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Adapted Excerpt from Pontiac’s Speech at the Council near Detroit

I am angry because you have forgotten my ways. You fight with each other, you drink until you lose your minds, and you follow bad spirits who pretend to speak for me. I do not want you to act this way.

You have taken up the ways of the English. You wear their clothes, use their guns, and drink their alcohol. You no longer use bows or dress in skins. You follow their ways and forget your ancestors.

You must stop. Leave behind these things. Live as your fathers did. Be faithful to one wife, speak truthfully, do not fight among yourselves, and do not give away your lands. Pray instead of making medicine, and teach your children to follow my words.

The English, the men in red, have brought evil to your lands. They take without giving, and they care nothing for you. If they stay, they will destroy your people.

So I tell you now: drive them away. Send them back to the land I made for them. Do not fear. You will not go hungry if you follow my path. The earth will provide.

Teach these words to all your people, young and old. Say them each day, and live by them. If you do this, you will once again walk with me.

A black-and-white engraving depicts a historical scene of Pontiac, addressing a large group of warriors in an open clearing. Pontiac, wearing a feathered headdress, stands with one arm outstretched in a powerful gesture while the other men sit in a circle, listening intently, with an encampment and mountainous landscape in the background.
Pontiac gives his speech to the council near Detroit


Source: Adapted Excerpt from Pontiac’s Speech at the Council near Detroit

SOURCES CITED:

Bobbett, A. (n.d.). Pontiac Conspiracy. Wikimedia Commons.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pontiac_conspiracy.jpg

Collections of the Pioneer Society of the State of Michigan (Vol. 8). (1907). [Digital]. Wynkoop, Hallenbeck Crawford Co., State Printers.
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015071219458&seq=9



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