Pontiac's Rebellion: Encyclopedia II - Pontiac's Rebellion - Origins

Pontiac's Rebellion - Origins

In the decades before Pontiac's Rebellion, France and Great Britain participated in a series of wars in Europe that also involved their native allies and colonies 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. Most fighting in the North American theatre of the war (a theatre sometimes called the French and Indian War) came to an end after British General Jeffrey Amherst captured French 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. Before long, American Indians who had been allies of the defeated French found themselves increasingly dissatisfied with the British occupation and the new policies imposed by the victors. While the French had long cultivated alliances among the Indians, the British post-war approach was essentially to treat the Indians as a conquered people.

Pontiac's Rebellion - Tribes involved

North American Indians who played a role in Pontiac's Rebellion were diverse peoples with differing backgrounds and agendas. Most of those who took up arms against the British 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. The natives of the pays d'en haut, primarily speakers of Algonquian languages, consisted of three basic groups.

The first group was the tribes of the Great Lakes region: the Ottawas, Ojibwas, Potawatomis, and Hurons. They had long been allied with French habitants, with whom they lived, traded, and intermarried. Great Lakes Indians valued their relationship with the French, and were stunned to learn that they were suddenly under British sovereignty because of the French loss of North America.

The second group was the tribes of the Illinois Country, which included the Miami, Wea, Kickapoo, Mascouten, and Piankashaw. Like the Great Lakes tribes, these people had a long history of close relations with the French. Because the British military had not yet occupied most of the Illinois Country, which was on the western edge of the main theatre of the war, the natives in this region were less motivated to take part in the uprising.

The third group was the tribes of the Ohio Country: the Delawares (Lenape), Shawnees, Wyandots, and Mingos. These people were refugees who settled in the Ohio valley earlier in the century in order to escape British, French, and Iroquois domination. Unlike the Great Lakes and Illinois Country tribes, Ohio natives 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 seperate peace with the British in the Treaty of Easton (1758), but with the understanding that the British military would withdraw from the Ohio Country. The British, however, strengthened their forts in the region rather than abandon them, and so the Ohio natives went to war in 1763 in another attempt to drive out the British.

Outside the pays d'en haut, the influential Iroquois Confederacy maintained a strong relationship with the British, and mostly did not participate in Pontiac's War. However, the westernmost Iroquois nation, the Senecas, had become disaffected with the British alliance, and began to send out war messages ("war belts" made of wampum) to the Great Lakes and Ohio Country tribes as early as 1761, urging them to unite in an attempt to drive out the British. The first rumours of war that became Pontiac's Rebellion began not with Pontiac at Detroit, but with Senecas south of Lake Ontario. When the war finally came, many Senecas were quick to take action.

It is important to note that, with the notable exception of the six Iroquois nations, tribes in Pontiac's War were not organized as political units. At this time and place, tribe designated a linguistic or ethnic group. Natives of the region usually lived in autonomous, multi-tribal villages; no chief or council spoke for an entire tribe. For example, "the Ottawas" did not go to war; a number of Ottawa war leaders chose to do so, while some other Ottawa leaders denounced the war.^[4]

Pontiac's Rebellion - New British policy

After the end of the Seven Years' War, General Amherst was in overall charge of administering Indian policy, which was closely tied to the regulation of the fur trade. The British Crown was looking to reduce expenses after a costly war, and so in February 1761 Amherst issued a general order which began to cut back on the gifts and provisions customarily distributed to the Indians. Sir William Johnson, the Superintendent of the Indian Department, tried to warn Amherst of the dangers of this frugal policy, to no avail.

Gift giving was an integral part of diplomacy among tribes of the pays d'en haut. Amherst, who made little effort to conceal his contempt for the natives, considered this gift giving to be "bribery" that was unnecessary now that the British did not have to compete with France for the Indians' allegiance. However, Native Americans considered gift giving to be an essential part of a reciprocal relationship. From the Indian point of view, by refusing to share some of their bounty with the Indians as the French had done, the British were not fulfilling their obligations as leaders, and the Indians felt insulted. Furthermore, tribal leaders who advocated peace with Europeans derived their influence in part from the ability to redistribute gifts to their people; without gifts to pass along, these chiefs lost stature, and militant, anti-British leaders emerged.^[5]

Additionally, the Indians needed gunpowder and ammunition for hunting in order to provide food for their families and to procure skins for the fur trade. While the French had always made these supplies available, Amherst did not trust his former Indian adversaries, particularly after the Anglo-Cherokee War of 1761, in which Cherokee warriors took up arms against their former British allies. Because the Cherokee war effort had been severely limited due to a shortage of gunpowder, Amherst began to restrict the distribution of powder and lead in hopes of preventing similar uprisings. This, in turn, led American Indians to believe that the British were disarming them in order to conquer or enslave them.^[6]

Pontiac's Rebellion - Land and religion

Land was also an issue in the coming of the war. While the French colonists had always been relatively few in number, there seemed to be no end of settlers in the British colonies, which inevitably compelled native villagers in the east to relocate further west. Indians in the Ohio Country had been displaced by expanding white settlement, and this motivated their involvement in the war. However, as historian Gregory Dowd emphasizes, Pontiac and his allies around Detroit had not been much affected by white settlement, and even the Ohio Country natives "were under no immediate threat of dispossession." The presence of British troops, not British settlers, was the pressing problem. The expansion of white settlement was a contributing factor—but not a primary cause—of Pontiac's War.^[7]

In addition to the preceeding, in the early 1760s a religious awakening was sweeping through Indian settlements in the region, which 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 Indians 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 Indians 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 changing by forces that seemed to be beyond their control.^[8]

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Origins", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki