NARRATOR: The Seven Years' War between the Indians and colonists ended in 1763. But tensions still simmered in the fertile Ohio Valley. Almost immediately, Ottawa chief Pontiac and allied tribes waged war on English forts. Pontiac's warriors quickly took Detroit, and soon controlled all but three of the British posts west of the Appalachians. But their success was fleeting. When British troops and colonial militias arrived from the other side of the mountains, they overwhelmed the Indians.

- The British sent out relief expeditions, fought a few battles. There was one very bloody one in Pennsylvania called Bushy Run. But what really ended the conflict was a series of negotiations between the British officers and the native leaders.

NARRATOR: Although the English crushed Pontiac's rebellion, and with it, the Indians' dominance of the region, the British decided to deter any further uprising.

- The British were forced to start treating the natives with a certain amount of respect, and as allies, even though they didn't really want to do that.

NARRATOR: This policy angered the colonists who were hungry for farmland, and the speculators hungry for land sales.