uf, and Venango, passed into
the hands of the British soon after the taking of Fort Duquesne. Most of
the Western forts were transferred to the English during the autumn of
1760; but the extreme Western settlements on the Illinois, viz., Forts
Ouatanon, Vincennes, Kaskaskia, Chartres, and Cahokia, remained several
years longer under French control. In the fall of 1760 Major Robert
Rogers was directed by the then British commander, Sir Jeffrey Amherst,
to traverse the Great Lakes with a detachment of provincial troops and,
in the name of England, take possession of Detroit, Michilimackinac, and
the other Western forts included in the surrender of the French.

Major Rogers, with two hundred rangers, left Montreal, ascended the St.
Lawrence, crossed Lakes Ontario and Erie, and reached the mouth of the
Cuyahoga[46] on November 7th. No body of troops under the British flag
had ever before penetrated so far west on the Lakes. Rogers and his men
encamped in the neighboring forest. Shortly after their arrival a party
of Indian chiefs and warriors appeared at the camp and declared they
were envoys from Pontiac, "ruler of all that country," and demanded, in
his name, that the British soldiers "should advance no farther" until
they had conferred with the great chief, who was rapidly approaching.
That same day Pontiac himself appeared; and "it is here," says Parkman,
"for the first time, that this remarkable man stands forth distinctly on
the page of history."

The place and date of birth of Pontiac are both matters of dispute.
There seems to be no doubt that he was the son of an Ottawa chief; his
mother is variously stated to have been an Ojibwa, a Miami, and a Sac.
Preponderance of evidence, as the lawyers say, seems to favor the
Ojibwas. Authorities also vary as to the date of his nativity from 1712
to 1720.[47] Historical writers usually content themselves with the
vague statement that he was born "on the Ottawa River," without
designating which Ottawa River, for many were so called; indeed, the
Ottawas were in the habit of calling every stream upon which they
sojourned any length of time "Ottawa," after their own tribe. The Miami
chief Richardville is on record as often asserting that Pontiac was born
by the Maumee at the mouth of the Auglaize.[48] In any event, Pontiac,
like his great successor, the incomparable Shawano chief, Tecumseh, was
a native of Ohio.

The Ottawas, Ojibwas, and the Pottawottomis had formed a sort of