The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]

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 alliance of which Pontiac was the virtual head. He was of a despotic and commanding temperament, and he wielded practical authority among all the tribes of the Illinois country, and was known to all the Indian nations of America. Pontiac, conscious of his power and position, haughtily asked Major Rogers, "What his business was in that country?" and how he dared enter it without Pontiac's permission? Rogers informed the chief that the war was over, the French defeated, the country surrendered to the British, and he was on his way to receive the posts from the French occupiers. Pontiac was wily and diplomatic. He received the news stolidly, reserved his answer till next morning, when his reply was that as he desired to live in peace with the British, he would let them remain in his country as long as "they treated him with due respect and deference." Both parties smoked the calumet and protested friendship. Rogers proceeded on his errand. On November 29, 1760, the French garrison at Detroit transferred that historic and most important Western station to British possession.[49]