Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History
Benson Lossing, Ed.

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Pontiac,

Ottawa chief; born on the Ottawa River in 1720; became an early ally of the French. With a body of Ottawas he defended the French tradingpost of Detroit against more northerly tribes, and it is supposed he led the Ottawas who assisted the French in defeating Braddock on the Monongahela. In 1760, after the conquest of Canada, Major Rogers was sent to take possession of the Western posts. Pontiac feigned friendship for the. English for a while, but in 1763 he was the leader in a conspiracy of many tribes to drive the English from the Ohio country back beyond the Alleghany Mountains.

The French had won the affection and respect of the Indian tribes with whom they came in contact, by their kindness, sociability, and religious influence; and when the English, formidable enemies of the red men, supplanted the French in [253]

Pontiac.

the alleged possession of the vast domain acquired by the treaty of Paris, expelled the Roman Catholic priests, and haughtily assumed to be absolute lords of the Indians' country, the latter were exasperated, and resolved to stand firmly in the way of English pretensions. “Since the French must go, no other nation should take their place.” The conspiracy known as Pontiac's began with the lower nations. The Senecas, of the Six Nations, the Delawares and Shawnees, had for some time urged the Northwestern Indians to take up arms against the English. They said: “The English mean to make slaves of us, by occupying so many posts in our country.” The British had erected log forts here and there in the Western wilderness. “We had better attempt something now to recover our liberty, than to wait till they are better established,” said the nations, and their persuasions had begun to stir up the patriotism of the Northwestern barbarians, when an Abenake prophet from eastern New Jersey appeared among them. He was a chief, and had first satisfied his own people that the Great Spirit had given him wisdom to proclaim war against the new invaders. He said the great Manitou had appeared to him in a vision, saying, “I am the Lord of life; it is I who made all men; I wake for their safety. Therefore I give you warning, that if you suffer the Englishmen to dwell in your midst, their diseases and their poisons shall destroy you utterly, and you shall die.” The chief preached a crusade against the English among the Western tribes, and so prepared the way for Pontiac to easily form his conspiracy.

After the capture of Fort Duquesne, settlers from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia went over the mountains into the Ohio region in large numbers. They were not kindly disposed towards the Indians, and French traders fanned the embers of hostility between the races. The Delawares and Shawnees, who had lately emigrated from Pennsylvania, and were on the banks of the Muskingum, Scioto, and Miami, nursed hatred of the English and stirred up the Western tribes against the white people. Pontiac took the lead in a widespread conspiracy, and organized a confederacy for the purpose of driving the English back beyond the Alleghanies. The confederacy was composed of the Ottawas, Miamis, Wyandottes, Delawares, Shawnees, Ontagamies, Chippewas, Pottawattomies, Mississagas, Foxes, and Winnebagoes. These had been allies of the French. The Senecas, the most westerly of the Six Nations, joined the confederacy, but the other tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy (q. v.) were kept quiet by Sir William Johnson. It was arranged for a simultaneous attack to be made along the whole frontier of Pennsylvania and Virginia. The conspiracy was unsuspected until it was ripe and the first blow was struck, in June, 1763. English traders scattered through the frontier regions were plundered and slain. At almost the same instant they attacked all of the English outposts taken from the French, and made themselves masters of nine of them, massacring or dispersing the garrisons. Forts Pitt, Niagara, and Detroit were saved. Colonel Bouquet saved Fort Pitt (now Pittsburg); Niagara was not attacked; and Detroit, after a long siege by Pontiac in person, was relieved by Colonel Bradstreet in 1764. The Indians were speedily subdued, but Pontiac remained hostile until his death in Cahokia, Ill., in 1769. He was an able [254] sachem and warrior, and, like King Philip, was doubtless moved by patriotic impulses; for the flow of emigration over the mountains threatened his race with displacement if not with destruction. See Detroit.