Pontiac's War (also known as Pontiac's Conspiracy or Pontiac's Rebellion) was an uprising of Native American tribes against English rule in America. A few tribes, mainly from the Great Lakes region, the Illinois Country, and Ohio Country started it in 1763. The cause of the war was that these tribes were dissatisfied with British poltics in the region. Warriors from other tribes joined the uprising, to help drive the English soldiers and settlers out of the region. The war is named after the Odawa leader Pontiac, the most prominent of many native leaders in the conflict.
The British were among the winners of the French and Indian War, which lasted from 1754 to 1763. As a result, large territories in the region that were controlled by the French came under English rule. French and English politics were very different.
The war began in May 1763 when Native Americans attacked a number of British forts and settlements. They attacked, because they had been offended by the policies of British General Jeffrey Amherst. Eight forts were destroyed, and hundreds of colonists were killed or captured. Many people fled from the region. Hostilities came to an end after British Army expeditions in 1764 led to peace negotiations over the next two years. Native Americans were unable to drive away the British, but the uprising prompted the British government to change the policies that had provoked the conflict.
Warfare on the North American frontier was brutal: Prisoners were often killed. Civilians were often targeted. Other atrocities were widespread. The population of Native Americans and British settlers had very little in common. In this conflict, this fact showed as ruthlessness and treachery. Contrary to popular belief, the British government did not issue the Royal Proclamation of 1763 in reaction to Pontiac's War. Because of the conflict, the Proclamation's Indian clauses were applied more often, though. This proved unpopular with British colonists, and may have been one of the early contributing factors to the American Revolution.
The conflict is named after its most famous participant, the Ottawa leader Pontiac; variations include "Pontiac's War", "Pontiac's Rebellion", and "Pontiac's Uprising". An early name for the war was the "Kiyasuta and Pontiac War"."Kiyasuta" is a different spelling for Guyasuta, an influential Seneca/Mingo leader. The war became widely known as "Pontiac's Conspiracy" after Francis Parkman's "The Conspiracy of Pontiac" was published in 1851. This important book has been the definitive account of the war for nearly a century and is still in print.
In the 20th century, some historians argued that Parkman exaggerated Pontiac's influence in the conflict and that it was misleading to name the war after him. For example, in 1988 Francis Jennings wrote: "In Francis Parkman's murky mind the backwoods plots [came] from one savage genius, the Ottawa chief Pontiac, and [for this reason] they became 'The Conspiracy of Pontiac,' but Pontiac was only a local Ottawa war chief in a 'resistance' involving many tribes." Even though other names for the war have been proposed, many historians still use familiar names for this war. "Pontiac's War" is probably the most commonly used. Scholars use the name "Pontiac's Conspiracy" less often.
In the decades before Pontiac's rebellion, there were a number of wars in Europe which also had an influence on the French and Indian Wars in North America. The largest of these wars was the Seven Years' War. In this war, France lost New France in North America to Great Britain. The Shawnee and Lenape had also fought in this war. The Treaty of Easton was signed in 1758, and brought peace with these tribes. In the treaty, the British promised not to settle further beyond the ridge of the Alleghenies. This line was confirmed in 1763, but few people respected it. Most fighting in the North American theater of the war, generally referred to as the French and Indian War in the United States, came to an end after British General Jeffrey Amherst captured Montreal, the last important French settlement, in 1760.
British troops then occupied the various forts in the Ohio Country and Great Lakes region previously held by the French. Even before the war officially ended with the Treaty of Paris (1763), the British Crown began to implement changes in order to administer its vastly expanded North American territory. The politics of the French and the English was different, though. The French had made alliaces with certain Native American tribes, and traded with them. After the war, these Native American tribes were conquered people. Before long, Native Americans who had been allies of the defeated French were more and more dissatisfied with the British occupation and the new policies imposed by the victors.
Today, it is difficult to say who exactly took part in the rebellion. At the time, the region was known as "pays d'en haut" ("upper country"), but its borders were not defined exactly. Until the Paris peace treaty of 1763, it was claimed by France. Native Americans from many different tribes lived there. At the time, a "tribe" was a group of people who spoke the same language, or a group of people who belonged to the same family. It was not a political unit. No chief spoke for an entire tribe, and no tribe acted in unison. For example, Ottawas did not go to war as a tribe: some Ottawa leaders chose to do so, while other Ottawa leaders denounced the war and stayed clear of the conflict.
There were three basic groups of tribes. The first group was composed of tribes of the Great Lakes region: Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi, who spoke Algonquian languages; and the Huron, who spoke an Iroquoian language. They had long been allied with French "habitants". They lived among them, they traded with them, and marriages between French settlers and Native Americans were common. Great Lakes Native Americans were alarmed to learn that they were under British sovereignty after the French loss of North America. When a British garrison took possession of Fort Detroit from the French in 1760, local Native Americans cautioned them that "this country was given by God to the Indians."
The second group was made of the tribes from eastern Illinois Country: It included the Miami, Wea, Kickapoo, Mascouten, and Piankashaw. Like the Great Lakes tribes, these people had a long history of close trading and other relations with the French. Throughout the war, the British were unable to project military power into the Illinois Country, which was on the remote western edge of the conflict. The Illinois tribes were the last to come to terms with the British.
The third group was made of tribes of the Ohio Country: Delawares (Lenape), Shawnee, Wyandot, and Mingo. These people had migrated to the Ohio valley earlier in the century from the mid-Atlantic and other eastern areas. They did this to escape British, French, and Iroquois domination in the New York and Pennsylvania area. Unlike the Great Lakes and Illinois Country tribes, Ohio Native Americans had no great attachment to the French regime. They had fought as French allies in the previous war in an effort to drive away the British. They made a separate peace with the British with the understanding that the British Army would withdraw from the Ohio Country. But after the departure of the French, the British strengthened their forts in the region rather than abandoning them, and so the Ohioans went to war in 1763 in another attempt to drive out the British.