Pontiac uprising
The Pontiac War 1763 to 1766, also known as the Pontiac Conspiracy , was a war by Indian tribes against British supremacy in North America . It is named after one of its chief leaders, Pontiac , a war chief of the Ottawa tribe in the Great Lakes area .
prehistory
The uprising was a result of the North American part of the Seven Years War (1755–1763), which ended French colonial rule in Canada and west of northern New England. Louisiana (then reaching beyond the Missouri) was ceded by France to Spain. One of the reasons for this war was the expansion of British settlers into the area beyond the Appalachians previously claimed by France, especially into the Ohio Valley . While the French had only built a few forts there and were otherwise only present through traders and hunters, the British began to systematically build fortifications and settlements in the regions previously inhabited by the Indians, thereby taking away their land. In addition, the British treated the Indians badly and often viewed them as barbaric savages, to which the experiences of the last wars may have contributed (e.g. the propagandistic massacre of Fort William Henry ), in which the Indians tended to side with the French had confessed. Another point of conflict was that the British did not provide the Indians with free ammunition , as the French did . French hunters and traders encouraged the Indians with vague promises of French help. In 1762 an Indian prophet named Neolin preached an alliance of the Indians against the British among the Lenni Lenape . In the same year, as in 1761, there were unrealized plans to raid the garrisons of Fort Detroit , Fort Niagara, and Fort Pitt (now Pittsburgh ).
Course of the uprising
Pontiac seems to have been the head of a cultic association (the Metai ) and used their religious zeal and the general discontent among the Indians to organize simultaneous attacks on British forts in May 1763 in the winter of 1762/63. On April 27, he discussed his plans with envoys from the Algonquin tribes at a meeting near Detroit. On May 7th, he tried unsuccessfully to surprise the fort, which at that time had a garrison of about 160 men under Major Henry Gladwin , with 60 warriors. The British had been warned, allegedly by an Indian woman. Then Pontiac besieged the fort from May 9th. On May 28, reinforcements for the fort near the mouth of the Detroit River were ambushed and forced to withdraw. In June the Wyandot and Potawatomi withdrew from the siege, but on July 29, the besiegers under Pontiac's command attacked a British force of 280 men under Captain James Dalyell , who were able to fight their way into the fort. Against Gladwin's advice, Dalyell attempted an attack on Pontiac's camp on July 31, but was ambushed at Bloody Run , killing or wounding Dalyell and 60 of his men. On October 12, the Potawatomi, Anishinabe and Wyandot made peace with the British. Pontiac himself continued the siege until he learned on October 30th from the French that he could not count on their support. He then withdrew to the Maumee River area.
Fort Pitt with a garrison of 330 men under Captain Simeon Ecuyer was attacked on June 22nd and besieged from July 27th. In addition to the soldiers, there were no fewer than 600 refugees in the fort. A relief expedition of 500 men - mostly Scottish highlanders - under Colonel Henry Bouquet set out from Carlisle ( Pennsylvania ) and on August 2nd horrified Fort Ligonier (Pennsylvania) , which was also besieged . At Bushy Run, southeast of Fort Pitt, a battle broke out on August 5th and 6th, in which the British finally got the upper hand through a fictitious retreat with which they lured Indians into a trap. Bouquet finally reached Fort Pitt on August 20th.
The Indians, however, had success at Fort Sandusky ( Ohio ) (captured on May 16), Fort St. Joseph ( Michigan ) (captured on May 25), Fort Miami (today Fort Wayne , Indiana ) (captured on May 27). May), Fort Michilimackinac, Michigan (captured June 4), Fort Ouiatanon (near Lafayette , Indiana) (captured July 1), Fort Presque Isle (now Erie , Pennsylvania) (captured June 16) and Fort Le Boeuf (now Waterford , Pennsylvania), who was surprised on June 19th. The garrison fled and 7 out of 13 soldiers reached Fort Pitt. Fort Venango (Pennsylvania) was conquered and burned by members of the Seneca , the only ones from the Iroquois people who took part in the uprising , the garrison was massacred, the commander, a lieutenant, burned alive. About 500 Seneca also ambushed a wagon train escorted by 24 soldiers from Fort Schlosser (near Niagara Falls ) on September 14 , killing most of them and destroying a troop sent to the rescue from Fort Niagara . In other cases, settlers and soldiers were not killed but captured and in some cases exchanged for captured Indians (for example in Detroit).
At the end of 1763 the Indians had failed in their attacks on Fort Pitt and Fort Detroit, but had also conquered almost all of the smaller forts they attacked, killed around 200 settlers and traders in addition to numerous soldiers and caused enormous economic damage, which at that time was about £ 100,000 was estimated. The worst human and property losses occurred in western Pennsylvania. With their guerrilla tactics , the Indians were a very dangerous opponent even for regular British troops. How serious the situation was for the British is also shown by the fact that blankets contaminated with smallpox were used to decimate the Indians with an epidemic. This approach was also endorsed by Commander-in-Chief Jeffrey Amherst . This is one of the first documented attempts at “biological warfare” , which, however, was unsuccessful.
Collapse of the uprising
In June 1764, Colonel John Bradstreet marched with 1,200 men from Albany, New York, to Fort Niagara , where a series of treaties were concluded at a large meeting with the Indians. Bradstreet signed other contracts in August in Presque Isle with tribes of the Lenni Lenape and Shawnee , in September with the Wyandot, Ottawa and Miami in Sandusky and with various tribes in Fort Detroit. Bradstreet sent Captain Howard to the forts in Michilimackinac , Green Bay ( Wisconsin ) and Sault Ste. To occupy Marie again. Another of his officers, Captain Morris , marched up the Maumee River , negotiated with Pontiac, and reached Fort Miami , where he escaped an assassination attempt by Miami officials by a hair's breadth. Eventually Bradstreet returned to Oswego . Some of the agreements he concluded were not recognized by his superiors.
The final end of the uprising was achieved by a second expedition under Colonel Bouquet, the winner of the Bushy Run. With 1,500 soldiers he advanced into what is now Ohio and forced the tribes that had participated in the uprising near the present-day town of Tuscarawas to give up the fight and to release all British prisoners, some of whom had been held since the French and Indian War (seven-year-old War in North America) (1754–1763). This ended the uprising, although Pontiac, who tried in vain to get support from the tribes in the west and south, did not give up the fight until July 25, 1766 and surrendered to Sir William Johnson in Oswego.
In April 1769, Pontiac was murdered while drunk in Cahokia ( Illinois ) by an Indian of the Kaskaskia tribe, who received money from a British trader for this. Pontiac was buried near St. Louis ( Missouri ).
Evaluation and consequences
The Pontiac uprising was a turning point in Indian history. It was one of the most important conflicts in its history as it determined whether or not British colonization of North America would be limited. The uprising resulted from the assessment that a peaceful, equal coexistence with the colonists was impossible and that contracts with them were worthless because they were not kept. With the collapse of the uprising, resistance to the westward expansion of the Anglo-American settlers was essentially broken.
With the proclamation of 1763 the British government forbade the colonists from advancing westward into the Indian territory, but this prohibition was ignored by the settlers and their relationship with the government deteriorated massively. Furthermore, the uprising increased the state's debt burden, which had already risen sharply as a result of the Seven Years' War. Both the proclamation and the attempts to reorganize state finances through increased taxation led to the American War of Independence .
See also
literature
- Richard Middleton: Pontiac's War: Its Causes, Course and Consequences. Routledge, London 2007, ISBN 978-0-415-97914-6 .