Pontiac (1720-20 April 1769) was a chief of the Odawa tribe who was noted for his leadership of Pontiac's Rebellion from 1763 to 1766. Pontiac's uprising against Great Britain was defeated, and he was assassinated by a Peoria warrior in 1769.
Biography[]
Pontiac was born in 1720 in the Great Lakes region of New France, and he became a war chief of the Odawa tribe of the Great Lakes region of the Midwest. In 1763, Pontiac led a movement to expel Great Britain from the region, and the movement spread to other areas, attracting several followers. He became the leader of a massive rebellion against the British, and he besieged Fort Detroit with 900 warriors. Pontiac defeated the British at the Battle of Bloody Run, but in October 1763 he was forced to retreat from the failed siege. His support base eroded due to the failure of the Siege of Fort Detroit, and in July 1766 he negotiated a peace with William Johnson, the Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Great Britain. Pontiac, an arrogant man, claimed that he had more power than he possessed and exaggerated his role in the rebellion, and in 1769 a Peoria warrior assassinated him at Cahokia.