Pontiac ' s War Pontiac ' s War , Pontiac ' s Conspiracy , or Pontiac ' s Rebellion was a war that was launched in 1763 by a loose confederation of elements of Native American tribes primarily from the Great Lakes region , the Illinois Country , and Ohio Country who were dissatisfied with British postwar policies in the Great Lakes region after the British victory in the French and Indian War ( 1754 – 1763 ) . Warriors from numerous tribes joined the uprising in an effort to drive British soldiers and settlers out of the region . The war is named after the Ottawa leader Pontiac , the most prominent of many native leaders in the conflict . The war began in May 1763 when Native Americans , offended by the policies of British General Jeffrey Amherst , attacked a number of British forts and settlements . Eight forts were destroyed , and hundreds of colonists were killed or captured , with many more fleeing 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 modify the policies that had provoked the conflict . Warfare on the North American frontier was brutal , and the killing of prisoners , the targeting of civilians , and other atrocities were widespread . In what is now perhaps the best - known incident of the war , British officers at Fort Pitt attempted to infect the besieging Native Americans with smallpox using blankets that had been exposed to the virus . The ruthlessness and treachery of the conflict was a reflection of a growing divide between the separate populations of the British colonists and Native Americans . Contrary to popular belief , the British government did not issue the Royal Proclamation of 1763 , in reaction to Pontiac ' s War , though the conflict did provide an impetus for the application of the Proclamation ' s Indian clauses . This proved unpopular with British colonists , and may have been one of the early contributing factors to the American Revolution . Naming the conflict . 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 " being an alternate spelling for Guyasuta , an influential Seneca / Mingo leader . The war became widely known as " Pontiac ' s Conspiracy " after the publication in 1851 of Francis Parkman ' s " The Conspiracy of Pontiac " . Parkman ' s influential book , the definitive account of the war for nearly a century , is still in print . In the 20th century , some historians argued that Parkman exaggerated the extent of Pontiac ' s influence in the conflict and that it was therefore misleading to name the war after Pontiac . For example , in 1988 Francis Jennings wrote : " In Francis Parkman ' s murky mind the backwoods plots emanated from one savage genius , the Ottawa chief Pontiac , and thus they became ' The Conspiracy of Pontiac , ' but Pontiac was only a local Ottawa war chief in a ' resistance ' involving many tribes . " Alternate titles for the war have been proposed , but historians generally continue to refer to the war by the familiar names , with " Pontiac ' s War " probably the most commonly used . " Pontiac ' s Conspiracy " is now infrequently used by scholars . Origins . In the decades before Pontiac ' s Rebellion , France and Great Britain participated in a series of wars in Europe that also involved the French and Indian Wars in North America . The largest of these wars was the worldwide Seven Years ' War , in which France lost New France in North America to Great Britain . Peace with the Shawnee and Lenape who had been combatants came in 1758 with the Treaty of Easton , where the British promised not to settle further beyond the ridge of the Alleghenies - a demarcation later to be confirmed by the Royal Proclamation of 1763 , though it was little respected . Most fighting in the North American theater of the war , generally called the French and Indian War in the United States , came to an end after British General Jeffrey Amherst captured the last important French settlement , Montréal , in 1760 . British troops proceeded to occupy the various forts in the Ohio Country and Great Lakes region previously garrisoned 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 . While the French had long cultivated alliances among certain of the Native Americans , the British post - war approach was essentially to treat the Native Americans as a conquered people . Before long , Native Americans who had been allies of the defeated French found themselves increasingly dissatisfied with the British occupation and the new policies imposed by the victors . Tribes involved . Native Americans involved in Pontiac ' s Rebellion lived in a vaguely defined region of New France known as the " pays d ' en haut " ( " the upper country " ) , which was claimed by France until the Paris peace treaty of 1763 . Native Americans of the " pays d ' en haut " were from many different tribe s . At this time and place , a " tribe " was a linguistic or ethnic group rather than 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 . The tribes of the " pays d ' en haut " consisted of three basic groups . The first group was the tribes of the Great Lakes region : Ottawas , Ojibwa s , Potawatomi s , and Hurons . They had long been allied with French " habitants " , with whom they lived , traded , and intermarried . 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 the tribes of the eastern Illinois Country , which included Miamis , Wea s , Kickapoos , Mascouten s , and Piankashaw s . Like the Great Lakes tribes , these people had a long history of close 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 , and so the Illinois tribes were the last to come to terms with the British . The third group was the tribes of the Ohio Country : Delawares ( Lenape ) , Shawnees , Wyandots , and Mingo s . These people had migrated to the Ohio valley earlier in the century in order to escape British , French , and Iroquois domination elsewhere . Unlike the Great Lakes and Illinois Country tribes , Ohio Native Americans had no great attachment to the French regime , and had fought alongside the French in the previous war only as a means of driving 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 . Outside the " pays d ' en haut " , the influential Iroquois Confederacy mostly did not participate in Pontiac ' s War because of their alliance with the British , known as the Covenant Chain . However , the westernmost Iroquois nation , the Seneca tribe , had become disaffected with the alliance . As early as 1761 , Senecas began to send out war messages to the Great Lakes and Ohio Country tribes , urging them to unite in an attempt to drive out the British . When the war finally came in 1763 , many Senecas were quick to take action . Amherst ' s policies . General Amherst , the British commander - in - chief in North America , was in overall charge of administering policy towards Native Americans , which involved both military matters and regulation of the fur trade . Amherst believed that with France out of the picture , the Native Americans would have no other choice than to accept British rule . He also believed that they were incapable of offering any serious resistance to the British Army ; therefore , of the 8 , 000 troops under his command in North America , only about 500 were stationed in the region where the war erupted . Amherst and officers such as Major Henry Gladwin , commander at Fort Detroit , made little effort to conceal their contempt for the Native Americans . Native Americans involved in the uprising frequently complained that the British treated them no better than slaves or dogs . Additional Native resentment resulted from Amherst ' s decision in February 1761 to cut back on the gifts given to the Native Americans . Gift giving had been an integral part of the relationship between the French and the tribes of the " pays d ' en haut " . Following a Native American custom that carried important symbolic meaning , the French gave presents ( such as guns , knives , tobacco , and clothing ) to village chiefs , who in turn redistributed these gifts to their people . By this process , the village chiefs gained stature among their people , and were thus able to maintain the alliance with the French . Amherst , however , considered this process to be a form of bribery that was no longer necessary , especially since he was under pressure to cut expenses after the war with France . Many Native Americans regarded this change in policy as an insult and an indication that the British looked upon them as conquered people rather than as allies . Amherst also began to restrict the amount of ammunition and gunpowder that traders could sell to Native Americans . While the French had always made these supplies available , Amherst did not trust the Native Americans , particularly after the " Cherokee Rebellion " of 1761 , in which Cherokee warriors took up arms against their former British allies . The Cherokee war effort had collapsed because of a shortage of gunpowder , and so Amherst hoped that future uprisings could be prevented by limiting the distribution of gunpowder . This created resentment and hardship because gunpowder and ammunition were wanted by native men because it made providing food for their families and skins for the fur trade much easier . Many Native Americans began to believe that the British were disarming them as a prelude to making war upon them . Sir William Johnson , the Superintendent of the Indian Department , tried to warn Amherst of the dangers of cutting back on presents and gunpowder , to no avail . Land and religion . Land was also an issue in the coming of the war . While the French colonists — most of whom were farmers who seasonally engaged in fur trade — had always been relatively few , there seemed to be no end of settlers in the British colonies , who wanted to clear the land of trees and occupy it . Shawnees and Delawares in the Ohio Country had been displaced by British colonists in the east , and this motivated their involvement in the war . On the other hand , Native Americans in the Great Lakes region and the Illinois Country had not been greatly affected by white settlement , although they were aware of the experiences of tribes in the east . Historian Gregory Dowd argues that most Native Americans involved in Pontiac ' s Rebellion were not immediately threatened with displacement by white settlers , and that historians have therefore overemphasized British colonial expansion as a cause of the war . Dowd believes that the presence , attitude , and policies of the British Army , which the Native Americans found threatening and insulting , were more important factors . Also contributing to the outbreak of war was a religious awakening which swept through Native settlements in the early 1760s . The movement was fed by discontent with the British as well as food shortages and epidemic disease . The most influential individual in this phenomenon was Neolin , known as the " Delaware Prophet " , who called upon Native Americans to shun the trade goods , alcohol , and weapons of the whites . Merging elements from Christianity into traditional religious beliefs , Neolin told listeners that the Master of Life was displeased with the Native Americans for taking up the bad habits of the white men , and that the British posed a threat to their very existence . " If you suffer the English among you , " said Neolin , " you are dead men . Sickness , smallpox , and their poison [ alcohol ] will destroy you entirely . " It was a powerful message for a people whose world was being changed by forces that seemed beyond their control . Outbreak of war , 1763 . Planning the war . Although fighting in Pontiac ' s Rebellion began in 1763 , rumors reached British officials as early as 1761 that discontented Native Americans were planning an attack . Senecas of the Ohio Country ( Mingos ) circulated messages ( " war belts " made of wampum ) which called for the tribes to form a confederacy and drive away the British . The Mingos , led by Guyasuta and Tahaiadoris , were concerned about being surrounded by British forts . Similar war belts originated from Detroit and the Illinois Country . The Native Americans were not unified , however , and in June 1761 , Native Americans at Detroit informed the British commander of the Seneca plot . After William Johnson held a large council with the tribes at Detroit in September 1761 a tenuous peace was maintained , but war belts continued to circulate . Violence finally erupted after the Native Americans learned in early 1763 of the imminent French cession of the " pays d ' en haut " to the British . The war began at Fort Detroit under the leadership of Pontiac , and quickly spread throughout the region . Eight British forts were taken ; others , including Fort Detroit and Fort Pitt , were unsuccessfully besieged . Francis Parkman ' s " The Conspiracy of Pontiac " portrayed these attacks as a coordinated operation planned by Pontiac . Parkman ' s interpretation remains well known , but other historians have since argued that there is no clear evidence that the attacks were part of a master plan or overall " conspiracy " . The prevailing view among scholars today is that , rather than being planned in advance , the uprising spread as word of Pontiac ' s actions at Detroit traveled throughout the " pays d ' en haut " , inspiring already discontented Native Americans to join the revolt . The attacks on British forts were not simultaneous : most Ohio Native Americans did not enter the war until nearly a month after the beginning of Pontiac ' s siege at Detroit . Parkman also believed that Pontiac ' s War had been secretly instigated by French colonists who were stirring up the Native Americans in order to make trouble for the British . This belief was widely held by British officials at the time , but subsequent historians have found no evidence of official French involvement in the uprising . ( The rumor of French instigation arose in part because French war belts from the Seven Years ' War were still in circulation in some Native villages . ) Rather than the French stirring up the Native Americans , some historians now argue that the Native Americans were trying to stir up the French . Pontiac and other native leaders frequently spoke of the imminent return of French power and the revival of the Franco - Native alliance ; Pontiac even flew a French flag in his village . All of this was apparently intended to inspire the French to rejoin the struggle against the British . Although some French colonists and traders supported the uprising , the war was initiated and conducted by Native Americans who had Native — not French — objectives . Middleton ( 2007 ) argues that Pontiac ' s vision , courage , persistence , and organizational abilities allowed him to activate a remarkable coalition of Indian nations prepared to fight successfully against the British . Though the idea to liberate Native Americans west of the Alleghany Mountains did not originate with him but with two Seneca leaders , by February 1763 Pontiac appeared to embrace the idea . At an emergency council meeting , Pontiac clarified his military support of the broad Seneca plan and worked to galvanize other nations into the military operation that he helped lead , in direct contradiction to traditional Indian leadership and tribal structure . Siege of Fort Detroit . On April 27 , 1763 , Pontiac spoke at a council on the shores of the Ecorse River , in what is now Lincoln Park , Michigan , about 10 miles ( 15 km ) southwest of Detroit . Using the teachings of Neolin to inspire his listeners , Pontiac convinced a number of Ottawas , Ojibwa s , Potawatomi s , and Hurons to join him in an attempt to seize Fort Detroit . On May 1 , Pontiac visited the fort with 50 Ottawas 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 . Hoping to take the stronghold by surprise , on May 7 Pontiac entered Fort Detroit with about 300 men carrying concealed weapons . The British had learned of Pontiac ' s plan , however , and were armed and ready . His tactic foiled , Pontiac withdrew after a brief council and , two days later , laid siege to the fort . Pontiac and his allies killed all of the British soldiers and settlers they could find outside of the fort , including women and children . One of the soldiers was ritually cannibalized , as was the custom in some Great Lakes Native cultures . The violence was directed at the British ; French colonists were generally left alone . Eventually more than 900 soldiers from a half - dozen tribes joined the siege . Meanwhile , on May 28 a British supply column from Fort Niagara led by Lieutenant Abraham Cuyler was ambushed and defeated at Point Pelee . After receiving reinforcements , the British attempted to make a surprise attack on Pontiac ' s encampment . But Pontiac was ready and waiting , and defeated them at the Battle of Bloody Run on July 31 , 1763 . Nevertheless , the situation at Fort Detroit remained a stalemate , and Pontiac ' s influence among his followers began to wane . Groups of Native Americans began to abandon the siege , some of them making peace with the British before departing . On October 31 , 1763 , finally convinced that the French in Illinois would not come to his aid at Detroit , Pontiac lifted the siege and removed to the Maumee River , where he continued his efforts to rally resistance against the British . Small forts taken . Before other British outposts had learned about Pontiac ' s siege at Detroit , Native Americans captured five small forts in a series of attacks between May 16 and June 2 . The first to be taken was Fort Sandusky , a small blockhouse on the shore of Lake Erie . It had been built in 1761 by order of General Amherst , despite the objections of local Wyandots , who in 1762 warned the commander that they would soon burn it down . On May 16 , 1763 , a group of Wyandots gained entry under the pretense of holding a council , the same stratagem that had failed in Detroit nine days earlier . They seized the commander and killed the other 15 soldiers , as well as British traders at the fort . These were among the first of about 100 traders who were killed in the early stages of the war . The dead were ritually scalped and the fort — as the Wyandots had warned a year earlier — was burned to the ground . Fort St . Joseph ( the site of present - day Niles , Michigan ) was captured on May 25 , 1763 , by the same method as at Sandusky . Potawatomis seized the commander and killed most of the 15 - man garrison outright . Fort Miami ( on the site of present Fort Wayne , Indiana ) was the third fort to fall . On May 27 , 1763 , the commander was lured out of the fort by his Native mistress and shot dead by Miami Native Americans . The nine - man garrison surrendered after the fort was surrounded . In the Illinois Country , , Kickapoos , and Mascoutens took Fort Ouiatenon ( about southwest of present Lafayette , Indiana ) on June 1 , 1763 . They lured soldiers outside for a council , and took the 20 - man garrison captive without bloodshed . The Native Americans around Fort Ouiatenon had good relations with the British garrison , but emissaries from Pontiac at Detroit had convinced them to strike . The warriors apologized to the commander for taking the fort , saying that " they were obliged to do it by the other Nations . " In contrast with other forts , the Natives did not kill the British captives at Ouiatenon . The fifth fort to fall , Fort Michilimackinac ( present Mackinaw City , Michigan ) , was the largest fort taken by surprise . On June 2 , 1763 , local Ojibwas staged a game of stickball ( a forerunner of lacrosse ) with visiting Sauks . The soldiers watched the game , as they had done on previous occasions . The ball was hit through the open gate of the fort ; the teams rushed in and were given weapons which Native women had smuggled into the fort . The warriors killed about 15 of the 35 - man garrison in the struggle ; later they killed five more in ritual torture . Three forts in the Ohio Country were taken in a second wave of attacks in mid - June . Iroquois Seneca s took Fort Venango ( near the site of the present Franklin , Pennsylvania ) around June 16 , 1763 . They killed the entire 12 - man garrison outright , keeping the commander alive to write down the grievances of the Senecas . After that , they ritually burned him at the stake . Possibly the same Seneca warriors attacked Fort Le Boeuf ( on the site of Waterford , Pennsylvania ) on June 18 , but most of the 12 - man garrison escaped to Fort Pitt . On June 19 , 1763 , about 250 Ottawa , Ojibwa , Wyandot , and Seneca warriors surrounded Fort Presque Isle ( on the site of Erie , Pennsylvania ) , the eighth and final fort to fall . After holding out for two days , the garrison of about 30 to 60 men surrendered , on the condition that they could return to Fort Pitt . The warriors killed most of the soldiers after they came out of the fort . Siege of Fort Pitt . Colonists in western Pennsylvania fled to the safety of Fort Pitt after the outbreak of the war . Nearly 550 people crowded inside , including more than 200 women and children . Simeon Ecuyer , the Swiss - born British officer in command , wrote that " We are so crowded in the fort that I fear disease … ; the smallpox is among us . " Fort Pitt was attacked on June 22 , 1763 , primarily by Delawares . Too strong to be taken by force , the fort was kept under siege throughout July . Meanwhile , Delaware and Shawnee war parties raided deep into Pennsylvania , taking captives and killing unknown numbers of settlers in scattered farms . Two smaller strongholds that linked Fort Pitt to the east , Fort Bedford and Fort Ligonier , were sporadically fired upon throughout the conflict , but were never taken . Before the war , Amherst had dismissed the possibility that the Native Americans would offer any effective resistance to British rule , but that summer he found the military situation becoming increasingly grim . He ordered subordinates to " immediately . . . put to death " captured enemy Native American warriors . To Colonel Henry Bouquet at Lancaster , Pennsylvania , who was preparing to lead an expedition to relieve Fort Pitt , Amherst wrote on about June 29 , 1763 : " Could it not be contrived to send the small pox among the disaffected tribes of Indians ? We must on this occasion use every stratagem in our power to reduce them . " Bouquet agreed , replying to Amherst on July 13 : " I will try to inoculate the bastards with some blankets that may fall into their hands , and take care not to get the disease myself . " Amherst responded on July 16 : " You will do well to inoculate the Indians by means of blankets , as well as every other method that can serve to extirpate this execrable race . " Officers at the besieged Fort Pitt had already attempted to do what Amherst and Bouquet were discussing , apparently on their own initiative . During a parley at Fort Pitt on June 24 , 1763 , Ecuyer gave Delaware representatives two blankets and a handkerchief that had been exposed to smallpox , hoping to spread the disease to the Native Americans in order to end the siege . William Trent , the militia commander , left records that showed the purpose of giving the blankets was " to Convey the Smallpox to the Indians . " It is uncertain whether this fully documented attempt to spread smallpox to the Native Americans was successful . Because many Native Americans died from smallpox during Pontiac ' s Rebellion , historian Francis Jennings concluded that the attempt was " unquestionably effective " . According to an eyewitness report , smallpox was spreading among the Ohio Native Americans before the blanket incident . Because smallpox was already in the area , it may have reached Native villages through a number of sources . Eyewitnesses reported that Native warriors contracted the disease after attacking infected white settlements , and spread the disease upon their return home . Historian Michael McConnell argued that even if the Fort Pitt attempt was successful , Native Americans were familiar with the disease and adept at isolating the infected . For these reasons , McConnell concluded that " British efforts to use pestilence as a weapon may not have been either necessary or particularly effective . " According to historian David Dixon , the Native Americans outside Fort Pitt were apparently unaffected by any outbreak of disease . Dixon argued that " the Indians may well have received the dreaded disease from a number of sources , but infected blankets from Fort Pitt was not one of them . " Bushy Run and Devil ' s Hole . On August 1 , 1763 , most of the Native Americans broke off the siege at Fort Pitt in order to intercept 500 British troops marching to the fort under Colonel Bouquet . On August 5 , these two forces met at the Battle of Bushy Run . Although his force suffered heavy casualties , Bouquet fought off the attack and relieved Fort Pitt on August 20 , bringing the siege to an end . His victory at Bushy Run was celebrated in the British colonies — church bells rang through the night in Philadelphia — and praised by King George . This victory was soon followed by a costly defeat . Fort Niagara , one of the most important western forts , was not assaulted , but on September 14 , 1763 , at least 300 Senecas , Ottawas , and Ojibwas attacked a supply train along the Niagara Falls portage . Two companies sent from Fort Niagara to rescue the supply train were also defeated . More than 70 soldiers and teamsters were killed in these actions , which Anglo - Americans called the " Devil ' s Hole Massacre " , the deadliest engagement for British soldiers during the war . Paxton Boys . The violence and terror of Pontiac ' s War convinced many western Pennsylvanians that their government was not doing enough to protect them . This discontent was manifested most seriously in an uprising led by a vigilante group that came to be known as the Paxton Boys , so - called because they were primarily from the area around the Pennsylvania village of Paxton ( or Paxtang ) . The Paxtonians turned their anger towards Native Americans — many of them Christians — who lived peacefully in small enclaves in the midst of white Pennsylvania settlements . Prompted by rumors that a Native war party had been seen at the Native village of Conestoga , on December 14 , 1763 , a group of more than 50 Paxton Boys marched on the village and murdered the six Susquehannock s they found there . Pennsylvania officials placed the remaining 16 Susquehannocks in protective custody in Lancaster , but on December 27 the Paxton Boys broke into the jail and slaughtered most of them . Governor John Penn issued bounties for the arrest of the murderers , but no one came forward to identify them . The Paxton Boys then set their sights on other Native Americans living within eastern Pennsylvania , many of whom fled to Philadelphia for protection . Several hundred Paxtonians marched on Philadelphia in January 1764 , where the presence of British troops and Philadelphia militia prevented them from doing more violence . Benjamin Franklin , who had helped organize the local militia , negotiated with the Paxton leaders and brought an end to the immediate crisis . Franklin published a scathing indictment of the Paxton Boys . " If an " Indian " injures me , " he asked , " does it follow that I may revenge that Injury on all " Indians " ? " One leader of the Paxton Boys was Lazarus Stewart who would be killed in the Wyoming Massacre of 1778 . British response , 1764 – 1766 . Native American raids on frontier settlements escalated in the spring and summer of 1764 . The hardest hit colony that year was Virginia , where more than 100 settlers were killed . On May 26 in Maryland , 15 colonists working in a field near Fort Cumberland were killed . On June 14 , about 13 settlers near Fort Loudoun in Pennsylvania were killed and their homes burned . The most notorious raid occurred on July 26 , when four Delaware Indian soldiers killed and scalped a school teacher and ten children in what is now Franklin County , Pennsylvania . Incidents such as these prompted the Pennsylvania Assembly , with the approval of Governor Penn , to reintroduce the scalp bounties offered during the French and Indian War , which paid money for every Native killed above the age of ten , including women . General Amherst , held responsible for the uprising by the Board of Trade , was recalled to London in August 1763 and replaced by Major General Thomas Gage . In 1764 , Gage sent two expeditions into the west to crush the rebellion , rescue British prisoners , and arrest the Native Americans responsible for the war . According to historian Fred Anderson , Gage ' s campaign , which had been designed by Amherst , prolonged the war for more than a year because it focused on punishing the Native Americans rather than ending the war . Gage ' s one significant departure from Amherst ' s plan was to allow William Johnson to conduct a peace treaty at Niagara , giving those Native Americans who were ready to " bury the hatchet " a chance to do so . Fort Niagara treaty . From July to August 1764 , Johnson negotiated a treaty at Fort Niagara with about 2 , 000 Native Americans in attendance , primarily Iroquois . Although most Iroquois had stayed out of the war , Senecas from the Genesee River valley had taken up arms against the British , and Johnson worked to bring them back into the Covenant Chain alliance . As restitution for the Devil ' s Hole ambush , the Senecas were compelled to cede the strategically important Niagara portage to the British . Johnson even convinced the Iroquois to send a war party against the Ohio Native Americans . This Iroquois expedition captured a number of Delawares and destroyed abandoned Delaware and Shawnee towns in the Susquehanna Valley , but otherwise the Iroquois did not contribute to the war effort as much as Johnson had desired . Two expeditions . Having secured the area around Fort Niagara , the British launched two military expeditions into the west . The first expedition , led by Colonel John Bradstreet , was to travel by boat across Lake Erie and reinforce Detroit . Bradstreet was to subdue the Native Americans around Detroit before marching south into the Ohio Country . The second expedition , commanded by Colonel Bouquet , was to march west from Fort Pitt and form a second front in the Ohio Country . Bradstreet set out from Fort Schlosser in early August 1764 with about 1 , 200 soldiers and a large contingent of Native allies enlisted by Sir William Johnson . Bradstreet felt that he did not have enough troops to subdue enemy Native Americans by force , and so when strong winds on Lake Erie forced him to stop at Presque Isle on August 12 , he decided to negotiate a treaty with a delegation of Ohio Native Americans led by Guyasuta . Bradstreet exceeded his authority by conducting a peace treaty rather than a simple truce , and by agreeing to halt Bouquet ' s expedition , which had not yet left Fort Pitt . Gage , Johnson , and Bouquet were outraged when they learned what Bradstreet had done . Gage rejected the treaty , believing that Bradstreet had been duped into abandoning his offensive in the Ohio Country . Gage may have been correct : the Ohio Native Americans did not return prisoners as promised in a second meeting with Bradstreet in September , and some Shawnees were trying to enlist French aid in order to continue the war . Bradstreet continued westward , as yet unaware that his unauthorized diplomacy was angering his superiors . He reached Fort Detroit on August 26 , where he negotiated another treaty . In an attempt to discredit Pontiac , who was not present , Bradstreet chopped up a peace belt the Ottawa leader had sent to the meeting . According to historian Richard White , " such an act , roughly equivalent to a European ambassador ' s urinating on a proposed treaty , had shocked and offended the gathered Indians . " Bradstreet also claimed that the Native Americans had accepted British sovereignty as a result of his negotiations , but Johnson believed that this had not been fully explained to the Native Americans and that further councils would be needed . Although Bradstreet had successfully reinforced and reoccupied British forts in the region , his diplomacy proved to be controversial and inconclusive . Colonel Bouquet , delayed in Pennsylvania while mustering the militia , finally set out from Fort Pitt on October 3 , 1764 , with 1 , 150 men . He marched to the Muskingum River in the Ohio Country , within striking distance of a number of native villages . Now that treaties had been negotiated at Fort Niagara and Fort Detroit , the Ohio Native Americans were isolated and , with some exceptions , ready to make peace . In a council which began on October 17 , Bouquet demanded that the Ohio Native Americans return all captives , including those not yet returned from the French and Indian War . Guyasuta and other leaders reluctantly handed over more than 200 captives , many of whom had been adopted into Native families . Because not all of the captives were present , the Native Americans were compelled to surrender hostages as a guarantee that the other captives would be returned . The Ohio Native Americans agreed to attend a more formal peace conference with William Johnson , which was finalized in July 1765 . Treaty with Pontiac . Although the military conflict essentially ended with the 1764 expeditions , Native Americans still called for resistance in the Illinois Country , where British troops had yet to take possession of Fort de Chartres from the French . A Shawnee war chief named Charlot Kaské emerged as the most strident anti - British leader in the region , temporarily surpassing Pontiac in influence . Kaské traveled as far south as New Orleans in an effort to enlist French aid against the British . In 1765 , the British decided that the occupation of the Illinois Country could only be accomplished by diplomatic means . British officials focused on Pontiac , who had become less militant after hearing of Bouquet ' s truce with the Ohio country Native Americans . Johnson ' s deputy , George Croghan , traveled to the Illinois country in the summer of 1765 , and although he was injured along the way in an attack by Kickapoos and Mascoutens , he managed to meet and negotiate with Pontiac . While Charlot Kaské wanted to burn Croghan at the stake , Pontiac urged moderation and agreed to travel to New York , where he made a formal treaty with William Johnson at Fort Ontario on July 25 , 1766 . It was hardly a surrender : no lands were ceded , no prisoners returned , and no hostages were taken . Rather than accept British sovereignty , Kaské left British territory by crossing the Mississippi River with other French and Native refugees . Legacy . The total loss of life resulting from Pontiac ' s War is unknown . About 400 British soldiers were killed in action and perhaps 50 were captured and tortured to death . George Croghan estimated that 2 , 000 settlers had been killed or captured , a figure sometimes repeated as 2 , 000 settlers " killed " . The violence compelled approximately 4 , 000 settlers from Pennsylvania and Virginia to flee their homes . Native American losses went mostly unrecorded , but it has been estimated that about 200 soldiers were killed in battle , with additional war - related deaths if germ warfare initiated at Fort Pitt was successful . Pontiac ' s War has traditionally been portrayed as a defeat for the Native Americans , but scholars now usually view it as a military stalemate : while the Native Americans had failed to drive away the British , the British were unable to conquer the Native Americans . Negotiation and accommodation , rather than success on the battlefield , ultimately brought an end to the war . The Native Americans had in fact won a victory of sorts by compelling the British government to abandon Amherst ' s policies and instead create a relationship with the Native Americans modeled on the Franco - Native alliance . Relations between British colonists and Native Americans , which had been severely strained during the French and Indian War , reached a new low during Pontiac ' s Rebellion . According to historian David Dixon , " Pontiac ' s War was unprecedented for its awful violence , as both sides seemed intoxicated with genocidal fanaticism . " Historian Daniel Richter characterizes the Native attempt to drive out the British , and the effort of the Paxton Boys to eliminate Native Americans from their midst , as parallel examples of ethnic cleansing . People on both sides of the conflict had come to the conclusion that colonists and Native Americans were inherently different and could not live with each other . According to Richter , the war saw the emergence of " the novel idea that all Native people were ' Indians , ' that all Euro - Americans were ' Whites , ' and that all on one side must unite to destroy the other . " The British government also came to the conclusion that colonists and Native Americans must be kept apart . On October 7 , 1763 , the Crown issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763 , an effort to reorganize British North America after the Treaty of Paris . The Proclamation , already in the works when Pontiac ' s War erupted , was hurriedly issued after news of the uprising reached London . Officials drew a boundary line between the British colonies along the seaboard , and Native American lands west of the Allegheny Ridge ( i . e . , the Eastern Divide ) , creating a vast ' Indian Reserve ' that stretched from the Alleghenies to the Mississippi River and from Florida to Quebec . It thus confirmed the antebellum demarcation that had been set by the Treaty of Easton in 1758 . By forbidding colonists from trespassing on Native lands , the British government hoped to avoid more conflicts like Pontiac ' s Rebellion . " The Royal Proclamation , " writes historian Colin Calloway , " reflected the notion that segregation not interaction should characterize Indian - white relations . " The effects of Pontiac ' s War were long - lasting . Because the Proclamation officially recognized that indigenous people had certain rights to the lands they occupied , it has been called the Native Americans ' " Bill of Rights " , and still informs the relationship between the Canadian government and First Nations . For British colonists and land speculators , however , the Proclamation seemed to deny them the fruits of victory — western lands — that had been won in the war with France . The resentment which this created undermined colonial attachment to the Empire , contributing to the coming of the American Revolution . According to Colin Calloway , " Pontiac ' s Revolt was not the last American war for independence — American colonists launched a rather more successful effort a dozen years later , prompted in part by the measures the British government took to try to prevent another war like Pontiac ' s . " For Native Americans , Pontiac ' s War demonstrated the possibilities of pan - tribal cooperation in resisting Anglo - American colonial expansion . Although the conflict divided tribes and villages , the war also saw the first extensive multi - tribal resistance to European colonization in North America , and was the first war between Europeans and Native North Americans that did not end in complete defeat for the Native Americans . The Proclamation of 1763 ultimately did not prevent British colonists and land speculators from expanding westward , and so Native Americans found it necessary to form new resistance movements . Beginning with conferences hosted by Shawnees in 1767 , in the following decades leaders such as Joseph Brant , Alexander McGillivray , Blue Jacket , and Tecumseh would attempt to forge confederacies that would revive the resistance efforts of Pontiac ' s War .