Pontiac or Obwaandi'eyaag was an Odawa war chief known for his role in the war named for him, from 1763 to 1766 leading Native Americans in an armed struggle against the British in the Great Lakes region due to, among other reasons, dissatisfaction with British policies. It followed the British victory in the French and Indian War, the American front of the Seven Years' War. Pontiac's importance in the war that bears his name has been debated. Historical accounts from the 19th century portrayed him as the mastermind and leader of the revolt, but some subsequent scholars argued that his role had been exaggerated. Historians today generally view him as an important local leader who influenced a wider movement that he did not command.
The 1779 Sullivan Expedition was a United States military campaign during the American Revolutionary War, lasting from June to October 1779, against the four British allied nations of the Iroquois. The campaign was ordered by George Washington in response to the 1778 Iroquois and British attacks on Wyoming, German Flatts, and Cherry Valley. The campaign had the aim of "taking the war home to the enemy to break their morale". The Continental Army carried out a scorched-earth campaign in the territory of the Iroquois Confederacy in what is now western and central New York.
The Battle of Oriskany was a significant engagement of the Saratoga campaign of the American Revolutionary War, and one of the bloodiest battles in the conflict between Patriot forces and those loyal to Great Britain. On August 6, 1777, several hundred of Britain's Indigenous allies, accompanied by Loyalists of the King's Royal Regiment of New York and the British Indian Department, ambushed a Patriot militia column which was marching to relieve the siege of Fort Stanwix. This was one of the few battles in which the majority of the participants were American colonists. Patriots and allied Oneidas fought against Loyalists and allied Iroquois and Mississaugas. No British regulars were involved; however, a detachment of Hessians was present.
John Butler was an American-born military officer, landowner, merchant and colonial official in the British Indian Department. During the American Revolutionary War, he was a prominent Loyalist who led the provincial regiment known as Butler's Rangers on the frontiers of New York and Pennsylvania. Born in Connecticut, he moved to New York with his family, where he learned several Iroquoian languages and worked as an interpreter in the fur trade. He was well-equipped to work with Mohawk and other Iroquois warriors who became allies of the British during the rebellion.
Pontiac's Rebellion was launched in 1763 by a loose confederation of Native Americans who were dissatisfied with British rule in the Great Lakes region following the French and Indian War (1754–1763). Warriors from numerous nations joined in an effort to drive British soldiers and settlers out of the region. The war is named after Odawa leader Pontiac, the most prominent of many indigenous leaders in the conflict.
Peter Buell Porter was an American lawyer, soldier and politician who served as United States Secretary of War from 1828 to 1829.
Simon Girty was an American-born frontiersman, soldier and interpreter from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania who served as a liaison between the British and their Indian allies during the American Revolutionary War. He was portrayed as a villain, and was also featured this way in 19th- and early 20th-century fiction from the United States. As children, Girty and his brothers were taken captive in Pennsylvania in a Seneca raid and adopted. He lived with the Seneca for seven years and became fully assimilated, preferring their culture. He was returned to his birth family but retained a sympathy for the Indians.
Fort Harrison was a War of 1812 era stockade constructed in Oct. 1811 on high ground overlooking the Wabash River on a portion of what is today the modern city of Terre Haute, Indiana, by forces under command of Gen. William Henry Harrison. It was a staging point for Harrison to encamp his forces just prior to the Battle of Tippecanoe a month later. The fort was the site of a famous battle in the War of 1812, the siege of Fort Harrison in Sept. 1812 that was the first significant victory for the U.S. in the war. The fort was abandoned in 1818 as the frontier moved westward.
Fort Schlosser was a fortification built in Western New York in the United States around 1760 by British colonial forces, in order to guard the upper entrance to the portage around Niagara Falls, north of Porter-Barton Dock or Schlosser's Landing along the shoreline with the Niagara River.
Sayenqueraghta was the war chief of the eastern Seneca tribe in the mid-18th century. He was born the son of Cayenquaraghta, a prominent Seneca chief of the Turtle clan in western New York. He lived most of his life at Kanadaseaga, near the present day town of Geneva, New York. He obtained his rank of war chief in 1751. Before the American Revolution he was referred to as chief of the Senecas.
Fort Le Bœuf was a fort established by the French during 1753 on a fork of French Creek, in present-day Waterford, in northwest Pennsylvania. The fort was part of a line that included Fort Presque Isle, Fort Machault, and Fort Duquesne.
The siege of Fort Detroit was an ultimately unsuccessful attempt by North American Indians to capture Fort Detroit during Pontiac's Rebellion. The siege was led primarily by Pontiac, an Ottawa chief and military leader. This rebellion would be one of the catalysts that hastened the declaration of the Proclamation of 1763 which would eventually precipitate the events leading to the American Revolution.
Fort Sandusky refers to at least three separate military forts that were built by French and English forces at three different sites in the area of Sandusky Bay and the Sandusky River in northern Ohio. They were the French Fort Sandoske, the British Fort Sandusky (1761), and the American Fort Sandusky.
Fort Venango, a small British fort built in 1760 near the present-day site of Franklin, Pennsylvania, replaced Fort Machault, a French fort built at the confluence of French Creek and the Allegheny River. The French burned their fort in 1759 after abandoning it. They retreated to the north after learning of the French surrender to the British of Fort Niagara, near the end of the French and Indian War.
Fort Presque Isle was a fort built by French soldiers in summer 1753 along Presque Isle Bay in present-day Erie, Pennsylvania, to protect the northern terminus of the Venango Path. It was the first of the French posts built in the Ohio Country, and was part of a line that included Fort Le Boeuf, Fort Machault, and Fort Duquesne.
The Battle of Point Pelee was a military engagement in 1763 during Pontiac's Rebellion.
Louis-Thomas Chabert de Joncaire, also known as Sononchiez by the Iroquois, was a French army officer and interpreter for New France who worked with the Iroquois tribes during the French and Indian Wars in the early 18th century. He helped negotiate the Great Peace of Montreal in 1701 and founded Fort Niagara in 1720.
The Battle of Lewiston saw Major General Phineas Riall lead a combined British and Native force against the American town of Lewiston. They defeated the Americans in the area and then looted and burnt the town.
