Chief Pontiac portrait   Save
Pontiac Collection
Description: The caption reads: "Pontiac The great chief of the Ottawas, leader of the Indians of the Middle West in the Seven Year War." Chief Pontiac was born circa 1720. By 1755, he was a chief of the Ottawa Tribe. Pontiac subscribed to the religious beliefs of Neolin, a prophet of the Delaware people, who encouraged native people to forsake English goods and customs. When the French and Indian War ended in 1763, all French lands in North America were turned over to the English. American Indians lost their long-time French ally and worried that more British settlers would come to the Ohio Country. Pontiac and the Ottawas, in the interest of protecting their lands, encouraged tribes in the Ohio Country to rise up in 1763. The Ottawa attacked Fort Detroit in May 1763; the Shawnee, Munsee, Wyandot, Seneca and Delaware people also raided English settlements in the Ohio Country and in western Pennsylvania during 1763. The English military invaded the Ohio Country from Pennsylvania in the fall of 1764 and subdued the area's American Indian tribes. Pontiac's Rebellion ended in the fall of 1764, and Pontiac formally surrendered to the English in July 1766. In 1769, he was murdered by a member of the Peoria Tribe. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL07606
Subjects: Pontiac, d. 1769; American Indian history and society; American Indians in Ohio; Ottawa Tribe; American Indian tribal leaders
Places: Pontiac Collection