For three years Pontiac, like a restless spirit, moved from camp to camp and from hunting-ground to hunting-ground. There were outbreaks of hostilities in the Indian country, but in none of these did he take part. His name never appears in the records of those three years. His days of conspiracy were at an end. By many of the French and Indians he was distrusted as a pensioner of the British, and by the British traders and settlers he was hated for his past deeds. In 1769 he visited the Mississippi, and while at Cahokia he attended a drunken frolic held by some Indians. When he left the feast, stupid from the effects of rum, he was followed into the forest by a Kaskaskia Indian, probably bribed by a British trader. And as Pontiac lurched among the black shadows of the trees, his pursuer crept up behind him, and with a swift stroke of the tomahawk cleft his skull. Thus by a treacherous blow ended the career of a warrior whose chief weapon had been treachery.
For twelve years England, by means of military officers, ruled the great hinterland east of the Mississippi—a region vast and rich, which now teems with a population immensely greater than that of the whole broad Dominion of Canada—a region which is to-day dotted with such magnificent cities as Chicago, Detroit, and Indianapolis. Unhappily, England made no effort to colonize this wilderness empire. Indeed, as Edmund Burke has said, she made 'an attempt to keep as a lair of wild beasts that earth which God, by an express charter, had given to the children of men.' She forbade settlement in the hinterland. She did this ostensibly for the Indians, but in reality for the merchants in the mother country. In a report of the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations in 1772 are words which show that it was the intention of the government to confine 'the western extent of settlements to such a distance from the seaboard as that those settlements should lie within easy reach of the trade and commerce of this kingdom,… and also of the exercise of that authority and jurisdiction… necessary for the preservation of the colonies in a due subordination to, and dependence upon, the mother country… It does appear to us that the extension of the fur trade depends entirely upon the Indians being undisturbed in the possession of their hunting-grounds… Let the savages enjoy their deserts in quiet. Were they driven from their forests the peltry trade would decrease, and it is not impossible that worse savages would take refuge in them.'
Much has been written about the stamp tax and the tea tax as causes of the American revolution, but this determination to confine the colonies to the Atlantic seaboard 'rendered the revolution inevitable.' [Footnote: Roosevelt's The Winning of the West, part i, p. 57.] In 1778, three years after the sword was drawn, when an American force under George Rogers Clark invaded the Indian country, England's weakly garrisoned posts, then by the Quebec Act under the government of Canada, were easily captured; and, when accounts came to be settled after the war, the entire hinterland south of the Great Lakes, from the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, passed to the United States.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The main source of information regarding the siege of Detroit is the 'Pontiac Manuscript.' This work has been translated several times, the best and most recent translation being that by R. Clyde Ford for the Journal of Pontiac's Conspiracy, 1763, edited by C. M. Burton. Unfortunately, the manuscript abruptly ends in the middle of the description of the fight at Bloody Run.
The following works will be found of great assistance to the student: Rogers's Journals; Cass's Discourse before the Michigan Historical Society; Henry's Travels and Adventures in Canada and the Indian Territories; Parkman's Conspiracy of Pontiac (the fullest and best treatment of the subject); Ellis's Life of Pontiac, the Conspirator (a digest of Parkman's work); Historical Account of the Expedition against the Ohio Indians, 1764 (authorship doubtful, but probably written by Dr William Smith of Philadelphia); Stone's The Life and Times of Sir William Johnson; Drake's Indians of North America; Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico and Handbook of Indians of Canada; Ogg's The Opening of the Mississippi; Roosevelt's The Winning of the West; Carter's The Illinois Country; Beer's British Colonial Policy, 1754-1765; Adair's The History of the American Indians; the Annual Register for the years 1763, 1764, and 1774; Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History; Pownall's The Administration of the Colonies; Bancroft's History of the United States; Kingsford's History of Canada; Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of America and his Mississippi Basin; Gordon's History of Pennsylvania; Lucas's A History of Canada, 1763-1812; Gayarre's History of Louisiana; and McMaster's History of the People of the United States.
In 1766 there was published in London a somewhat remarkable drama entitled Ponteach: or the Savages of America. A part of this will be found in the appendices to Parkman's Conspiracy of Pontiac. Parkman suggests that Robert Rogers may have had a hand in the composition of this drama.