Robert Rogers
Pontiac’s last few years are primarily veiled in obscurity, with documents of the era offering only occasional glimpses of the man who brought together so many Indian peoples to attempt what in retrospect appears clearly to have
Been an impossible objective: to turn back the tide of westward EuroAmerican expansion. In June 1766, Pontiac appeared along the Detroit River with members of several other groups, including the Ojibwa, Potawatomi, Wyandot, and Illinois. For some reason lost to history, Pontiac stabbed a Peoria chief named Black Dog, seriously wounding him. The occasion for the gathering was to meet with Hugh Crawford, who had been dispatched by Sir William Johnson with wampum belts to meet and escort a number of chiefs who had fought against the British to a meeting at Fort Ontario at Oswego, New York. There they were to ratify the peace agreements agreed to in the previous year. The fight between Pontiac and Black Dog may have resulted from the tensions between the Ottawa leader and other chiefs over a supposed annuity paid him by Johnson.
Pontiac and the others accompanying Crawford traveled, ironically, on the Victory, which had been used to resupply Fort Detroit in 1763. They reached Fort Erie on June 28, where Pontiac encountered an old acquaintance, Robert Rogers, who was traveling to Michilimackinac to become commandant of the garrison there. Rogers had just returned from England, where he had published A Concise Account of North America. He also had witnessed his stage play, a drama based on Pontiac’s efforts against the British called Ponteach, or, The Savages of America, be both performed and published.
In A Concise Account, Rogers describes his friendship with Pontiac (spelled “Ponteack”), including the protection and assistance that Pontiac provided to Rogers and his military detachment in 1760 prior to Pontiac’s war against the British. He recounts his own sending of a bottle of brandy to Pontiac in 1763 when Rogers was escorting provisions to the besieged Fort Detroit. According to Rogers, Pontiac was warned not to drink the brandy for fear it was poisoned. In response, the Ottawa chief, supposedly referring to the 1760 meeting, “laughed at their suspicions, saying it was not in my power to kill him, who had so lately saved my life.” Rogers praises Pontiac highly, noting how honored and respected he is by other Indian nations, possessing the “greatest authority of any Indian Chief that has appeared on the continent since our acquaintance with it.” Rogers also cites Pontiac’s “great strength of judgment, and a thirst after knowledge.”8 Rogers surely would have informed Pontiac of these literary tributes to his former friend and adversary.
Thomas Morris
Continuing to Fort Niagara, Pontiac had a reunion with Thomas Morris, who had become the fort’s commander. Morris, like Rogers, paid high tribute to Pontiac in print. In The Journal of Captain Thomas Morris, which he wrote in 1764 and published in 1791 within Miscellanies in Prose and Verse, Morris also perceived Pontiac as first among chiefs, with “a more extensive power than ever was known among that people; for every chief used to command his own tribe: but eighteen nations, by French intrigue, had been brought to unite, and chuse this man for their commander.
Sir William Johnson
Pontiac and his party reached Fort Ontario in early July, but had to wait until about July 22 for the arrival of Johnson, who was recovering from an illness. Johnson finally arrived and convened the conference on July 23. The superintendent brought out the pipe that Pontiac had sent to him through Croghan the year before and passed it around—a wise political move given Johnson’s desire to have his guests recommit to peace. According to the British account of the conference, Pontiac responded respectfully and positively while promising a formal response the next day. When the conference reconvened, Pontiac apparently promised to take Johnson “by the hand,” assured Johnson of his determination to maintain peace, and presented at least seven wampum belts that essentially served in place of a written contract.10
After a two-day halt because of inclement weather, the conference continued for several more days. Pontiac spoke a number of times, delivered additional belts, promised to retrieve war belts that had been sent to various Indian nations, and, if the British account is accurate, may have erred by presenting himself too much as the supreme leader of the peoples gathered at the conference. Howard Peckham surmises that Johnson may have tried to position Pontiac in such a way as to create resentment toward him, thereby undermining the standing of the individual whom the British may have most feared could lead further rebellions against their rule. Rumors of Pontiac receiving a pension from the British also apparently engendered resentment on the part of some of the Detroit-area Indians. Norman McLeod, the Indian commissary at Fort Ontario, reported to Johnson that a French trader had passed along the pension rumor and predicted that Pontiac would be murdered within a year if the British appeared to be favoring him. The prophecy of Pontiac’s death would indeed come true, just not quite so soon, and not necessarily because of perceived British favoritism.
World History
