Pontiac's War

Its Causes, Course and Consequences

Richard Middleton

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781135864163
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Pontiac's War: Its Causes, Course, and Consequence, 1763-1765 is a compelling retelling of one of the most pivotal points in American colonial history, in which the Native peoples staged one of the most successful campaigns in three centuries of European contact. With his balanced analysis of the organization and execution of this important conflict, Middleton sheds light on the military movement that forced the British imperial forces to reinstate diplomacy to retain their authority over the region.

Spotlighting the Native American perspective, Pontiac's War presents a careful, engaging account of how very close to success those Native American forces truly came.

1

The New Order of Sir Jeffery Amherst, 1760–1761

Amherst and the British Establishment

If Indian hopes for a restoration of the “middle ground” were to be realized, much depended on the British commander-in-chief, General Sir Jeffery Amherst, and his senior officials. Canada and its dependencies were temporarily conquered provinces subject to military governance until a final peace with France. This gave Amherst enormous power. He had been generous in his treatment of the French inhabitants, ensuring protection for their religion and property according to European diplomatic protocol. His hope was that such leniency would assist the acculturation of the Canadians as subjects of the British Crown.

Unfortunately, such considerations did not apply to Canada’s Indian inhabitants since they were considered beyond the normal conventions of European morality and diplomacy. Like most whites, Amherst suffered from the racial prejudice which had been endemic since the first contact between the European and Native American peoples at the end of the fifteenth century. The orthodox view was that the native peoples were savages and heathens who had to be first conquered and then civilized through the twin agencies of Christianity and European methods of production. Although the Indians were thought to be higher than Africans on the scale of human intelligence, it was not a significant concession. Africans at least appeared fit for work, whereas Indians were caricatured as incurably lazy, making them little better than vermin, to be driven from the land or exterminated.

This prejudice was reinforced by the perceived failings of the Indians’ political and social structures. Amherst’s first assignment in America had been the capture of Louisburg, the strategic fort guarding the entrance to the St. Lawrence. The Micmac population there comprised a few hundred huntergatherers. Their military resources did not go beyond attacking the occasional sentry or guard post. This “skulking warfare” was utterly despised by European soldiers and produced bafflement at how Braddock had been defeated in 1755. Nor did Amherst’s views change when he took command in 1759 of the advance on Montreal by way of Lake George and Lake Champlain. When Brigadier General Thomas Gage advised against hiring two companies of Stockbridge Indians, Amherst responded, “I know what a vile crew they are, and I have as bad an opinion of those lazy rum drinking scoundrels as any one can have.” The advantage of taking them into the king’s service was that it might “keep them from doing mischief elsewhere.”¹

Of course, the British military were not alone in their contempt for the Indians’ martial qualities, since the French under Montcalm were equally prejudiced. Indeed, one senior officer attributed the loss of Canada in part to Vaudreuil’s excessive reliance on the Indians.² But while the war continued, Amherst necessarily had to ameliorate his sentiments, though he privately told his officers “not to rely too much” on Indian promises, “for whatever they say to you today, they would say to the French tomorrow, had they any superiority over us.” This did not mean that they should be gratuitously offended: “I would neither disgust them nor yet make them any promises that I did not intend to keep,” telling “them very plainly that I mean not to take any thing from them.” Amherst’s guiding principle was that “when they deserve it they shall be rewarded according to their merit and if they give any just room of complaint I am determined to punish them.”³

As the need for Indian help declined, so the disdain for the natives became more open. Croghan noticed by December 1759 that “the gentlemen” of the army were beginning to think that anything spent on the Indians was superfluous, since “they must from their necessities come into our measures.”⁴ Daniel Claus, a deputy agent and Johnson’s future son-in-law, reported similarly from Montreal the following year that the Indians’ constant importuning had made them “an eyesore to everyone about the General [Gage].”⁵ Even those supposedly well disposed had a demeaning opinion of them. Frederick Post, the Moravian missionary, who was himself married to a Delaware, suggested that “the Indians were void of reason,” while James Kenny, a Quaker merchant at Fort Pitt, commented that the Indians were “full of pride and ambition, but strangers to humility.” Improvement could only be inculcated in the way that a dog learns obedience.⁷

Finally, the Indians had few genuine friends even among those responsible for liaising with them. Although Johnson and Croghan had a good rapport with the native peoples, each used his influence to advance his own interests rather than those of the indigenous peoples. Both men were obsessed with joining the ranks of the gentry by the acquisition of land.⁸ As Johnson confessed to a political associate in June 1761, “my motive is the settling [of] the country which I have been promoting all the war.”⁹ Although Johnson was shortly to take an Indian partner, Molly Brant, he appears to have believed that the native peoples were a doomed race who would disappear as the tide of settlement advanced. Indeed, he subsequently advocated liberal quantities of alcohol “to let them shorten their days.”¹⁰ The Indian department’s main task in the meantime was the management of that decline.

Gift Giving versus a Market Economy, 1760–1761

Until 1760, Amherst and Johnson were largely confined to dealing with the Iroquois Six Nations. The fall of Canada, however, brought more extensive responsibilities, involving the seven mission settlements in the St. Lawrence Valley; the Ottawa, Huron, Potawatomi, and Ojibwa of the Great Lakes; the Shawnee, Delaware, and Mingo in the Ohio Valley; and the Twightwee, Kickapoo, Mascouten, and Piankashaw along the Wabash and Maumee Rivers. All these nations had been allied to the French and were expecting a continuation of the “middle ground.” In their view, they were undefeated. It was the French who had capitulated at Montreal. If the British wanted their friendship, then they would have to earn it.

The British perspective, of course, was very different. First, they did not consider the Indians a sovereign people. Second, the conquest of Canada had reduced the military value of the Indians since the war had now moved to the Caribbean and elsewhere. In addition, the fur trade, though still of some consequence, was far less important to the British than it had been to the French. Finally, the war in North America had been hugely expensive, contributing to a doubling of the British national debt. Now that military operations had ceased, it was assumed that the costs of the army in North America could be reduced. The Treasury in London was particularly of this view.

Amherst knew all about the latter. Any field officer serving overseas ultimately had to account to the Lords of the Treasury for all military expenditure. It was not a pleasant procedure, as Amherst knew, since he had already endured one audit after managing the commissariat in Germany prior to his departure for America in 1758. Consequently, any area of expenditure that was perceived to be peripheral, like the Indian department, was an immediate target for reduction. Amherst felt doubly justified economizing here since the Indians had played little part in the final stages of the war, following their desertion at Fort Levis. This meant they had unilaterally removed themselves from the military budget and had no further claim to aid.

The first area for cost cutting was the staff of the Indian department itself. This had been established in August 1755 to improve relations with the indigenous peoples. Two superintendents had been appointed: one for the region north of the Ohio under Johnson, and the other under Edmund Atkins for the area to the south of that river. The hope originally had been that the department would be financed from a “General Fund” raised by the colonies.¹¹ That had not happened, and Johnson and Atkins remained dependent on the military budget. The expenses of both departments had increased as the scope of the war widened, necessitating the appointment of additional personnel. Nevertheless, these officials had played an important role in winning native acceptance of the British. However, these considerations had little weight with Amherst once the conquest of Canada had been achieved. Accordingly, on 8 November 1760 he told Johnson to dismiss four officers from the Royal American regiment who were acting as aides, since in “the present circumstances of affairs, their services can be dispensed with.”¹² Although Johnson was shortly afterwards given a new commission, he still had to obey directions from the commander-in-chief.¹³ Not that Amherst was completely insensitive about the need for staff. After consulting Monckton, he agreed that some of Croghan’s agents at Fort Pitt might temporarily remain on the payroll.¹⁴

The next target for a reduction in the Indian expenses was the practice of gift giving. Even before the fall of Canada, Amherst had called for a reduction in these when the Indians visited the forts and attended conferences. Gift giving might have been necessary during the war but was now indicative of what the late twentieth century would call the “dependency culture.” In Amherst’s view, the Indians must support themselves through their hunting and by market forces. Hunting would provide them with food for their families and skins to exchange for European clothing, ammunition, and other necessities. Accordingly, on 2 August 1760 Amherst informed his senior commanders that the Indians hereafter were only to be supplied with provisions at Niagara and Fort Pitt, and the greatest care taken in the distribution of other items.¹⁵

Soon the screw was being tightened further, as Monckton informed Colonel Henry Bouquet at Fort Pitt in October 1760. Presents in future should only be issued on special occasions.¹⁶ When Johnson hinted that a more lenient policy might be advisable, Amherst acknowledged that “services must be rewarded … but as to purchasing the good behavior either of Indians or any others,” this “is what I do not understand; when men of what race so ever behave ill, they must be punished but not bribed.” Of course, “with regard to furnishing the latter with a little clothing, some arms and ammunition to hunt with, that is all very well in cases of necessity.” But “when the intended trade is once established, they will be able to supply themselves with these from the traders for their furs.” In other words, there was to be no adoption of the French system of subsidies disguised as gifts. Above all, there must be no regular issue of provisions. “When they find they can get it on asking for, they will grow remiss in their hunting, which should industriously be avoided; for so long as their minds are intent on business, they will not have leisure to hatch mischief.”¹⁷ The only exceptions to this rule were to be those Six Nations warriors who had completed the 1760 campaign. They were shortly to receive a silver medal commemorating that event with their name on one side and a view of Montreal on the other. On presenting their medals, they would be allowed “free egress and regress to any of his Majesty’s forts, posts and garrisons,” though only so long as they remained faithful to the British interest.¹⁸

One reason for Amherst’s opposition to gift giving was his failure to appreciate the distressed state of the Indian economy. Europeans commonly assumed that the countryside was teeming with game, providing an endless supply of food and pelts. But as Henry Bouquet discovered while supervising the rebuilding of Presque Isle in the summer of 1760, the Ojibwa there had not killed a single deer in a fortnight’s hunting.¹⁹ Nature’s bounty was rarely predictable. Equally parlous was the state of Indian agriculture. The war had prevented many nations from planting their corn. This was especially true along the St. Lawrence Valley, where Major Henry Gladwin felt moved to give the Swegatchie Indians corn to make up their losses.²⁰ The lack of food was inevitably accompanied by sickness. Nevertheless, Amherst was unmoved. He told Gage, “I am not sorry that the Indians are mostly destroyed at Swegatchie,” adding approvingly how “the Sickness at Canadasaga,” a Seneca settlement, “will decrease their number.” Indeed, the Indians were seemingly “diminishing in all their settlements.”²¹ This could only be advantageous in the long term.

The denial of gifts was especially troubling to the chiefs, since a leader who could win no favors invariably lost the respect of his people. This was a point made by Delaware George, one of the few Ohio leaders to support the British during the entire war with France. In a speech at Fort Pitt in May 1761, he commented that the English were constantly complaining about the failure of the Indians to have fixed abodes. George had accordingly established a new town at Kuskuskies, confident that he would get British or colonial help in the building thereof. However, so far he had received little assistance, certainly not the doors and locks he had been promised for his new cabins. He was afraid that Indian visitors would “laugh” at his ramshackle dwellings and point out the folly of being allied to the British if this was how he was rewarded.²² Indians believed in any case that gifts should be seen as reciprocity for allowing the Europeans to stay on Indian land.

Amherst’s attempts to reduce Indian expenses did not go completely unchallenged. Captain Donald Campbell at Detroit admitted that he had given the natives “ammunition, as their support entirely depends upon it.” But he argued that it was diplomatic to do so, for “there will probably be emissaries among them from the Illinois to endeavor to give us trouble.”²³ It was a reminder that the French still had a foothold in North America and could rally the native inhabitants to their cause. Johnson gave a similar reply when Amherst queried the expenses of Croghan and Rogers following their visit to Detroit in November 1760. He pointed out that the dispatch of Croghan with gifts had been a necessary “safe guard to Major Rogers in an Indian country, where our troops were liable to be insulted.” Johnson knew from past experience “that a little generosity and moderation will tend more to the good of his Majesty’s Indian interest, than the reverse, which would raise their jealousy much more than it is now.” Gift giving had been the policy of the French, “who certainly were very clever in extending their Indian Alliances.” Admittedly it had been done at considerable expense, but the French had reaped great benefit thereby. “Should we, Sir, unexpectedly, or unhappily be obliged to give up Canada (which God forbid), it will in my opinion be (beyond all dispute) for the interest of Britain, to show these people a little generosity and friendship, and thereby show them it is their interest to keep well with us.”²⁴

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction: The Middle Ground of Onontio
• 1. The New Order of Sir Jeffery Amherst, 1760–1761
• 2. The Seneca Plan: A War of Liberation
• 3. The Uneasy Peace, 1762–1763
• 4. Pontiac Takes the Initiative: Detroit
• 5. The Spreading Conflagration
• 6. The Empire Fights Back
• 7. Amherst Tries Again
• 8. Winter Operations
• 9. The Campaign for the Great Lakes, 1764
• 10. Peace Comes to the Ohio Valley
• 11. Pontiac and the Struggle for the Illinois
• Conclusions
• Notes
• Select Bibliography
• Index