
Pontiac's War was a wide-ranging conflict across Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania that essentially marked the last coherent attempt by Native Americans to resist colonization.
The French and Indian War, as it was known in the colonies, pitted England against France and their Indian allies in a struggle to protect and extend their respective colonial possessions. Hostilities in North America ended in French defeat in 1760. The official end to the war came in February 1763 with the Treaty of Paris in which France ceded Canada and its territories east of the Mississippi River to the British. As a result, relations between the British, who now controlled all former French forts, and the Indians became increasingly strained.

Sir Jeffrey Amherst commanded British troops in North America.

Chief Pontiac assembled Native resistance to the British. No portrait of Pontiac is known to be authentic; this is a 19th century rendering.
Neolin’s vision appeared to him in 1760. He stood before the Master of Life who warned him that his people had been barred from the path to Heaven by the corrupting influence of white interlopers and that the Indians should return to their native ways. Neolin urged the Indians to stop all trade for European goods and return to living off the land, to purify their bodies of drink and vice, and to rid their lands of all white people. Although some Indians sanctioned Neolin’s revelations and resented the British for their policies, their chiefs did not immediately respond to Pontiac’s call to arms.
Two events transpired to change attitudes. First, rumors of the Treaty of Paris circulated among the tribes. Though the Indians saw this as a trick by the British, it forced them to realize that the French army might not come to their aid. Their only chance was to unite in war. As Parkman claimed, “While the sovereigns of France, England, and Spain, were signing the treaty at Paris, countless Indian warriors in the American forests were singing the war-song, and whetting their scalping-knives.” Second, the Delaware circulated two war belts in April 1763—one to avenge the attack on Kittanning in 1756 and the other to avenge the recent murder of chief Teedyuscung. The chiefs eagerly embraced the appeal for justice for Teedyuscung’s murder, but still hesitated to endorse Pontiac’s battle plan at a tribal council on April 27. However, at a second meeting on May 5, Pontiac finally convinced them to join the alliance consisting predominantly of Ottawa, Ojibwa, Potawatomi, and Wyandot from the Great Lakes region and Delaware, Shawnee, Sandusky Wyandot, Mingo and Seneca in the Ohio Valley and Pennsylvania.

Pontiac persuaded Native nations to join together and attack the English in the Ohio Valley and on the Pennsylvania frontier.
Ecuyer commanded a garrison of 230 British regulars and local militia with an additional 150 women and children under his protection. They remained safely behind the fort’s walls, which were constructed of stone with large protruding bastions. While direct assaults by the Indians would inevitably fail, the fort’s isolated location made it vulnerable to a long siege. Ecuyer cautiously prepared for this eventuality by burning the wooden structures surrounding the fort and taking measures to protect the garden, stockade and other food stores.

Col. Henry Bouquet and his troops were the last hope of saving Fort Pitt from being overrun.
Bouquet, a Swiss-born career soldier, gained experience in several European conflicts before he received a British commission as commander of the 60th Royal American Regiment in 1756. Bouquet served as second in command to General John Forbes in the capture of Fort Duquesne (destroyed by the French) in 1758 during which time he supervised the building of Forbes Road from Carlisle to the Ohio River as well as many of the British forts in western Pennsylvania, including forts Pitt and Presque Isle. These earlier experiences molded him into an effective frontier commander.
In mid-June, war parties comprised of Seneca and Mingo from the Iroquois nations and Ottawa and Wyandot from Pontiac’s western coalition attacked Forts Venango (Franklin, Venango County), Le Boeuf (Waterford, Erie County), and Presque Isle (along Lake Erie), killing the garrisons or forcing them to flee. Dixon summarized the losses, reporting “In the span of one week, the Senecas and their allies had, by taking three British outposts, severed the line of communication between forts Pitt and Niagara.” Colonel Bouquet scathingly criticized Lieutenant John Christie, commander of Presque Isle, complaining of “an infamous capitulation with savages” and that he “delivers up to them a post of the greatest importance, which was to be defended.” Ironically, Christie became a prize of the Wyandot who later exchanged him at Detroit in a bid to quit the alliance.

Live action battle pictures are taken from the 2009 re-enactment of the Battle of Bushy Run.
Once Amherst realized that the Indians were attacking in force, he sent additional light infantry—some sick with malaria—and artillery on June 18 to rendezvous with Bouquet at Carlisle and approved his plan to march reinforcements and supplies to Fort Pitt. On June 23, he dispatched the remainder of the 42nd and 77th regiments and ordered Bouquet to send reinforcements to Presque Isle. He wrote Bouquet again on June 29, stating, “that I Wish to Hear of no Prisoners, should any of the Villains be met with in Arms.”

Pipers accompanied the Black Watch regiment as they marched west.
In early July, the Delaware heightened their attacks on settlements west of Carlisle killing about 50 settlers and frightening countless others from their homesteads. Bouquet entreated the Pennsylvania Assembly to provide him with reinforcements. It reluctantly complied on July 8, authorizing 700 recruits to patrol the backcountry, but only east of the Allegheny Mountains. Bouquet lamented, “The few Troops voted by the Assembly can neither be raised in Time, nor when raised will they be able to save the People & their Harvest from Destruction.” He would have to carry out his orders with the troops sent by Amherst to put down the insurrection.
On July 18, the Indians resumed their siege of Fort Pitt. Eight days later, they again urged Ecuyer to surrender, but he refused. They answered his impudence with a harrowing four-day assault. Meanwhile, Bouquet arrived at Fort Bedford on July 25. Before continuing west, he raised a company of 14 rangers, commanded by Captain Lemuel Barrett, to act as scouts, complaining “the Highlanders lose themselves in the Woods as soon as they got out of the Road.” He left behind a detachment of soldiers to bolster Captain Lewis Ourry’s undermanned garrison, then marched for Fort Ligonier on July 28 arriving five days later. Lieutenant Blaine apprised him of Ecuyer’s tenuous situation. To make haste, Bouquet left behind his artillery and wagons and transferred the flour and other supplies onto packhorses. Unaware that the Indians had curiously quit the siege of Fort Pitt on August 1 to launch a surprise attack on his column, he departed on August 4 to begin the last leg of his march.
The next day, Bouquet halted his column at Bushy Run Creek to rest. At one o’clock in the afternoon, the Indians ambushed his advanced guard. Two light infantry companies joined in support and repelled the attackers, but the Indians persisted “extending along the Flanks” of the column. As soon as the regulars routed them from one position, “they appeared on another, till by continual Reinforcements, they were at last able to surround us.” Then they attacked the supply train forcing Bouquet to turn the column to the rear. “The action then became general, and though we were attacked on every Side, and the Savages exerted themselves with uncommon Resolution, they were constantly repulsed with Loss.” The Indians relentlessly harassed the British lines until nightfall.

Indian warriors fought from amongst the trees.
At daybreak, the Indians “Surrounded our Camp, at the distance of about 500 yards, & by Shouting and yelping quite round that extensive Circumference thought to have terrified us with their numbers.” The soldiers counterattacked where they received the heaviest fire. However, they were “extremely fatigued with the long march, and as long Action of the preceding Day, and distressed to the last Degree by a total want of water.” Bouquet needed a victory or he risked losing his army. A defeat meant the loss of Fort Pitt and all British interests on the Pennsylvania frontier. He could neither advance nor retreat so he devised a plan to “intice them to come close upon us, or to Stand their ground when attacked.” Then he would deliver a swift crippling blow. He put his desperate plan into operation.

British troops send a volley into the woods.

After the battle, British troops successfully relieved Fort Pitt.
Bouquet’s contemporaries lauded his victory in newspapers and letters. The Pennsylvania Gazette reported that Bouquet’s army “totally routed a very considerable Body of Indians” and that “there never were Troops that behaved with more Coolness, Firmness, and real Resolution.” The battle concluded with “the Indians firing some random Shots, but never daring to face the Troops again.” Captain Ourry wrote on August 27 celebrating Bouquet’s “Defeat of the Savages” and expressing his relief at their safe arrival at Fort Pitt, adding that the Indians “have not appeared on this communication since.” Two days later, Governor James Hamilton congratulated Bouquet, adding that his victory and the relief of Fort Pitt were “very important services both, and of the utmost consequen to these Colonies!”
Bouquet’s ingenious battle plan succeeded, but not without cost. In spite of the outcome, Bouquet’s victory was a double-edged sword. An Indian victory would have forced Bouquet and his men back to Fort Ligonier, leaving the supplies and wounded behind and placing Ecuyer’s garrison in peril. The two-day action resulted in the loss of 110 men, almost one-third of his complement. He destroyed the supplies to transport the wounded and his diminished troop strength prevented him from reestablishing defenses at Presque Isle.

Col. Bouquet was portrayed favorably in this colored woodcut.
Pontiac’s life mirrored the events of his rebellion, initially successful but eventually defeated and marginalized. Richard Middleton applauded Pontiac as the leader “who lit the torch and sustained the coalition for three difficult campaigns during which he showed both tactical and strategic ability.” But by 1765, the British had thoroughly defeated the Indians and Pontiac’s pan-Indian alliance had crumbled. He antagonized other Indian leaders by flaunting his celebrity with the British. Whatever his prominence during the conflict, once peace was secured he lived the remainder of his life as an outcast. In 1769, a Peoria warrior killed him in a fight near Cahokia, Illinois.
Pontiac’s inevitable defeat cost the Indians their lands and their autonomy. Ironically, they came closer to victory than they realized. Middleton summarized that within a few weeks Pontiac’s forces “captured nine forts, killed nearly three hundred British troops, slaughtered or captured several hundred settlers, displaced many thousands more, pushed the frontiers back fifty miles in many places, and seized £100,000 worth of merchandise.” They defeated the British in every engagement with few exceptions. The British constantly waged war from undermanned defenses, but the Indians failed to exploit their weaknesses. Furthermore, tribal interests prevented them from sustaining a prolonged war. Despite Pontiac’s unifying efforts, Indian leaders represented only the interests of their own people. When they saw no tribal advantage in attacking, they quit the alliance and negotiated a separate peace. The net effect of these obstacles cost the Indians their status as independent nations.
Pontiac’s Rebellion accentuated the desperation of a race of proud people clinging to their lands and their culture. The British, and subsequently American, governments denied the Indians citizenship rights and marginalized them geographically and culturally. Jane Ockershausen reasoned that “no matter how Native Americans negotiated treaties with the colonists, their fate was sealed; their own eastern homelands and hunting grounds were lost to them, and they would continue to be pushed further west.” Significantly more than a contentious dispute over trinkets and treaties, a mere land grab, or even bitter hatred between races, Dixon viewed Pontiac’s uprising as a “transcendent episode in the struggle of Native Americans to retain their identity and sovereignty.” The encounter between two small armies fighting over supplies on an August afternoon in 1763 proved to be the prelude to the final act in the clash between divergent cultures.
Sources:
- “Extract of a Letter from Fort Bedford, June 29, 1763.” Pennsylvania Journal & Weekly Advertiser, July 7, 1763, 2.
- “Extract of a Letter from Pittsbourg.” Pennsylvania Journal & Weekly Advertiser, June 30, 1763, 2.
- Anderson, Niles. The Battle of Bushy Run. Harrisburg, PA: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1966.
- Daudelin, Don. “Numbers and Tactics at Bushy Run.” The Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine 68, no.2 (1985): 153-179.
- Dixon, David. Never Come to Peace Again: Pontiac’s Uprising and the Fate of the British Empire in North America. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2005.
- Hassler, William W. “Turning Point at Bushy Run.” American History Illustrated 4, no.6 (1969): 12-21.
- Middleton, Richard. Pontiac’s War: Its Causes, Course and Consequences. New York: Routledge, 2007.
- “New-York, August 29, A just relation of Colonel Bouquet’s Engagement with the Indians, near Fort Pitt.” Pennsylvania Gazette, September 1, 1763, 2.
- Ockershausen, Jane. “Broken Promises, Broken Dreams: North America’s Forgotten Conflict at Bushy Run Battlefield.” Pennsylvania Heritage 23, no.3 (1997): 14-21.
- Parkman, Francis. The Conspiracy of Pontiac. New York: Collier Books, 1962.
- Waddell, Louis M., ed. The Papers of Henry Bouquet, vol. 6. Harrisburg, PA: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1994.