Royal Proclamation of 1763 a long and close relationship with France, and were dismayed to find that they were now under British sovereignty. They missed the amicable relationship with the French, along with the gifts they bestowed upon them, neither of which they had with the British. Pontiac's Rebellion (1763–66), a war launched by a group of natives around the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley, was an unsuccessful effort by the western tribes to push the British back. However tribes were able to take over a large number of the forts which commanded the waterways involved in trade within the region and export to
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