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

Pontiac has been many things to many historians. Francis Parkman counted him as a noble savage who fought the spread of European civilization. Others have cast the Ottawa leader either as a warrior for Indian independence or as one of many local leaders who together mounted the fight against the expansion of English dominion after the Seven Years' War. Dowd masterfully revises what we know about Pontiac by balancing Pontiac's singularity as a prophetically minded war leader with the complicated series of leaders, conflicts, and intrigues across the Great Lakes and Ohio country that have been lumped under the rubric of Pontiac's War. Dowd's arguments are convincing, his prose is accessible and vibrant, the research is prodigious, and War under Heaven will occupy an important place in the historiography of the pays d'en haut.

A number of events conspired to transform the Ohio and Great Lakes country into a tinderbox. The flight of the Delawares and other nations from the east put people who had suffered great losses from expanding settlements and Covenant Chain diplomacy into contact with Ottawas, Shawnees, and Potawatomis who lamented the flight of their French trading partners after the fall of Canada. Pontiac caught wind of the Delaware prophet Neolin's vision of a world where native people were accorded the respect they deserved, and, like the mythic hero Nanabush, Pontiac and others sought to create a new world for themselves out of the muck and mud of Jeffrey Amherst's high-handed imperial policies.

Dowd roots native military strategy in the cosmological underpinnings of Pontiac's cause. For the Ottawas and their allies, the British and their posts stood as an affront to the respect they felt they deserved. Warriors thus targeted the British forts where the traders and officers who had abused them resided. Various subterfuges brought quick results as only Forts Pitt, Niagara, and Detroit remained standing after the initial assaults. Rather than reduce these formidable outposts, warriors sought to harry communication and supply lines in the hopes of isolating the garrisons and compelling their withdrawal.

According to Dowd, the war "dissipated in a haze of rumor" (p. 266). Pontiac receded as an important leader in 1765-66, and his allies sent out different and sometimes conflicting peace signals, leaving the British terribly confused and making for an untidy end to what has heretofore been depicted as a fairly straightforward war. One gets the sense that Pontiac's war is but one part of a broader conflict that began with the Beaver Wars of the mid-seventeenth century and ended with Tecumseh's death on the Thames. Dowd has crafted an important and gripping work of history that will be of interest to scholars of various stripes as well as to lay readers and students.