Chief Pontiac, or Obwendiyag (c. 1720 - April 20, 1769), was an Odawa (Ottawa) war chief.
Noted for his role in Pontiac's War (1763–1766), an American Indian struggle against British military occupation of the Great Lakes region and named for him. It followed the British victory in the French and Indian War, the North American front of the Seven Years' War. Pontiac's importance in the war that bears his name has been debated. Nineteenth-century accounts portrayed him as the mastermind and leader of the revolt, but some subsequent scholars argued that his role had been exaggerated. Historians today generally view him as an important local leader who influenced a wider movement that he did not command.
The war began in May 1763 when Pontiac and 300 followers attempted to take Fort Detroit by surprise. His plan foiled, Pontiac laid siege to the fort, where he was eventually joined by more than 900 warriors from a half-dozen tribes. Meanwhile, messengers spread the word of Pontiac's actions, and the war expanded far beyond Detroit. In July 1763, Pontiac defeated a British detachment at the Battle of Bloody Run, but he was unable to capture the fort. In October he lifted the siege and withdrew to the Illinois Country.
Although Pontiac's influence had declined around Detroit because of the unsuccessful siege, he gained stature as he continued to encourage resistance to the British. Seeking to end the war, British officials made Pontiac the focus of their diplomatic efforts. In July 1766, Pontiac made peace with British Superintendent of Indian Affairs Sir William Johnson. The attention that the British paid to Pontiac resulted in resentment among other Native leaders, as the war effort was decentralized and Pontiac claimed greater authority than he possessed. Increasingly ostracized, in 1769 he was assassinated by a Peoria warrior.
Contemporary documents reveal little about Pontiac before 1763. He was probably born between 1712 and 1725, perhaps at an Ottawa village on the Detroit or Maumee rivers.[2] The tribal affiliation of his parents is uncertain. According to an 18th-century Ottawa tradition, Pontiac's mother was an Ottawa and his father an Ojibwa, although some sources claim that one of his parents was a Miami. Pontiac was always identified as an Ottawa by people who knew him.[3] He had also lived in close proximity to Fort Detroit, which he later besieged, since 1732.
By 1747, Pontiac had become an Ottawa war leader, when he allied with New France against a resistance movement led by Nicholas Orontony, a Huron leader.[4] Pontiac continued to support the French during the French and Indian War (1754–1763) against British colonists and their Indian allies. Although there is no direct evidence, he may have taken part in the famous French and Indian victory over the Braddock expedition on July 9, 1755.
In one of the earliest accounts of Pontiac, Robert Rogers, a noted British frontier soldier, claimed to have met with the warrior chief in 1760, although many details in Rogers' story are unreliable. Rogers wrote a play about Pontiac called Ponteach: or the Savages of America (1765), which helped to make the Ottawa leader famous and began the process of mythologizing about him. According to historian Richard White, the play made Pontiac "the most famous Indian of the eighteenth century".
Historians have differed in their assessments of Pontiac's importance. Older accounts of the war portrayed Pontiac as a savage but brilliant mastermind behind a massive "conspiracy", which was planned in advance. Historians today generally agree that Pontiac's actions at Detroit were the spark that instigated the widespread uprising, and that he helped to spread the resistance by sending emissaries urging other leaders to join it, but he did not command the various tribal war leaders as a whole. They operated in a highly decentralized way. In addition, Native leaders around Fort Pitt and Fort Niagara, for example, had long been calling for resistance to the British; they were not led by Pontiac. According to historian John Sugden, Pontiac "was neither the originator nor the strategist of the rebellion, but he kindled it by daring to act, and his early successes, ambition, and determination won him a temporary prominence not enjoyed by any of the other Indian leaders.
ETZNAB
Kin 138: White Galactic Mirror
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Modeling order
I seal the matrix of endlessness
With the galactic tone of integrity
I am guided by the power of spirit.
Compassion is unconditional giving. It means exchanging yourself for others, putting yourself in other' shoes. In this way, we cease judgment and equalize perceptions of others.*
*Star Traveler's 13 Moon Almanac of Synchronicity, Galactic Research Institute, Law of Time Press, Ashland, Oregon, 2015-2016.
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