Chief Pontiac - Siege of Detroit

Siege of Detroit

After the French and Indian War, Native American allies of the defeated French became increasingly dissatisfied with the trading practices of the victorious British. General Jeffrey Amherst, decided to cut back on the provisions customarily distributed to the Indians from the various forts, which he considered to be bribes. Normand Macleod, a fur trader, heard Pontiac was accepting ten shillings a day from the British, a perquisite resented by Indian leaders who were not receiving it. The French had made readily traded gunpowder and ammunition, which the Indians came to depend on for hunting game for food and for skins for trade. As Amherst mistrusted his former Indian adversaries, he restricted the distribution of gunpowder and ammunition.

Pontiac, like other Indian leaders, was unhappy with the new British policies. Taking advantage of this dissatisfaction, as well as a religious revival inspired by a Lenape prophet named Neolin, Pontiac planned a resistance. He hoped to drive British soldiers and settlers away, and to revive the valued French alliance. On April 27, 1763, Pontiac spoke at a council at present-day Council Point Park on the shores of the Ecorse River, in what is now Lincoln Park, Michigan, about 10 miles (15 km) southwest of Detroit. Pontiac urged the listeners to join him in a surprise attack on Fort Detroit. On May 1, Pontiac visited the fort with 50 Ottawa in order 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.

Native Americans made widespread attacks against British forts and Anglo-American (but not French) settlements in the Ohio Country. Historians have differed in their assessments of Pontiac's influence in events beyond the Detroit region. Older accounts of the war portrayed Pontiac as a savage but brilliant mastermind behind a massive "conspiracy," which was planned in advance. Current historians generally agree that Pontiac's actions at Detroit were the spark that instigated the widespread uprising, and that he helped to spread the resistance by sending emissaries urging others to join it, but he did not command it as a whole. Native leaders around Fort Pitt and Fort Niagara, for example, had long been calling for resistance to the British and were not led by Pontiac. According to the historian John Sugden, Pontiac "was neither the originator nor the strategist of the rebellion, but he kindled it by daring to act, and his early successes, ambition, and determination won him a temporary prominence not enjoyed by any of the other Indian leaders."