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[617]p. 618p. 619p. 620p. 621p. 622p. 623p. 624p. 625p. 626p. 627p. 628p. 629p. 630p. 631p. 632p. 633p. 634p. 635p. 636p. 637p. 638p. 639p. 640p. 641p. 642p. 643p. 644p. 645p. 646p. 647p. 648p. 649p. 650p. 651p. 652p. 653p. 654Issue Table of ContentsEthnohistory, Vol. 44, No. 4 (Autumn, 1997), pp. 595-762+i-viiiVolume Information [pp. i - vii]Front MatterEthnohistory for a Tribal World [pp. 595 - 615]Pontiac's War: Forging New Links in the Anglo-Iroquois Covenant Chain, 1758-1766 [pp. 617 - 654]Swearing by the Past, Swearing to the Future: Sacred Oaths, Alliances, and Treaties among the Guianese and Jamaican Maroons [pp. 655 - 689]Blessed Damien of Moloka'i: The Critical Analysis of Contemporary Myth [pp. 691 - 726]Review EssayHistorical Representation in Native American Documentary [pp. 727 - 739]Book Reviewsuntitled [pp. 741 - 743]untitled [pp. 743 - 745]untitled [pp. 745 - 746]untitled [pp. 747 - 749]untitled [pp. 750 - 752]untitled [pp. 752 - 753]untitled [pp. 754 - 755]untitled [pp. 755 - 757]untitled [pp. 757 - 759]untitled [pp. 759 - 761]Back Matter [pp. 762 - viii]Pontiac's War: Forging New Links in the Anglo-Iroquois Covenant Chain, 1758-1766Author(s): Jon William ParmenterSource: Ethnohistory, Vol. 44, No. 4 (Autumn, 1997), pp. 617-654Published by: Duke University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/482883Accessed: 05/07/2010 14:49Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available athttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. 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For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected] University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Ethnohistory.http://www.jstor.orgPontiac's War: Forging New Links in the Anglo-Iroquois Covenant Chain, I758-I766 Jon William Parmenter, University of Michigan Abstract. This essay examines the history of Pontiac's War from the perspective of the western Algonquians' entry into the Anglo-Iroquois Covenant Chain alliance system in I758. Recognized formally as equal diplomatic partners to Great Britain and the Six Nations by Sir William Johnson in I76i, the Great Lakes and upper Ohio Valley peoples directed their military and diplomatic efforts over the next five years toward securing and extending that status. The I766 Treaty of Oswego repre- sented a political victory for the western Indians, as it established their territorial integrity and confirmed their status as independent allies in the Covenant Chain. Pontiac's War and the Covenant Chain Historians are now revising earlier interpretations of Pontiac's War, which stressed the Indians' military shortfall and overlooked their diplomatic success.1 Michael McConnell characterizes Pontiac's War as a defensive conflict on the part of the Indians; he argues that the war represented an effort by the Indians to restore their alliance with the French of Canada.2 Gregory Dowd builds on McConnell's thesis, contending that the war con- stituted an Indian attempt to manipulate France into returning to North America as a counterweight to the westward expansion of the American colonies, while also stressing the significance of native religious revital- ization as a motivating factor in the conflict.3 Richard White portrays Pontiac's War as a qualified success for the Indians in the reestablishment of a diplomatic "middle ground" of common understanding and cooperation between themselves and the British.4 Recently, Ian K. Steele has pointed out that Pontiac's War was the first major multitribal war against Euro- peans in North America to create a balance of power between the Indians and the British.5 Ethnohistory 44:4 (fall I997). Copyright ?) by the American Society for Ethno- history. ccc 00I4-I80I/97/$I.50.6i8 Jon William Parmenter Despite significant advances in historical understanding of Pontiac's War, there still exists a need for deeper exploration of the complex di- plomacy that surrounded the conflict. To date, no historian has analyzed in detail the involvement of the Great Lakes Algonquian peoples in the Anglo-Iroquois Covenant Chain alliance system after I758.6 While we must remain aware of the instances in which colonial Indian treaties served as a "license for empire" by which imperial powers bent diplomatic struc- tures to exploitative ends,7 we should also recognize the uses of diplomacy by Indian peoples for advancing and protecting their own interests in eighteenth-century North America.8 Consideration of the critical shift in kinship alliance politics orchestrated by the Indians of the Great Lakes and upper Ohio Valley region vis-a-vis the British and the Six Nations from I758 to I766, when they acquired status as equal partners in a new, tri- partite version of the historic Anglo-Iroquois Covenant Chain, sheds new light on the origins and outcome of Pontiac's War. During the colonial period, Indians entered into alliances with other Indian groups, and with intruding Europeans, by offering kinship to these outsiders.9 Many Native American diplomatic rituals (including those of the Covenant Chain) served to place new allies into specific familial cate- gories considered appropriate for the kind of interaction intended. These events usually involved the creation of an ancillary or fictive kinship tie. Fluidity characterized these methods of placing cultural outsiders into rec- ognized social positions, and any rights or obligations associated with a specific term of kinship affiliation were open to negotiation each time the ritual process