Following Great Britain’s victory in the French and Indian War, many American Indian leaders grew discontented with British settlements in the former French territories. In the Great Lakes region, this dissatisfaction turned to open rebellion when Pontiac, an Ottawa leader, convened a council of local tribes who then laid siege to Fort Detroit. Pontiac’s speech at that council is excerpted here. Though the siege was ultimately unsuccessful, Pontiac’s uprising soon spread beyond the Detroit region and lasted until the summer of 1766, when the British negotiated a peace with Pontiac and other Indian leaders.
It is important, my brothers, that we should exterminate from our land this nation, whose only object is our death. You must be all sensible, as well as myself, that we can no longer supply our wants in the way we were accustomed to do with our Fathers the French. They [the English] sell us their goods at double the price that the French made us pay, and yet their merchandise is good for nothing; for no sooner have we bought a blanket or other thing to cover us than it is necessary to procure others against the time of departing for our wintering ground. Neither will they let us have them on credit, as our brothers the French used to do. When I visit the English chief, and inform him of the death of any of our comrades, instead of lamenting, as our brothers the French used to do, they make game of us. If I ask him for any thing for our sick, he refuses, and tells us he does not want us, from which it is apparent he seeks our death. We must therefore, in return, destroy them without delay; there is nothing to prevent us: there are but few of them, and we shall easily overcome them—why should we not attack them? Are we not men? Have I not shown you the belts [beaded belts symbolizing a treaty] I received from our Great Father the King of France? He tells us to strike—why should we not listen to his words? What do you fear? The time has arrived.
Source: Francis Parkman, The Conspiracy of Pontiac and the Indian Wars after the Conquest of Canada (Boston: Little, Brown, 1884), 330.
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