Fort Pitt Museum Pitt, after William Pitt the Elder. As a result, in 1763 local Delawares and Shawnees took part in Pontiac's Rebellion, an effort to drive the British out of their territory. The Indians' siege of Fort Pitt began on June 22, 1763, but the fort was too strong to be taken by force. In negotiations during the siege, the commander of Fort Pitt gave two Delaware emissaries blankets that had been exposed to smallpox, in hopes of infecting the surrounding Indians and ending the siege. The effectiveness of this attempt is unclear. Outbreaks of smallpox had plagued Native Americans for years
Fort Detroit disarmed, the French attacked and killed all of them. This event is known in the Grosse Pointe area as the Fox Indian Massacre. This siege of Fort Detroit was the opening incident in the Fox Wars. After a few years the British and the French conflict over North America, a front in the Seven Years' War of Europe, came to a head in the French and Indian War, which broke out in 1754. Detroit was far removed from the main areas of conflict and was not involved in combat. Two months after the capitulation in 1760 of the French at