olina and Georgia. Detroit
was cut off for months; the Indians drove the British
from all other points on the Great Lakes west of Lake
Ontario; for a time they triumphantly pushed their
war-parties, plundering and burning and murdering, from
the Mississippi to the frontiers of New York. During the
year 1763 more British lives were lost in America than
in the memorable year of 1759, the year of the siege of
Quebec and the world-famous battle of the Plains of Abraham.

CHAPTER II

PONTIAC AND THE TRIBES OF THE HINTERLAND

Foremost among the Indian leaders was Pontiac, the
over-chief of the Ottawa Confederacy. It has been customary
to speak of this chief as possessed of 'princely grandeur'
and as one 'honoured and revered by his subjects.' But
it was not by a display of princely dignity or by inspiring
awe and reverence that he influenced his bloodthirsty
followers. His chief traits were treachery and cruelty,
and his pre-eminence in these qualities commanded their
respect. His conduct of the siege of Detroit, as we shall
see, was marked by duplicity and diabolic savagery. He
has often been extolled for his skill as a military
leader, and there is a good deal in his siege of Detroit
and in the murderous ingenuity of some of his raids to
support this view. But his principal claim to distinction
is due to his position as the head of a confederacy
--whereas the other chiefs in the conflict were merely
leaders of single tribes--and to the fact that he was
situated at the very centre of the theatre of war. News
from Detroit could be quickly heralded along the canoe
routes and forest trails to the other tribes, and it thus
happened that when Pontiac struck, the whole Indian
country rose in arms. But the evidence clearly shows
that, except against Detroit and the neighbouring
blockhouses, he had no part in planning the attacks.
The war as a whole was a leaderless war.

Let us now look for a moment at the Indians who took part
in the war. Immediately under the influence of Pontiac
were three tribes--the Ottawas, the Chippewas, and the
Potawatomis. These had their hunting-grounds chiefly in
the Michigan peninsula, and formed what was known as the
Ottawa Confederacy or the Confederacy of the Three Fires.
It was at the best a loose confederacy, with nothing of
the organized strength of the Six Nations. The Indians
in it were of a low type--sunk in savagery and superstition.
A leader such as Pontiac naturally appeale