Pontiac

Pontiac

c. 1714

Ohio

April 20, 1769

Cahokia, Illinois

Ottawa-Chippewa tribal leader

Pontiac was an Ottawa chief who led the Pontiac Rebellion in 1763, an attack inspired by Native American resentment at European settlers seizing their land. It was the most impressive Native American resistance movement ever encountered by Europeans in North America. Yet the Pontiac Rebellion failed, primarily because the great chief was unable to form an alliance with the French against the British. Pontiac's war was also significant because Native Americans never again had an opportunity to drive back European settlers. Native tribes continued to lose their land as they were pushed westward and their way of life was totally destroyed.

Trained as Ottawa Warrior

Although little is known about Pontiac's youth, it is believed he was born around 1714 along the Maumee River in present-day Ohio, to an Ottawa father and a Chippewa mother. The exact meaning of the name Pontiac has never been determined, but in nineteenth-century Ottawa traditional stories he was called Obwandiyag (pronounced Bwondiac). The English spelled his name "Pontiac," probablybecause it sounded that way to them. At the time of Pontiac's birth the Ottawa nation was located at Michilimackinac, on Saginaw Bay, and along the Detroit River.

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