as adroitly encouraged, too, by the surviving French
settlers and traders. In 1761 the tension among the Indians was
increased by the appearance of a "prophet" among the Delawares, calling
on all his race to purge itself of foreign influences and to unite to
drive the white man from the land.

Protests against English encroachments were frequent and, though
respectful, none the less emphatic. At a conference in Philadelphia in
1761, an Iroquois sachem declared, "We, your Brethren, of the several
Nations, are penned up like Hoggs. There are Forts all around us, and
therefore we are apprehensive that Death is coming upon us." "We are now
left in Peace," ran a petition of some Christian Oneidas addressed to
Sir William Johnson, "and have nothing to do but to plant our Corn, Hunt
the wild Beasts, smoke our Pipes, and mind Religion. But as these Forts,
which are built among us, disturb our Peace, and are a great hurt to
Religion, because some of our Warriors are foolish, and some of our
Brother Soldiers don't fear God, we therefore desire that these Forts
may be pull'd down, and kick'd out of the way."

The leadership of the great revolt that was impending fell naturally
upon Pontiac, who, since the coming of the English, had established
himself with his squaws and children on a wooded island in Lake St.
Clair, barely out of view of the fortifications of Detroit. In all
Indian annals no name is more illustrious than Pontiac's; no figure more
forcefully displays the good and bad qualities of his race. Principal
chief of the Ottawa tribe, he was also by 1763 the head of a powerful
confederation of Ottawas, Ojibwas, and Potawatomi, and a leader known
and respected among Algonquin peoples from the sources of the Ohio
to the Mississippi. While capable of acts of magnanimity, he had an
ambition of Napoleonic proportions, and to attain his ends he was
prepared to use any means. More clearly than most of his forest
contemporaries, he perceived that in the life of the Indian people a
crisis had come. He saw that, unless the tide of English invasion was
rolled back at once, all would be lost. The colonial farmers would
push in after the soldiers; the forests would be cut away; the
hunting-grounds would be destroyed; the native population would be
driven away or enslaved. In the silence of his wigwam he thought out a
plan of action, and by the closing weeks of 1762 he was ready. Never was
plot more shrewdly devised and more artfully c