Siege of Fort Pitt

For the 1885 action in the Canadian North-West Rebellion, see the Battle of Fort Pitt

The Siege of Fort Pitt took place in 1763 in what is now the city of Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. The siege was a part of Pontiac's Rebellion, an effort by American Indians to drive the British out of the Ohio Country and back across the Appalachian Mountains. The Indian effort to capture Fort Pitt ultimately failed.

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Background

Fort Pitt was built in 1758 during the French and Indian War, on the site of what was previously Fort Duquesne. The French abandoned and destroyed Fort Duquesne in November 1758 with the approach of General John Forbes's expedition. The Forbes expedition was successful in part because of the Treaty of Easton, in which area American Indians agreed to end their alliance with the French. American Indians—primarily Delawares and Shawnees—made this agreement with the understanding that the British military would leave the area after the war. The Indians wanted a trading post, but they did not want a British fort, or a British garrison, near their villages. The British, however, built Fort Pitt larger and stronger than Fort Duquesne had been.

The Siege

In May 1763, Pontiac's Rebellion began at Fort Detroit. After Indians around Pittsburgh heard the news, they attacked Fort Pitt on June 22 1763. Too strong to be taken by force, the fort was kept under siege throughout July. Meanwhile, Delaware and Shawnee war parties raided deep into the Pennsylvania settlements, taking captives and killing unknown numbers of men, women, and children. Panicked settlers fled eastwards.

For General Jeffrey Amherst, who before the war had dismissed the possibility that the Indians would offer any effective resistance to British rule, the military situation over the summer became increasingly grim. He wrote his subordinates and instructed them not to take any Indian prisoners.

The siege didn't let up until August 1, 1763, when most of the Indians broke off from Fort Pitt in order to intercept a body of 500 British troops marching to the fort under Colonel Henry Bouquet. On August 5, these two forces met at the Battle of Bushy Run. Bouquet fought off the attack and relieved Fort Pitt on August 20.

Blankets With Smallpox

On June 29 1763, a week after the siege began, Bouquet was preparing to lead an expedition to relieve Fort Pitt when he received a letter from Amherst making the following proposal: "Could it not be contrived to send the smallpox among the disaffected tribes of Indians? We must on this occasion use every stratagem in our power to reduce them." ^[1]

Bouquet agreed, writing back to Amherst on July 13 1763: "I will try to inoculate the bastards with some blankets that may fall into their hands, and take care not to get the disease myself." Amherst responded favorably on July 16 1763: "You will do well to inoculate the Indians by means of blankets, as well as every other method that can serve to extirpate this execrable race."^[2]

As it turned out, however, officers at the besieged Fort Pitt had already attempted to do what Amherst and Bouquet were still discussing. During a parley at Fort Pitt on June 24 1763, Captain Simeon Ecuyer gave representatives of the besieging Delawares two blankets and a handkerchief that had been exposed to smallpox, in hopes of spreading the disease to the Indians in order to end the siege. Indians in the area did indeed contract smallpox. However, some historians have noted that it is impossible to verify how many people (if any) contracted the disease as a result of the Fort Pitt incident; the disease was already in the area and may have reached the Indians through other vectors. Indeed, even before the blankets had been handed over, the disease may have been spread to the Indians by native warriors returning from attacks on infected white settlements. So while it is certain that these British soldiers attempted to intentionally infect Indians with smallpox, it is uncertain whether or not their attempt was successful.^[3]

Though many are unaware of the exact details surrounding these incidents, the idea of European settlers giving infected blankets to Indians is a part of public consciousness, and a common metaphor for a gift given with underhanded intentions.

Notes

1. ^  Peckham, p. 226; Anderson, p. 542; 809n.
2. ^  Anderson, p. 809n.
3. ^  Anderson, pp. 541–2; McConnell, p. 195; Dowd, War Under Heaven, p. 190.

References

• Anderson, Fred. Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766. New York: Knopf, 2000. ISBN 0-375-40642-5.
• Dixon, David. Never Come to Peace Again: Pontiac's Uprising and the Fate of the British Empire in North America. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2005. ISBN 0-8061-3656-1.
• Dowd, Gregory Evans. War Under Heaven: Pontiac, the Indian Nations, & the British Empire. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-8018-7079-8.
• McConnell, Michael N. A Country Between: The Upper Ohio Valley and Its Peoples, 1724-1774. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1992.
• Peckham, Howard H. Pontiac and the Indian Uprising. University of Chicago Press, 1947.