Pontiac
Pontiac names 3 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Pontiac pon'ti-ak (1720-1769)
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
pon'ti-ak (1720-1769), a chieftain of the Ottawa Indians. By reason of his prowess as a warrior he became leader of the Ottawas, the Ojibways, and the Pottawattomies. During the French and Indian War he supported the cause of the former. He contributed largely to the defeat of General Braddock, and is thought by some to have commanded in person. He bitterly resented the entrance of the British into his country. In 1762 he formed an alliance of Indians throughout the West, known as Pontiac's Conspiracy. It was arranged that each tribe of Indians should attack the British post in its vicinity on or about the same date. Pontiac conducted the attack on Detroit in person. He planned at first to take the fort by strategy. He asked the commandant for a conference, at which he appeared with a large number of his warriors wrapped in blankets. The commander, having been warned of intended treachery, however, had a company of troops with loaded rifles present in the council chamber. When Pontiac demanded the cause of such an unusual guard, the commander raised the blanket of the nearest warrior, revealing a rifle which had been filed off short so as to permit of concealment. Each warrior was armed likewise. His stratagem being thus discovered Pontiac and his allies rose grimly and walked out. The wily chieftain then proceeded to lay siege to the fort. Ships coming with provisions and reinforcements were waylaid. A considerable detachment of troops ventured out on a sally, fell into an ambuscade at Bloody Bridge, and were cut off. An account of the siege forms one of the most interesting chapters in Park-man's Conspiracy of Pontiac. It was prolonged for a considerable length of time before reinforcements arrived and the savages were forced to withdraw. Elsewhere the attacks were more successful. Of twelve posts attacked, eight fell into the hands of the savages. With the exception of Oswego, Niagara, Fort Pitt, and Detroit, the entire region of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi Valley was reoccupied by the Indians. In the following year Colonel Bouquet made a successful expedition against the Indians of Ohio. Pontiac's allies, perceiving the contest to be vain, fell away from him and made peace with the British. Sir William Johnson, of Oswego, New York , persuaded the Indians of New York to make peace. Pontiac, however, haughtily refused to yield. He took refuge in Illinois, where it is said a British trader bribed a Peoria Indian to murder him, the compensation being a barrel of rum. The place of his death was Cahokia, an Indian village on the east bank of the Mississippi, a little below St. Louis. At the time of his death he wore a French uniform presented to him by General Montcalm. He was buried where the city of St. Louis now stands. He was, without doubt, one of the ablest red men with whom white settlers ever came in contact. Neither mound nor tablet marked the burial-place of Pontiac. For a mausoleum, a city has risen above the forest here, and the race whom he hated with such burning rancor, trample with unceasing footsteps over his forgotten grave.--Parkman.
Pontiac a city of Michigan
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a city of Michigan, the county-seat of Oakland co. It is on the Clinton river, and on the Grand Trunk and the Pontiac, Oxford, and Northern railroads. It is situated in the midst of a picturesque lake region and is noted for its hunting and fishing. It has a large trade in wool, fruit, and farm manufacture of automobiles, wagons, farm machinery, paints and varnishes, foundry products, flour, etc. It is the seat of the State Hospital for the In- It has a public library and other sane. public buildings. Pop. (1910) 14,532; (1920) 34,273.
Pontiac a celebrated Indian chief of the Ottawa tribe
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a celebrated Indian chief of the Ottawa tribe; born about 1712. He was the leader in Pontiac's War, and was killed in Illinois in 1769.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's 1910 account follows Francis Parkman closely, down to the phrase "Pontiac's Conspiracy" and the claim that Pontiac "contributed largely to the defeat of General Braddock" in 1755; historians now find no evidence he was at Braddock's defeat, and they call the 1763 rising Pontiac's War or Rebellion rather than a conspiracy, stressing the religious revival preached by the Delaware prophet Neolin as much as one chief's generalship. Parkman's closing image of a forgotten grave beneath St. Louis is also doubted: Pontiac was killed at Cahokia in 1769, but the burial place is unknown and Illinois, not Missouri, is the likelier side of the river. The Michigan city, which Collier's recorded leaping from 14,532 people in 1910 to 34,273 in 1920 on the strength of "manufacture of automobiles, wagons, farm machinery," rode that boom to roughly 85,000 by 1970 and has since fallen back to about 60,000; General Motors named its Pontiac car line for the chief in 1926 and killed the brand in 2010. The "State Hospital for the Insane" that Collier's lists closed in the 1990s, and the Pontiac Silverdome, home of the Detroit Lions from 1975 and host of a Super Bowl, was demolished in 2017-18.
Written for this edition, 2026.