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 (Illinois) of Natural Resources assumed control of Fort Defiance on July 31, 2014 with the goal of returning it to state park status. The park is a satellite of Horseshoe Lake State Fish and Wildlife Area. On his trek up the Mississippi, Frenchman Pierre Laclède was among the first Europeans to land on the southern tip of what is now Illinois. Fort Defiance (Illinois) Fort Defiance, known as Camp Defiance during the American Civil War, is a former military fortification located at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers near Cairo in Alexander County, Illinois. The strategic significance of the