Following the conclusion of the Seven Years’ War, known as the French and Indian War in North America, a confederation of Native Americans in the Great Lakes rose up to resist British rule and colonial expansion. Known as Pontiac’s War, after the prominent Odawa leader Pontiac (Obwaandi’eyaag), the war broke out in May 1763 following Native American raids on a number of British forts and settlements. Reports described brutal Native American tactics involving the killing of prisoners and the targeting of civilians and soon an army expedition was sent to put it down.
Britain also followed brutal policies against Native Americans. At negotiations following the siege of Fort Pitt in Pennsylvania in June 1763, British officers delivered blankets infected with smallpox to Delaware emissaries in the hopes that it would cause an epidemic among Indigenous forces. The impact of this action is unknown, however, as the disease may have previously spread among the population through prior contact with European settlers.
In October, George III, on advice of the government issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763 to try to quell the unrest. The Proclamation recognised Indigenous lands and declared that settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains was forbidden. This angered colonists and may have had an influence on the American Revolution.
While the fighting was largely over by 1764, skirmishes continued in Illinois until 1766. The war showed Native Americans that organised resistance against Europeans could be achieved and over the next half-century, various leaders tried to form similar confederations against British and later American colonial expansion.
This account of both the French and Indian War and Pontiac’s War, History of the War in North America, was written by the army officer and spy Thomas Mante and published in 1773 by William Strahan and Thomas Cadell. Mante had joined the expedition against the Native Americans in the summer of 1763 and was part of the 1764 expedition to make peace with the coalition.
For the remainder of the 1760s Mante was involved in various failed commercial and colonial projects including an attempt to set up a new colony at Detroit. He was later tasked with gathering intelligence concerning possible French threats but in 1773 he moved to Normandy, perhaps after being revealed as a double agent, being in the employ of French authorities until 1774.