It would be hard to say how sincere Pontiac was, or how readily he would have let go the chain of friendship he had been forced to take up, had opportunity offered. He went back to his camp on the Maumee River, and there among his own people tried to live the life of his fathers. Little was heard of him for a year or two, but whenever an outbreak occurred among the Indians there were those who said Pontiac was at the bottom of it.
In the spring of 1769, anxious to see his French friends once more, he made a visit to St. Louis. He was cordially received and spent several days with his old acquaintances. Then he crossed the river with a few chiefs to visit an assembly of traders and Illinois Indians.
After feasting and drinking with some of the Illinois, Pontiac sought the quiet of the forest. He wandered through its dim aisles, living over again the hopes and ambitions of the past, which his visit with the French and the Illinois had vividly recalled. He had forgotten the present and was again the mighty warrior who had made the hearts of the palefaces quake with fear. Little he dreamed that behind him stood an assassin with up-raised tomahawk.
The murderer of the great chief was an Illinois Indian who had been bribed to do the deed by an English trader.
During his life Pontiac had tried to overcome the tribal feeling of the Indians, and to unite them as one people. Over his grave the old tribal instinct awoke. The Illinois rallied about their kinsman to protect him; the Ottawas flew to arms to avenge their chief--such a sachem, such a chief, could not be forgotten. Wrong to him could not be forgiven. The fury of the Ottawas was not slaked until they had avenged the death of their chief, through the destruction of the powerful tribes of the Illinois.
The great Indian leader, Pontiac, died in 1769, disappointed in his attempt to unite the Indians in a confederacy strong enough to withstand the white race. But the struggle between the red man and the white was not ended.
At about the time of the old chief's death a child was born among the Shawnee Indians who was to take up the cause of his people with equally great courage and intelligence. This child was called Tecumseh, which means shooting-star.