Economic Change, Revolutionary: Pontiac

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Similar content addressed in SOLs: VS.1a-i; USI.1a-h; USI.8a

The American Revolution was fought in many areas. Historians often focus on the fighting which broke out in New England in 1775 and continued along the Eastern coast for the next six years. However, there had been battles taking places throughout the Western edge of the colonies for many years earlier, since the end of the French and Indian War in 1763. Native Americans played a major role in this early fighting. Angered by the British control of their lands, many Native Americans launched attacks to gain back their land and gain freedom from the British military, who had created forts all throughout the frontier.

  • Conspiracy of PontiacOne Native American who helped inspire these attacks was Pontiac, a leader of the Ottawa. Pontiac's attack on Fort Detroit led other Native Americans to start similar uprising all throughout the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley region. Though the British eventually defeated Pontiac and the uprising, this rebellion was one of the first fights for independence in the era of Revolution.
  • Joseph Fayadaneega, called the Brant, the Great Captain of the Six Nations / J.R. Smith.Joseph Brant, a Mohawk, was the antithesis of Pontiac. Whereas Pontiac preached Native self-determination and sought to assert Native rights independently of any European power, Brant actively sought alliance with the British military against anti-British American settlers. His leadership and strategic acumen as military commander led him to become an officer in the British military during the Revolutionary War. Brant used his fame and position as an intermediary between Native Americans and Europeans to become a negotiator between the Six Nations and the American Government. For the better part of his life after the Revolution, Brant tried to use his connections with the British and his own popularity within the Native community to resist American encroachment into Native territory.
  • Partie occidentale de la Virginie, Pensylvanie, Maryland, et Caroline Septle. la rivière d'Ohio, et toutes celles qui s'y jettent, partie de la Rivière Mississippi, tout le cours de la rivière de Illinois, le Lac Erie, partie des Lacs Huron et Michigan &.This map shows the Ohio River Valley region, the area in which much of the fighting during the French and Indian War took place.
  • Zeisberger preaching to the IndiansMissionaries were often the first settlers to move into Native American territory. This image, drawn centuries after the arrival of Missionaries into the frontier, shows a Moravian preacher, David Zeisberger, preaching Christianity to Native Americans. Zeisberger, standing, appears dominant in the image, with members of the tribe seated in darkness around him.
  • Liberty Hall, 112 East Liberty Street, Rome, Oneida County, NYIn 1768, British military officers and Iroquois leaders signed a treaty at Fort Stanwix, New York, to draw boundary lines. The Treaty was supposed to end fighting between the two sides, but it did not. The British saw the Treaty as a guarantee that violence would stop in the Frontier. The Native Americans thought the Treaty would end British expansion into their lands. Neither occurred, and the hostilities continued.
  • Indian Map of Ohio River CountryVery few documents exist from Native Americans themselves from the 1700s. This is an early Native American map of the Ohio country.