Pontiac

Pontiac, chief of the Ottawa Indians, in 1746 defended Detroit for the French, and was said to have led his warriors at Braddock’s defeat in 1755. After the French had surrendered Canada, his hatred of the English prompted him to organise a conspiracy among the Indian tribes with a view to the extermination of ‘those dogs dressed in red.’ The 7th of May 1763 was appointed for the attack, which in eight cases was successful, and the garrisons were massacred; but at Detroit, where Pontiac led in person, the commander was forewarned, and a five months’ siege ensued. Peace was made in 1766. Pontiac himself was murdered in 1769 by a Kaskaskia Indian, at Cahokia, Illinois, opposite St. Louis. See Parkman, The Conspiracy of Pontiac (1851); and a Diary of the Siege of Detroit, ed. by F. B. Hough (1860).