Pontiac's War (1763-1764)

After the close of the French and Indian War (1754-63), Native Americans fought the British in the bloody Pontiac’s War—popularly known as Pontiac’s Rebellion—in the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes region. The popular name of the conflict is misleading. Calling what was a war a “rebellion” reflects an Anglocentric view that implies that Great Britain controlled the Indians in the region to begin with. Moreover, identifying the war with Pontiac is also wrong. Although Pontiac was important, especially in the siege of Detroit, he led only one of many Native American groups to violently oppose the British intrusion into the Ohio and Great Lakes areas.

The conflict began with the Anglo-American triumph in the French and Indian War and a lack of diplomatic sensibility on the part of the British. French officials had extended their influence in the area for more than a century not only through a trade network but also by cementing ritual ties to the Indians by presenting them with gifts of muskets, gunpowder, and a host of other material goods. After France surrendered Canada to Great Britain and gave Louisiana to Spain, the situation changed. Without competition, British traders drove harder bargains than the French had in trading for furs. Moreover, the British government was unsympathetic to the Indians. The British commander in North America, Lieutenant General Jeffrey Amherst, saw the Native Americans as subjects—not allies—and believed that the Crown should not have to pay for Indian loyalty. This attitude, combined with Amherst’s need to cut costs in the wake of the French and Indian War, meant that the British provided almost no gifts to the Indians. In addition, Amherst demanded that the Indians return all European-American captives. Since Indian societies often adopted captives into their tribes and families— and years of living together fostered strong ties, especially for those taken when children—this policy exacerbated tensions between Native and European Americans.

In the meantime, a Delaware visionary named Neolin began preaching for a revitalization of Native culture. Neolin proclaimed that the only way for the Indians to redeem themselves was to abandon the corrupting liquor, trade goods, and firearms of European Americans and return to their own traditions. Neolin reported that “the Master of Life” had told him: “This land where ye dwell I have made for you and not for others. Whence comes it that ye permit the Whites upon your lands?” Neolin said that he had a vision “of Heaven where there was no White people but all Indians.” The implication of the message was clear—the Native Americans should drive the intruders out from the lands.

Pontiac capitalized on Neolin’s ideas and met with Indians from several tribes, including Shawnee, Miami, Potawatomi, Ottawa, Delaware, and Seneca, to convince them that “It is important for us, my brothers, that we exterminate from our lands this nation which seeks only to destroy us.” On May 9, 1763, Pontiac began an attack on the fort at Detroit. Fortunately for the British, Major Henry Gladwin, the fort’s commander, had been warned of the attack, and his men were not surprised. However, a British sortie on July 31 was beaten back at the Battle of Bloody Run (July 31, 1763). Despite such setbacks, Gladwin held out during a five-month siege. Other commanders were not so lucky. Nine British military outposts fell throughout the Great Lakes region, and about 500 British soldiers were killed. The conflict soon spread to the outlying settlements of Pennsylvania and Virginia, leading to the deaths of hundreds of colonists. Indians also besieged Fort Pitt, where the local commander resorted to biological warfare by giving smallpox-infected blankets to the Indians (see also DISEASE AND EPIDEMICS). Native casualties mounted. The Indians had hoped that the French army would return to help them, but that was now impossible since the French had left the continent.

Diplomatic errors started the war, and diplomatic skill helped to end it. Sir William Johnson, the British agent to Indians in the North, managed to keep five of the six Iroquois nations out of the struggle. In 1764 he convinced the Seneca to withdraw from the conflict. Throughout that year, Johnson called the chiefs of the warring nations to his home at Johnson Hall in the Mohawk Valley. By giving presents and making masterful speeches, Sir William persuaded many Indians to stop fighting.

Military action made a bigger contribution to the end of the war. Slowly the British sent relief columns to Fort Pitt and Detroit and began to retaliate against the Indians with a war of annihilation. Amherst ordered troops to invade Seneca country—before Johnson’s arranged peace—and told them to “Destroy their Huts and Plantations, putting to Death everyone of that Nation that may fall into your Hands.” Pontiac’s siege of Fort Detroit fell apart as summer turned to fall in 1763 after Major Gladwin received men and equipment transported across Lake Erie. Smallpox raged through the Indian camps along the Detroit River, and many of the Indians, frustrated by their failure to capture the fort, wanted to begin the winter hunt. Pontiac formally ended the siege on October 30. Elsewhere hostilities persisted for another year: Two British armies marched into Indian country in 1764, compelling the Native Americans to submit to the authority of the king. Pontiac, who had retreated farther west, did not agree to a peace until 1765.

This Indian war had important implications beyond the ERONTIER. Because of his failure to anticipate the Indian attack, Amherst was replaced as commander in chief in North America by THOMAS Gage, who would retain his position—for good and for ill—until after the outbreak of the Revolutionary War (1775-83). The British government also became even more convinced of the importance of separating its Native American and European-Ameri-can subjects with the Proclamation oe 1763, adding a grievance to a growing list of colonial concerns during the RESISTANCE MovEMENT (1764-75). Within the colonies, the conflict known as Pontiac’s War intensified racial hatred between European Americans and Native Americans as can be seen in the brutal massacre of peaceful Christian Indians by the Paxton Boys in 1764.

Further reading: Colin G. Calloway, The Scratch of a Pen: 1763 and the Transformation of North America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006); Gregory Evans Dowd, A Spirited Resistance: The North American Indian Struggle for Unity, 1745-1815 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992); William Nester, “Haughty Conquerors”: Amherst and the Great Indian Uprising of1763 (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2000); Howard H. Peckham, Pontiac and the Indian Uprising (New York: Russell & Russell, 1970).