"The Indian is a true child of the forest and the desert. The wastes and solitudes of nature are his congenial home. His haughty mind is imbued with the spirit of the wilderness" (Parkman 359). If one wishes to understand the uprising of Pontiac he must first understand Pontiac's upraising and surroundings. Pontiac was born of an Ottawa and either a Chippewa or a Miami. He was a tall, powerful, and apparently very clever man. He was very influential, controlling the Potawatomis, Ottawas, and Ojibwas as chief; he swayed the decisions of all the tribes in the Illinois area and was well respected from the Ohio River to the Mississippi River. Some people speculate that he partially controlled tribes as far away as Maryland.

the English and leave not one upon our lands" (Parkman 605). The query on the mind is, "Why would Pontiac want to achieve this goal?" The obvious answer is that the spiteful English took over Fort Detroit from the congenial French. This opens the question of why the Indians did not like the English. That is answered with England's Indian policy, which says that the English have no obligation to maintain the Indians. General Jeffery Amherst instigated this policy, saying that the English no longer needed to supply the Indians with gunpowder and stating that the gifts, which had kept the Indians satisfied, brought by traders were to cease immediately and indefinitely. Even though many of his colleagues pleaded with him to change the policy, General Jeffery Amherst was stubborn and refused to grant their requests.

"Most of all [Pontiac] is remembered as a daring and shrewd leader who led a vast confederacy of powerful tribes that almost succeeded in driving the British out of the Ohio-Illinois region" (Burns 35). The Uprising of Pontiac and his large number of followers left a huge dent in history. First, it changed the warfare of the entire World; simply put, it was the first time biological weapons were used, in the aforementioned blankets of Captain Ecuyer; this use of horrible disease to kill was outlawed internationally eventually. Secondly, it changed the future of the white-Indian relations, sparking the time honored phase "the only good injun is a dead injun"; it is probably a slight cause of many Indian mistreatments later in North America. Thirdly, it changed the future of America by explicitly showing us that English could be beaten; it inspired a desire in the colonists that had been unprecedented, the want to unite; the "civilized" people of the colonies thought that if those "savages" out in the Ohio region could do it why can they?

"Pontiac's great trouble was that he flatly refused to accept the inevitable. Through the proof was overwhelming, he still refused to believe that the French would not eventually support him ... against the English" (Eckert 624). Late in the war, General Jeffery Amherst put a price of one thousand pounds on the death of Pontiac; he then raised it to two thousand a few weeks following. This however was highly unnecessary because it became ever clearer that the English had a second wind and the Indians did not. With Pontiac's prominence starting to dwindle. It was easy to see that the tide of the situation was turning, the Indians were losing. In a vain attempt Pontiac tried to rally his forces with a poorly conceived assault on a schooner with a few canoes; all of the Indians involved in the attack were killed and captured. As word of this final defeat spread so did dissension and defections among Pontiac's forces.

"Pontiac found himself fighting a war that, from this point on, could only bring his people harm" (Bland 97). As the forces of Pontiac started to doubt him more and more, a Mississauga Chief by the name of Wabbicomigot decided that it was time to end "this foolishness". And

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2071
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)