As in Mexico, it was not just Spain, but France, as well as England, and the USA later..................early America saw Swedish colonies, Finnish colonies, Dutch colonies........etc.........

Naming the conflict[edit]

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.^[4] The war became widely known as "Pontiac's Conspiracy" after the publication in 1851 of Francis Parkman'sThe Conspiracy of Pontiac.^[5] Parkman's influential book, the definitive account of the war for nearly a century, is still in print.^[6]

In the 20th century, some historians argued that Parkman exaggerated the extent of Pontiac's influence in the conflict and that it was 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."^[7] 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.^[8]

Origins[edit]

Further information: Great Britain in the Seven Years War

You think yourselves Masters of this Country, because you have taken it from the French, who, you know, had no Right to it, as it is the Property of us Indians.

Nimwha, Shawnee diplomat, to George Croghan, 1768^[9]

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 Shawneeand 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.^[10]

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.^[11] 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[edit]

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 tribes. 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.^[12] The tribes of the pays d'en haut consisted of three basic groups.

The first group was composed of tribes of the Great Lakes region: Ottawa, Ojibwa, and Potawatomi, who spoke Algonquian languages; and the Huron, who spoke an Iroquoian language. 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."^[13]

The main area of action in Pontiac's Rebellion.

The second group was made up of the tribes of the eastern Illinois Country, which included the Miami, Wea, Kickapoo, Mascouten, and Piankashaw.^[14] 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.^[15]

The third group was made up 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 in order to escape British, French, and Iroquois domination in the New York and Pennsylvania area. ^[16] 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.^[17] 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.^[18]

Outside the pays d'en haut, most warriors of the influential Iroquois Confederacy 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, the Seneca 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 Seneca were quick to take action.^[19]