Pontiac (Ottawa leader) exaggerated. Historians today generally view him as an important local leader who influenced a wider movement that he did not command. The war began in May 1763 when Pontiac and 300 followers attempted to take Fort Detroit by surprise. His plan foiled, Pontiac laid siege to the fort, where he was eventually joined by more than 900 warriors from a half-dozen tribes. Meanwhile, messengers spread the word of Pontiac's actions, and the war expanded far beyond Detroit. In July 1763, Pontiac defeated a British detachment at the Battle of Bloody Run, but he was unable to capture the fort. In
Siege of Fort Nashwaak communities. During King William's War - the first of the four French and Indian Wars - French and Indians were victorious in the Siege of Pemaquid (1696) (present day Bristol, Maine) earlier that year. In the Siege of Pemaquid, the French and Indians had destroyed Fort William Henry, which the English colonial militia leader Benjamin Church himself assisted in erecting. In response to the defeat, the following month Benjamin Church led a devastating raid on Chignecto and then laid siege to the capital of Acadia, Fort Nashwaak in 1696. Fort Nashwaak was a four-sided log palisade erected by Governor Villebon