Detroit Clair, and south to Monroe and downriver suburbs, the French Canadians of Detroit, also known as Muskrat French, remain a subculture in the region today. During the French and Indian War (1754–63), the North American front of the Seven Years' War between Britain and France, British troops gained control of the settlement in 1760. They shortened the name to "Detroit". Several Native American tribes launched Pontiac's Rebellion (1763), and conducted a siege of Fort Detroit, but failed to capture it. In defeat, France ceded its territory in North America east of the Mississippi to Britain following the war. Following the
Siege of Fort Pitt become by 1763 and how far British officers were willing to go in ignoring their own soldiers' code of warfare. A devastating smallpox epidemic plagued Native American tribes in the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes area through 1763 and 1764, but the effectiveness of these instances of efforts to spread smallpox remain unknown. After extensive review of surviving documentary evidence, historian Francis Jennings concluded the attempt at biological warfare was "unquestionably effective at Fort Pitt"; Barbara Mann deduced "it is important to note that the smallpox distribution worked"; Howard Peckham noted the resulting fatal epidemic "certainly affected their vigorous prosecution