Pontiac (Ottawa leader) he had relatives. Pontiac continued to encourage militant resistance to British occupation among the Illinois and Wabash tribes, and to recruit French colonists as allies. According to historian Richard White, it was during this time that Pontiac exerted his greatest influence, developing from a local war leader into an important regional spokesman. After the failure of the siege of Fort Detroit, the British initially thought that Pontiac was defeated and would trouble them no longer, but his influence continued to grow. The British had successfully pacified the uprising in the Ohio Country, but British military dominance was tenuous. They decided
Siege of Fort Henry (1777) of Virginia and Pennsylvania that Indians living in the Ohio Country were planning attacks on frontier settlements on and around the Ohio River. Fort Henry, which had been constructed in 1774 to protect the settlers in the area around what is now Wheeling, West Virginia, was one of the rumored targets. In early August, General Edward Hand, the commander at nearby Fort Pitt warned Lieutenant David Shepherd and all of the local militia captains of the threat, ordering them to gather at Fort Henry. For a time thereafter, militia companies stayed at Fort Henry, improving its defenses and patrolling for