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250th Anniversary Commemorations
Lincoln Park recently had the unique opportunity to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Chief Pontiac War Council, held along the River Ecorse on April 27, 1763.
We would like to thank everybody who volunteered, supported, and helped to make this anniversary event possible at Lincoln Park's Council Point Park.
We were also very pleased to work with the American Indian Movement (AIM) of Michigan in preparing for this special event in our community.
Coming Up
If you are heading up north around the first of June, the Fort Michilimackinac Museum at Mackinac City, is having its own 250th anniversary commemoration of the attack on the fort which occured June 2 1763. This attack was led by a band of northern Chippewa who were part of the Pontiac confederacy.
This is the famed attack that many of us learned about in school, when the Chippewa captured the fort and attacked the British soldiers during a game of lacrosse with a visiting band of Sauks.
Fort Michilimackinac Museum is co-publishing with MSU Press a new book by Keith Widder, entitled Beyond Pontiac's Shadow: Michilimackinac and the Anglo-Indian War of 1763. The book will be released on June 2 in conjunction with the Fort Michilimackinac Museum anniversary event.
More Information About The Chief Pontiac War Council, held along the River Ecorse on April 27, 1763
This council would lead to the uprising and attacks on British Forts in the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley region, including the nearly six month siege of Fort Detroit.
The council site today is known as Council Point (Park), but in the 1700s it was heavily forested and used by local Indian hidden camping location on the tribe's return to their summer village near Fort Detroit. It was called to be held on the 'Fifteenth of the Moon', or, according to the English calendar, April 27th, which fell on a Wednesday.
Also in attendance were hundreds of chiefs and warriors of the Potawatomi and the Wyandot (or Huron) Nations. The confederacy of the Indian Nations, though loosely structured, was effective in ousting the British from nine of the region's forts in a few weeks time, but was ultimately unsuccessful in capturing the major forts at Detroit, Pitt and Niagara, leading to the dissolution of the confederacy and the eventual displacement of the people of the native nations. Among the legacies of Pontiac's War--and its shifting allegiances--is that it became an important factor in the lead up to the American Revolution. The further displacement of the Indian Nations did not take place under British authority, but was orchestrated by the American Government over the next two centuries.
For further information about the Chief Pontiac Council held April 27, 1763 see our Pontiac Fact Sheet.