A great chief of the Ottawa Indians and leader of the confederacy of tribes of the Ohio Valley and the Great Lakes region when these Indians sought to drive out the English in 1763-1765. Described as patient, subtle, and cruel, Pontiac was considered second only to Tecumseh as the greatest Indian leader of early American history.
Pontiac was born in Ohio in 1712, the son of an Ottawa chief and a Chippewa mother. He led the Ottawa and Chippewa at the English General Braddock's defeat. In 1760 he agreed to the surrender of Detroit to the British when he heard that his allies, the French, had been defeated in Canada. For a time after that Pontiac appeared friendly to the British, but considered King George only as an "uncle," because he felt that he had not received from the British Crown the recognition he deserved as a great sovereign.
But three years later Pontiac entered into a conspiracy with the French to attack the settlements and garrisons of the British on the Great Lakes. He formed a confederacy of the Ottawa, Wyandot, Potawatomi, Shawnee, Winnebago, and other tribes, and planned for each tribe to attack the nearest fort on the same day - this Indian D-Day being in May, 1763.
Pontiac determined to take Detroit himself. The Indians successfully captured ten of the fourteen British posts from Pennsylvania to lake Superior, but failed to take Niagara, Fort Pitt, Ligonier, and Detroit. An Indian girl is said to have informed a British officer of the plot to capture Detroit, and Pontiac found the British there well prepared. He began a siege which lasted five months.
When informed of a treaty of peace between France and England Pontiac was forced to raise the siege at Detroit. He went west and made an unsuccessful attempt to stir up tribes along the Mississippi River. Pontiac finally entered into a formal treaty of peace at Detroit on August 17, 1765. Four years later, while engaged in a drinking bout at Cahokia, Illinois, he was murdered by a Kaskaskia Indian.
Related Information within this Site
[ Brant ][ Illinois
][ King Philip ][ Miami
][ Ottawa ][ Potawatomi ][ Shabonee
][ Shawnee ][ Tecumseh ]