conference with William Johnson, which was finalized in July 1765.
Treaty with Pontiac
Although the military conflict essentially ended with the 1764 expeditions, Indians still called for resistance in the Illinois Country, where British troops had yet to take possession of
Fort de Chartres
Fort de Chartres was a French fortification first built in 1720 on the east bank of the Mississippi River in present-day Illinois. It was used as the administrative center for the province, which was part of New France. Due generally to river floo ...
from the French. A Shawnee war chief named
Charlot Kaské Charlot Kaské (fl. 1763–1765) was a Shawnee war chief during Pontiac's War. Kaské's personal details were unusual for a Shawnee chief: he was a Catholic, his father was German, and his wife was an English captive brought up among the Shawnees.
...
emerged as the most strident anti-British leader in the region, temporarily surpassing Pontiac in influence. Kaské traveled as far south as
in an effort to enlist French aid against the British.
In 1765, the British decided that the occupation of the Illinois Country could only be accomplished by diplomatic means. As Gage commented to one of his officers, he was determined to have "none our enemy" among the Indian peoples, and that included Pontiac, to whom he now sent a wampum belt suggesting peace talks. Pontiac had become less militant after hearing of Bouquet's truce with the Ohio country Indians. Johnson's deputy,
George Croghan
George Croghan (c. 1718 – August 31, 1782) was an Irish-born fur trader in the Ohio Country of North America (current United States) who became a key early figure in the region. In 1746 he was appointed to the Onondaga Council, the governin ...
, accordingly traveled to the Illinois country in the summer of 1765, and although he was injured along the way in an attack by Kickapoos and Mascoutens, he managed to meet and negotiate with Pontiac. While Charlot Kaské wanted to burn Croghan at the stake, Pontiac urged moderation and agreed to travel to New York, where he made a formal treaty with William Johnson at
Fort Ontario
Fort Ontario is an American historic bastion fort situated by the City of Oswego in Oswego County, New York. It is owned by the state of New York and operated as a museum known as Fort Ontario State Historic Site.
Geography and early history
F ...
on July 25, 1766. It was hardly a surrender: no lands were ceded, no prisoners returned, and no hostages were taken. Rather than accept British sovereignty, Kaské left British territory by crossing the
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...
with other French and Native refugees.
Aftermath
![Bouquet captives](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/Bouquet_captives.jpg)
The total loss of life resulting from Pontiac's War is unknown. About 400 British soldiers were killed in action and perhaps 50 were captured and tortured to death. George Croghan estimated that 2,000 settlers had been killed or captured, a figure sometimes repeated as 2,000 settlers ''killed''. The violence compelled approximately 4,000 settlers from Pennsylvania and Virginia to flee their homes. American Indian losses went mostly unrecorded, but it has been estimated at least 200 warriors were killed in battle, with additional deaths if germ warfare initiated at Fort Pitt was successful.
Pontiac's War has traditionally been portrayed as a defeat for the Indians, but scholars now usually view it as a military stalemate: while the Indians had failed to drive away the British, the British were unable to conquer the Indians. Negotiation and accommodation, rather than success on the battlefield, ultimately brought an end to the war. The Indians had won a victory of sorts by compelling the British government to abandon Amherst's policies and create a relationship with the Indians modeled on the Franco-Indian alliance.
Relations between British colonists and American Indians, which had been severely strained during the French and Indian War, reached a new low during Pontiac's War. According to Dixon (2005), "Pontiac's War was unprecedented for its awful violence, as both sides seemed intoxicated with
genocidal
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Latin ...
fanaticism." Richter (2001) characterizes the Indian attempt to drive out the British, and the effort of the Paxton Boys to eliminate Indians from their midst, as parallel examples of
ethnic cleansing. People on both sides of the conflict had come to the conclusion that colonists and natives were inherently different and could not live with each other. According to Richter, the war saw the emergence of "the novel idea that all Native people were 'Indians,' that all Euro-Americans were 'Whites,' and that all on one side must unite to destroy the other."
The British government also came to the conclusion that colonists and Indians must be kept apart. On October 7, 1763, the Crown issued the
Royal Proclamation of 1763
The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was issued by King George III on 7 October 1763. It followed the Treaty of Paris (1763), which formally ended the Seven Years' War and transferred French territory in North America to Great Britain. The Procla ...
, an effort to reorganize
British North America
British North America comprised the colonial territories of the British Empire in North America from 1783 onwards. English overseas possessions, English colonisation of North America began in the 16th century in Newfoundland (island), Newfound ...
after the
Treaty of Paris Treaty of Paris may refer to one of many treaties signed in Paris, France:
Treaties
1200s and 1300s
* Treaty of Paris (1229), which ended the Albigensian Crusade
* Treaty of Paris (1259), between Henry III of England and Louis IX of France
* Trea ...
. The Proclamation, already in the works when Pontiac's War erupted, was hurriedly issued after news of the uprising reached London. Officials drew a boundary line between the British colonies and American Indian lands west of the
Appalachian Mountains
The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, (french: Appalaches), are a system of mountains in eastern to northeastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. They ...
, creating a vast
"Indian Reserve" that stretched from the Appalachians to the
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...
and from
Florida
Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...
to
Quebec
Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...
. By forbidding colonists from trespassing on Indian lands, the British government hoped to avoid more conflicts like Pontiac's War. "The Royal Proclamation," writes Calloway (2006), "reflected the notion that segregation not interaction should characterize Indian-white relations."
The effects of Pontiac's War were long-lasting. Because the Proclamation officially recognized that indigenous people had certain rights to the lands they occupied, it has been called a Native American "Bill of Rights," and still informs the relationship between the Canadian government and
First Nations
First Nations or first peoples may refer to:
* Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area.
Indigenous groups
*First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including:
**First Natio ...
. For British colonists and land speculators, however, the Proclamation seemed to deny them the fruits of victory—western lands—that had been won in the war with France. This created resentment, undermining colonial attachment to the Empire and contributing to the coming of the
American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...
. According to Calloway, "Pontiac's Revolt was not the last American war for independence—American colonists launched a rather more successful effort a dozen years later, prompted in part by the measures the British government took to try to prevent another war like Pontiac's."
For American Indians, Pontiac's War demonstrated the possibilities of pan-tribal cooperation in resisting Anglo-American colonial expansion. Although the conflict divided tribes and villages, the war also saw the first extensive multi-tribal resistance to
European colonization
The historical phenomenon of colonization is one that stretches around the globe and across time. Ancient and medieval colonialism was practiced by the Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Turks, and the Arabs.
Colonialism in the modern sense began ...
in North America, and the first war between Europeans and American Indians that did not end in complete defeat for the Indians. The Proclamation of 1763 ultimately did not prevent British colonists and land speculators from expanding westward, and so Indians found it necessary to form new resistance movements. Beginning with conferences hosted by Shawnees in 1767, in the following decades leaders such as
Joseph Brant
Thayendanegea or Joseph Brant (March 1743 – November 24, 1807) was a Mohawk people, Mohawk military and political leader, based in present-day New York (state), New York, who was closely associated with Kingdom of Great Britain, Great B ...
,
Alexander McGillivray
Alexander McGillivray, also known as ''Hoboi-Hili-Miko'' (December 15, 1750February 17, 1793), was a Muscogee (Creek) leader. The son of a Muscogee mother and a Scottish father, he had skills no other Creek of his day had: he was not only liter ...
,
Blue Jacket
Blue Jacket, or Weyapiersenwah (c. 1743 – 1810), was a war chief of the Shawnee people, known for his militant defense of Shawnee lands in the Ohio Country. Perhaps the preeminent American Indian leader in the Northwest Indian War, i ...
, and
Tecumseh would attempt to forge confederacies that would revive the resistance efforts of Pontiac's War.
References
Notes
Citations
Sources
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*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
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*
* Parkman's landmark 2-volume work, originally published in 1851, subsequently revised and often reprinted, has largely been supplanted by modern scholarship.
*
*
*
*
*
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{{authority control
18th-century rebellions
Battles involving Native Americans
Colonial American and Indian wars
Odawa
Rebellions against the British Empire
Battles involving the Iroquois
Native American history of Illinois
Native American history of Indiana
Native American history of Michigan
Native American history of Ohio
Native American history of Pennsylvania
Native American history of Wisconsin
First Nations history in Ontario
Military history of Michigan
1760s in Canada
1760s in the Thirteen Colonies
Native American genocide