Siege of Fort Detroit siege and traveled south to the Maumee River, where he continued his efforts to rally resistance against the British. Siege of Fort Detroit "For the action in the War of 1812, see the Siege of Detroit" The Siege of Fort Detroit was an ultimately unsuccessful attempt by North American Indians to capture Fort Detroit during Pontiac's Rebellion. The siege was led primarily by Pontiac, an Ottawa chief and military leader. Fort Detroit had been captured by the British during the French and Indian War following the Fall of Montreal in 1760. It was on territory ceded by France to Great
Illinois campaign the region. When the American Revolutionary War began, in 1775, the Ohio River marked the border between the Illinois Country and Kentucky, an area recently settled by American colonists. The British had originally sought to keep American Indians out of the war, but in 1777 Lieutenant Governor Hamilton received instructions to recruit and arm Indian war parties to raid the Kentucky settlements, opening a western front in the war with the rebel colonists. "From 1777 on," wrote historian Bernard Sheehan, "the line of western settlements was under almost constant assault by white-led [Indian] raiding parties that had originated at Detroit."