Pontiac's War (1763-1766)

*This conflict is also known as the Pontiac Rebellion 

The news of the signing of the Treaty of Paris on February 10, 1763, which ended the French Indian War, reached Canada as the spring navigation routes were opening up. No sooner had Canadians learned that their country was to remain under the British flag than information that was more worrisome in the short term reached Quebec from the West and the Ohio Valley. The forts there, which had been evacuated by the French and were now occupied by British garrisons, were being attacked by the Amerindians. Indeed the presence of the British in these areas did not please many of the Native nations, who preferred the cordial diplomacy and gifts of the French era. More serious still, the Americans were behaving as if they were in a conquered land and considered the Amerindian hunting grounds land to be colonized. This caused resentment among the warriors. Why, they asked themselves, should battles between white people in remote places have anything to do with their fate and that of their land? Chief Pontiac, [25] an exceptional man, was able to rally several Amerindian nations. His plan was very simple: get rid of the British and the Americans.

During May and June there were whirlwind attacks on forts Sandusky, St. Joseph, Presqu'île, Miami, Venango and Michilimackinac, as well as on several smaller posts, which were literally stormed. The many skilful subterfuges of the Amerindians enabled them to take most of the forts. At Michilimackinac, for example, the Ojibwa warriors were playing lacrosse outside the palisades. At one point the ball landed near the door, where a few officers and soldiers were watching the game. The players ran towards the ball, followed closely by their women; in a flash, the women handed them the weapons they had hidden under their blankets and the men rushed inside, killing everyone in the garrison. Only forts Pitt (Pittsburgh), Ligonier and Detroit were able to stand up to Pontiac, even though Fort Pitt was attacked twice and the Detroit garrison, galvanized by Major Henry Gladwin, had to withstand a long siege. Pontiac and his men spared only Fort Niagara, deeming it - correctly - to be too strongly fortified.

The Canadians had never seen anything like it. Amerindians attacking fortified positions defended by regular garrisons, and taking them! This was certainly not in keeping with their customs. The British military and the American colonists were concerned. The whole West was about to fall, and along with it much of the fur trade. The Canadians - who were newly minted British subjects - were perplexed if not worried. In New York, General Amherst, supreme commander in British North America, was at first taken aback by the vigour of Pontiac's attacks; but he eventually decided that a strong contingent of regular troops, supported by volunteer American militiamen, should go as quickly as possible to the Ohio Valley to rescue the forts under attack. A second contingent, made up of British troops assisted by their implacable former enemies - the Canadian militiamen - would leave later from Montreal to retake the small forts located further west.

In July 1763 the contingent of Colonel Henry Bouquet, a Swiss officer in the British service, went as quickly as possible to the Ohio Valley. Bouquet's small army of 600 men, consisting of the 42nd Scots Regiment, part of the 60th and the American Rangers, went towards Fort Pitt. On August 5, at Bushy Run (Pennsylvania), the Amerindians opened fire on the rearguard. The troop was surrounded fairly quickly, and Amerindian war cries came from all sides. But Bouquet was an admirer of the Amerindian tactics that had been used in the past against Braddock so successfully by the Canadians. The cunning tactician arranged his men in a circle and let the Amerindians attack the following day. After a while, he feigned defeat, ordering some of his soldiers to retreat. Believing themselves victorious and hoping to take some scalps, the Amerindians then charged into the breach, rushing headlong into the trap. Their flanks were immediately fired upon by soldiers waiting in ambush for them. They then charged the Amerindians with their bayonets, routing Pontiac's warriors. This disaster was the turning point of the campaign, Bouquet succeeding in beating the Amerindians at their own game. By combining their tactics with the discipline and fire-power of his troops, he showed that British soldiers could keep the Amerindians at bay, as had their predecessors, the French.

Following this defeat, the Amerindians raised their sieges of Fort Ligonier, Fort Pitt and Fort Detroit. In the spring of 1764 Bouquet's army, reinforced by hundreds of volunteers from Virginia and Pennsylvania, moved to the very heart of Amerindian territory without encountering much resistance. (The Canadian Military History Gateway)

Although the military conflict essentially ended with the 1764 expeditions,[91] 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.[92]

In 1765, the British decided that the occupation of the Illinois Country could only be accomplished by diplomatic means. As Gage commented to one of his officers, he was determined to have "none our enemy" among the Indian peoples, and that included Pontiac, to whom he now sent a wampum belt suggesting peace talks. Pontiac had by now become less militant after hearing of Bouquet's truce with the Ohio country Native Americans.[93]Johnson's deputy, George Croghan, accordingly 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,[94] 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.[95] Rather than accept British sovereignty, Kaské left British territory by crossing the Mississippi River with other French and Native refugees.[96]