War under Heaven: Pontiac, the Indian Nations, and the British Empire

by Gregory Evans Dowd

The 1763 Treaty of Paris ceded much of the continent east of the Mississippi to Great Britain, a claim which the Indian nations of the Great Lakes, who suddenly found themselves under British rule, considered outrageous. Unlike the French, with whom Great Lakes Indians had formed an alliance of convenience, the British entered the upper Great Lakes in a spirit of conquest. British officers on the frontier keenly felt the need to assert their assumed superiority over both Native Americans and European settlers. At the same time, Indian leaders expected appropriate tokens of British regard, gifts the British refused to give. It is this issue of respect that, according to Gregory Dowd, lies at the root of the war the Ottawa chief Pontiac and his alliance of Great Lakes Indians waged on the British Empire between 1763 and 1767. In War under Heaven, Dowd boldly reinterprets the causes and consequences of Pontiac's War. Where previous Anglocentric histories have ascribed this dramatic uprising to disputes over trade and land, this groundbreaking work traces the conflict back to both the low regard in which the British held the Indians and the concern among Native American leaders about their people's standing -- and their sovereignty -- in the eyes of the British. Pontiac's War also embodied a clash of world views, and Dowd examines the central role that Indian cultural practices and beliefs played in the conflict, explores the political and military culture of the British Empire which informed the attitudes its servants had toward Indians, provides deft and insightful portraits of Pontiac and his British adversaries, and offers a detailed analysis of the military and diplomatic strategies of both sides. Imaginatively conceived and compellingly told, War under Heaven redefines our understanding of Anglo-Indian relations in the colonial period.

Genres: History, American History, Native American History, War, The Americas, Nonfiction, American Revolution

384 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Gregory Evans Dowd is a professor of history and American culture at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Fort Michilimackinac [was] located on a sandy stretch of land on the south side of the Straits of Mackinac between Lakes Huron and Michigan. Built and rebuilt by the French of cedar pickets and enclosing two acres, the post contained thirty small, neat houses and a church. The British had been in it only since late 1761, and if they meant to dominate the region, their garrison – with fewer than forty soldiers – was far too small. So common were rumors of Indian conspiracies against the garrison that Captain George Etherington had come to ignore them. Ojibwas frequently met outside one of the gates to play the high-stakes sport of bag’ gat’iway, a kind of lacrosse…On the cool morning of June 2, 1763, Ojibwas and visiting Sauks assembled in large numbers near the fort. Blanketed women, weapons concealed, gathered to watch the game; men disrobed and prepared for the rough sport. For several hours they played with spirit. At close to noon, a player threw the ball toward the open gate, where Lieutenant William Leslie and Captain Etherington casually admired the onrushing players – then saw with a start that the women were passing out tomahawks and short spears…”
- Gregory Evans Dowd, War Under Heaven

Pontiac’s War occupies a half-forgotten place in history. Beginning in 1763 and ending in 1766, it fell between two major wars of world-historical importance: the French & Indian War and the American Revolution. Compared to these monumental conflicts, both of which reordered the balances of power in both the short and long term, Pontiac’s War is more an object of curiosity. Today, it is often overlooked. If we are being honest with ourselves, when we hear the name Pontiac, we are more likely to be thinking about General Motors’ famed automobile, rather than the Ottawa chief who lent his name to a bloody, furious rebellion against the British Empire.

That’s too bad, because in terms of drama, Pontiac’s War has a lot to offer. It featured a rare pan-Indian alliance and a string of stunning Indian successes that saw Detroit taken under siege, and a number of other British outposts – Fort Sandusky, Fort Miami, and Fort Michilimackinac, among others – wiped off the map. There were battles and massacres and terror raids. And of course, there were the infamous smallpox blankets of General Jeffrey Amherst.

The unfortunate thing about Gregory Evans Dowd’s War Under Heaven is how it takes all that drama and flattens it beneath the mallet of pedantry.

***

Dowd is a history professor; War Under Heaven is published by a university press. I am not in the habit of vicious literary takedowns in these circumstances, and I don’t intend that here. After all, as a history lover, I rely heavily on books like War Under Heaven to teach me about topics that are not covered in mass-appeal pop-histories. This is especially true in the arena of Pontiac’s War, since its most famous chronicler remains nineteenth century historian Francis Parkman.

At the same time, I can’t lie and say I loved this. War Under Heaven is less than 300 pages of text, but every single page felt like ten. It is incredibly dense and at times indigestible.

***

Often, when a book does not work for me, I ask myself: Who is this book written for? Determining the answer to that question makes it easier to decide who is at fault, the book or the reader.

When I answer that question with regards to War Under Heaven, I can only conclude that it was written for extremely serious students of Pontiac’s War, other academics, or a combination of both.

War Under Heaven never achieves any kind of momentum. It is methodical from the start. In workmanlike, sometimes tedious fashion, Dowd explains the context for the war. He has a difficult task, since very little is known about Pontiac, the man at the center of the storm.

***

Pontiac’s War broke out at the end of the French & Indian War. With the French nominally ejected from the North American continent, her Indian allies suddenly found themselves without a European counterweight to Great Britain. The effort taken to vanquish France did not put the English into a conciliatory mood.

British officials clearly conveyed their intention to dominate and to master a conquered continent; to intend less would have been to shed their identities as British imperial leaders. Indians demanded recognition, honor, and respect. Conflicts over foul language, insults, Indian captives, women, patterns of authority, trade, and, perhaps above all, presents revealed clearly that an unbridgeable distance lay between each party’s dimming hopes for peace.

In relating these facts, however, Dowd has to circle around a black hole. The historical record of Pontiac’s War is more a study of absence than presence. This leads to a lot of comparative analysis, as Dowd refers to other historians and other theories, in order to critique and often discount them. In the interest of full disclosure, I have not read a lot about Pontiac. Thus, I found it difficult to follow Dowd’s evaluation without having a good baseline. It is exceedingly possible that I would gotten more out of this if I started with better prior knowledge.

Despite the plodding style, I pushed forward, hoping there would be uptick in energy once the war began. That never occurred. The military side of Pontiac’s War is related as matter-of-factly as everything else. Just one or two narrative set pieces would have done wonders for this book. Instead, this life-and-death struggle on the American frontier achieves little more excitement than a gluten-free cookbook. It’s a question of personal taste, but I understand and retain better when I’m engaged.

***

The ploddingness is at least partly a function of the book’s scholarly pedigree and academic audience. Instead of giving us tales of battle and escape, victory and defeat, Dowd focuses intently on his overall thesis: Indian status vis-à-vis Great Britain. He writes at length about their legal standing, their rights, and their future under the dominion of the Crown. Of course, less than a decade after Pontiac’s War, their position under the Crown would be mooted by the colonial rebellion exploding in Boston. I would have been more interested in Dowd’s take on the effect Pontiac’s War had on the intensely land-hungry American colonists who were starting to brood and chafe under Great Britain’s authority. Instead of following that thread, Dowd is insistent on staying close to his chosen historical micro-niche.

Towards the end of War Under Heaven, Dowd writes:

[A]mid all the high thinking about constitutional status and native spirituality, it should not be forgotten that the war also raised terrors, terrors that would inflame for centuries the issue of the Indians’ status. It is better to remember the humanity of the Indian families who lost children to smallpox; colonial households murdered in a fiery night; elderly settlement Indians clobbered to death by mounted, armed colonial bands; Enoch Brown and his schoolchildren surprised and destroyed at their lessons; Papunhank and his dying fellows in the infested Philadelphia barracks; sick seven-year-old Elizabeth Fisher, who saw both her parents killed and who, months later, died herself beneath the surface of a shallow, frigid Maumee River; every Indian warrior captured alive by British troops only to receive, perhaps after an interrogation, his “Quietus”; every ordinary regimental soldier trapped in a tiny, besieged stockade…

This passage is exactly what I wanted, and also represents the same things that are missing within these pages. If he had only followed his own advice, and remembered that history is the story of people, not interpretive theories, this would have been a much more successful book.

[Robert Jeens · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an overview of the causes, course, and effects of Pontiac’s Rebellion. The Rebellion broke out in 1763, after the news that the French had given up Canada to Britain hit the Western posts. Thirteen British frontier forts in the Old Northwest were attacked by their surrounding native peoples, of which only three, Fort Pitt, Detroit, and Fort Niagara, did not fall. Perhaps 450 British soldiers and 2,000 settlers were killed over the course of the Rebellion, and the Rebellion forced most of the rest back over the Appalachians. The main theses presented are these.
First, "the status of the Native American peoples...emerged as the single most important issue in Pontiac's War, far more important than...trade, Indian hating, or even title to the lands themselves." What Dowd means by this is complicated. The British had conquered the French, but not the Indians, and that was something the Indians told British officers when they met them. The British, however, were to put the Indians in their place and the old French way of dealing with them was to be curtailed. Trade would be open, but all gifts to the alliance chiefs would be cut off. They were no longer to be welcomed and fed at the forts. This importance of the role of hospitality and gifts in Indian alliances cannot be overstated. To Great Lakes Indians at the time, allies were people who gave gifts and enjoyed hospitality. That is how alliance worked. No gifts or hospitality meant enemy. Plus, as Dowd contends, by this time the Indians had become dependent upon Western trade goods. This puts him on the same side of the argument as Daniel Richter in "The Ordeal of the Longhouse" and Denys Delage in" Bitter Feast" and against Richard White in "Middle Ground". I agree with Dowd and Richter and Delage. When the British cut off the flow of presents, it not only disrupted a relationship, but it also caused real hardship in the villages.
As agents of the British Empire, British officers saw the Indian idea of liberty as something that had to be crushed: Indians were their social inferiors. The Detroit commander refused to let the blacksmith repair Indians’ guns. He hanged an Indian woman accused as an accomplice in the murder of a British man, breaking the old practice of accepting furs in compensation. The commandants at Fort Pitt and Detroit openly mocked the Indians for their dependence on British goods and called them "dogs” and “hogs": the war was as much about that as anything else.
There was an important religious dimension to the Rebellion. A Delaware prophet, Neolin, preached a complete separation of Indians and British. Pontiac was among many in the inter-tribal Old Northwest who heard this message. Indians had to be moderate if not abstinent, follow a special diet and do certain rituals and there would be a war and the British would be driven out. Many believed that this would lead their French “father” to return.
The Rebellion started in Detroit in May, 1763, and it spread from there to the Genesee region in New York, the Susquehanna, Ohio, Great Lakes, Illinois, and Arkansas. While it has been put forth that Pontiac was the leader of the conspiracy, in fact he was just a chief of the Ottawa village at Detroit. There were many other leaders in many other places who were just as important.
The aims of the Rebellion were to "drive the British troops back across the Alleghenies...take what...forts they could; cut the communication with the forts they could not take; to denude the countryside surrounding the communications they could not cut; and to intimidate those settlers they could not kill or capture into leaving and avoiding the trans-Appalachian west." Dowd narrates Pontiac's plan to take Fort Detroit by ruse and how it was betrayed by an informer. He further narrates the attacks at various other posts, Michilimackinac, Niagara, Sandusky, Fort Pitt, and the frontier settlements. All of this took place in 1763. This was a part of the book I was somewhat disappointed in. Dowd relates the action, but he doesn’t really get you into the feel of how it was to be there.
Three British expeditions were sent to "punish" the Indians in 1764: burn their villages, kill their leaders, and get all the captives back None of that happened. There were negotiations, some groups agreed to peace, and some captives were returned, but Pontiac remained in the Illinois country sending war belts out. Most Indians remained hostile. On the other side, there were disturbances on the frontier when groups of armed civilians both killed Indians known to be non-combatants and attacked convoys attempting to trade with them and British soldiers and garrisons that tried to hold them to account.
1765 saw more British negotiators being sent into the interior to get peace, and these had better results. Negotiators were sent up the Mississippi, and George Croghan made a more or less final peace at Detroit in August and Sepember 1765 with Pontiac and other Indians who had formerly lived at Detroit and who were now in the Illinois, as well as others up the Great Lakes. This was followed by another conference with Sir William Johnson, the Colonial Superintendent of Indian Affairs in the Northern Colonies, in New York in 1766. The Rebellion fizzled out as the Indians agreed to accept the British as their new “father”.
When Dowd writes about the effects of the Rebellion, I think he is widely correct but has a few blind spots. He is correct when he says that the Rebellion caused the British to re-evaluate their relationship with the Indians. There is a historiography of the period in which British officials were seen as much more sympathetic to the Indians and tried to protect them from the racist, land-grabbing colonials. I think that Dowd is correct to push back against that. He is correct that the Proclamation of 1763 was not intended to protect Indian lands, but to regularize the method of acquiring them. The line separating settlement from Indian lands along the crest of the Appalachians was intended to move west, and it was expected that officials would get rich on Indian lands. Although some British administrations in the latter 1760s and early 1770s tried to force settlers from Indian lands, they ultimately gave up. Amid the rising turbulence in the American colonies themselves, the British withdrew from all the frontier forts except for Niagara, Detroit, and Michilimackinac.
Dowd’s point about the British not wanting to accommodate Indians and their demands for respect and presents is true but irrelevant. The French had not wanted to accommodate the Indians either but were forced to by power relations, that is, that they needed the Indian alliance. The British were not interested in alliance, but they did not have the power to impose their will and thus ended up in a relationship imposed by power relations just as the French had been. It was not a great relationship, but that was true of Indian-French relations at many times as well. French traders had been murdered by Indians in the interior just as British traders continued to be. Further, who do you think represented a more hierarchical society, pre-Revolution France or post-Glorious Revolution England? British- Indian relations looked bad when the previous French Indian relations were viewed with rose-tinted glasses.
The Old Northwest continued to be a contentious place. Murders occurred on both sides. Pontiac himself was murdered in 1769. Trade policy was adjusted, and not necessarily to the liking of the Indians. The Indians, nevertheless, had successfully forced the British to recognize their place, however hazily that place was defined legally. After the rebellion, people again started to populate the Ohio River Country. Further, official British attention was diverted by the actions leading up to the American Revolution in the main colonies themselves. It is a testament to the ultimate sagacity of British officials that when the Revolution broke out, the Indian nations that had fought against them in Pontiac’s Rebellion fought with them against the American colonists.
Dowd is an excellent historian, and so the book is richly sourced. His prose is business-like and orderly. He presents his ideas clearly and provides support for them. On the other hand, it is not scintillating and does not help to move the actions along. It doesn’t get in the way, but it doesn’t really help a lot either. It won’t bring new people into the fold. If you like your prose purple, then you need to read Francis Parkman’s “The Conspiracy of Pontiac,” but this is probably a lot more factual.

[Jerome Otte · Rating 4 out of 5]

An insightful, well-written and well-researched history of Pontiac’s war.The narrative devotes relatively little time to the fighting, concentrating more on diplomacy, the religious background, and general mood of the time.

The narrative is readable, and Dowd’s rendition of Pontiac is clear and persuasive. Pontiac here comes off as very sympathetic and intelligent and he effectively uses Pontiac to explain the Indians’ grievances and culture. He also describes the situation in the Ohio Valley, how that region was affected by the war between France and England, and how Pontiac was influenced by Neolin.

Dowd disputes the idea that British disregard for Indian customs after their victory in North America was due to ignorance, given that the British had been involved in negotiations with the tribes since the last century. Dowd also explains the Indians’ strategy, arguing that they deliberately attacked settlements near major trade routes rather than at random. Dowd argues that French influence on Pontiac was minimal, and also compares the British government with the American settlers, arguing that neither group was really more or less racist than the other, and that not all settlers dabbled in the same type. Still, his portrait of the British side is sometimes less nuanced than that of the natives.

A concise and accessible work, although it doesn’t really draw a solid conclusion.

[Todd Price · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Pontiac’s War and the American Revolution were both expressions of Great Britain’s struggle and failure to form stable, working relationships in the 1760’s among the peoples within its suddenly acquired North American empire. As historian John M. Murrin has written of the American Revolution, Pontiac’s War was a crisis of imperial integration. The crisis continued after the fighting had ended.” Professor Dowd relates this analysis of the conflict on page 248. Dowd’s goal is to establish the underlying causes of Pontiac’s War. As opposed to prior academic treatment that held French intrigue in the aftermath of their loss to Britain in the recently concluded French and Indian War or Native American resentment at loss of land were the main issues of contention, Dowd posits that the status or standing of Native Americans under British rule was the primary motivation for the tribes to take up arms against the British military and American settlers.

Dowd takes great pains to identify the lack of claim to any responsibility to Native American peoples propelled them to the military showdown. He meticulously culled historical records to demonstrate the lack of claim that Native Americans living in the lands just ceded by France were ever considered “subjects” of Great Britain. Savvy Native leaders recognized the precarious situation this placed their people in, causing them to initiate hostilities to gain more respectful recognition. While this is an oversimplification of Dowd’s argument, Native American social standing and sovereignty were the key aspects of Pontiac’s War’s genesis.

He also clearly identifies that instead of it being a singular uprising led by Pontiac as a leading general, it was a coincidence of 4-5 regional groupings of Native American nations reacting to new policies in relations with Great Britain, initiated by British military commanders Sir Jeffrey Amherst and General Thomas Gage. Pontiac was A leading figure, but his direct impact was largely limited to the peoples living around Fort Detroit: the Anishinibeg(Ottawa, Ojibwa, and Potawatomi) and some Wyandot(Huron) communities. Other regional groups that acted generally independently included the Illinois tribes(Cahokia, Kaskaskia, Peoria), Wabash River nations(Kickapoo, Mascouten, Miami, Wea/Ouiatenon, Piankashaw), Ohio River Valley coalition(Delaware/Lenape, Mingo/Seneca, Shawnee) and closely associated eastern bands of those people in Pennsylvania, as well as the Genesee River Seneca of western New York. Dowd also delves into the somewhat related elements of American frontier settler groups like the Paxton gang and the Black Boys, operating on the western edge of Pennsylvania.

This is an important work in better understanding Native American beliefs and priorities in dealing with European and Euro-American governments. Dowd also discusses the military aspects in a secondary or tertiary manner, as social and religious aspects are his primary focus. As always, Dowd is one of the masters of early American frontier history, alongside Colin Calloway and R. David Edmunds.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I studied these events before the American Revolution at university back in the late '60s and early '70s we were still academically under the shadow of Francis Parkman's work. We had little reliable information presenting the Native American experience and perception of the events leading up to these conflicts or of their outcomes. I enjoyed the ongoing reexamination of their stories and their representation in the common narrative and author Greg Dowd presents a great contribution to that retelling - and to my appreciation of this new account. Pontiac, of course, is an important recurring presence in this story but he is only one piece and participant in these events. Dowd does a thorough job presenting the perspectives of the various tribes and other Native American groups, the British Crown's military representatives and Colonial officials, the Americans, and the French military representatives and civilians all in the affected area. His account also reflects and examines the implications and impact of this period of conflict on the future American effort to win their independence. Recommended.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first located this book when I was driving a Pontiac. I decided to learn something about the man the car brand was named after. My guess is that this fairly-recent nonfiction book is the definitive history of "Pontiac's War" (circa 1763). Of particular interest are the contrasting relationships with Native peoples established first by the French and then the British. These events took place where I live--in the former "Northwest Territories"--and that adds to my historical interest. The city of Pontiac, MI is only about 15 miles away.
It's a scholarly book with a commensurate number of excellent footnotes, which I'm diligently reading as I go. Learning about these times is the least I can do after we Eurotrash killed hundreds of thousands (millions?) of Native North Americans as we stole this country.
One more grabber for me is that I had the great privilege of being around Chief Little Elk (Eli Thomas) many years ago. The Chief taught any and all about Anishinabe (Chippewa) culture and traditions, including music and dancing. This book's insights into the belief system and ways of the Anishinabe of old, and also those of other N.A. tribes, are wonderfully illuminating.

I apologize for this atypical and anything-but-comprehensive 'review'. Please don't judge the book by this reviewer's not being adequate to the reviewing task.
"War Under Heaven" is an OUTSTANDING work.

[Joshua Horn · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a real slog. The middle third was pretty interesting, when Dowd was covering the fighting in Pontiac's War. But the rest of it was confusing, hard to follow, and rather boring. A lot of background information is given, but I found there to be too much of that, and not enough clear and well written explanation of what he is saying and how it relates to the topic at hand.

One section that I found very interesting was about the "Black Boys." They were the first Americans to capture a British fort in the Rev. War times. It seems that very few know of them today.

I did appreciate the analysis that was nuanced and deep, but for me it wasn't enough to make this a recommended read.

[Jeff Bobin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Native Americans played a vital role in our early American history and this is part of that story. This gives a good picture of the divisions in the different tribes as well as the many conflicts fed by European military forces, colonists and foreign governments.

There is a lot of food for thought here on the relationships between the native Americans and those coming here to settle as the country moved west.

[Mathieu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good. Dowd understands Pontiac by delving into the culture of the natives and their own representations of the world they inhabited. Very insightful, though the narrative is sometimes a little bit difficult to follow.

[Janice · Rating 5 out of 5]

So much about war.

[Cece · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very much a history book! It was cool to see a different rhetoric around Indigenous peoples and to learn histories of settler-Native relations and dynamics. This telling of Pontiac’s story was really interesting! The central role that spirituality played in anti-colonial movements led by Pontiac was super insightful.

[Marsha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dowd goes beyond the standard monographs that show land hungry English or vengeful Native Americans as the catalysts of Pontiac's war. By researching the relationships between a variety of Native American groups, the drastic change from French to English power, and the variety of religious groups, including tribal religion and prophets, French Catholicism and Moravian influences, Dowd breaks down the assumptions and disproves them.

Pontiac was concerned with the status of his people, and the disrespect shown by the British military. British military culture is examined closely and compared to the relationship Native Americans had with the French.

[Dan Schroeder · Rating 2 out of 5]

I struggled to like this book, but after reading more than 100 pages I gave up. The author may have meant it as a scholarly work, but it's certainly not engaging. People and events are mentioned, almost in passing, that infer that reader should have as much knowledge as the author about these times and their people. It's also a rather Indian-centric work. Although I respect and admire the Native American people, I prefer an author without an axe to grind.

I guess I expected something more engaging.

[Aannedomm · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dowd focuses this work about Pontiac's War on the British Indian policy before, during, and after the War and the spiritual nature of the War for Pontiac. Dowd does not only focus on the causes, battles, and aftermath of the War but its implications on the larger world stage. The skipping around in chronology can make the book a bit harder to follow than others, but the sectional break up of information is helpful. The use of identity as a main cause of the War is excellent.