The Relief of Fort Pitt, August 1763
Henry I. Kurtz describes how, in 1763, the Conspiracy of Pontiac led to an Indian rebellion aimed at ousting the British from their newly won North American territories.
“I see that the affair is general... (and) I believe, from what I hear, that I am surrounded by Indians. I neglect nothing to give them a good reception; and I expect to be attacked tomorrow morning. Please God I may be. I am passably well-prepared. Everybody is at work, and I do not sleep...”
Captain Simeon Ecuyer, Swiss by birth and commander of the British garrison at Fort Pitt, penned this troubled report at the outset of the great Indian uprising of 1763—known more generally as the Pontiac Conspiracy; a rebellion that aimed to oust the British from territory on the western frontier of their North American colonies, newly won at the conclusion of the French and Indian War; but that was also intended, more improbably, to wrest all of North America from the white man.
In February of 1763 the Treaty of Paris, ending the Seven Years’ War, had secured for the British all the North American territory, save Louisiana, previously held by the French. Actually, the western Pennsylvania area, beyond the Allegheny mountains and into the Ohio valley, had already been taken by force of arms.
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