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 Defiance (Ohio) had agreed not to settle. Until the War of 1812, Fort Defiance was one of the westernmost outposts in Ohio. William Henry Harrison used it as one base for his attacks against Native Americans during Tecumseh's War, and the fort played a role in the War of 1812 as well. The city of Defiance, Ohio, was founded at the fort's location. In 1904, the site of the fort was chosen for the Defiance Public Library. Fort Defiance served as a reference point for defining the boundary line of land cession in the Treaty of Detroit in 1807. This north-south line