Beyond Pontiac's Shadow

“Keith Widder has breathed fresh life into one of the best-known tales of Michigan history—the surprise capture of Fort Michilimackinac by Ojibwe using the ruse of an innocent game of lacrosse. Far more than just a retelling of the events of that June day in 1763, Beyond Pontiac’s Shadow places the incident in the context of the complex and shifting relationships between Native American groups, Canadian residents, and the British soldiers and traders who had taken control of the post less than two years earlier. Well written and solidly based on exhaustive research, Widder’s book explains for the first time why the 1763 uprising occurred, how it might have been prevented, and how the British learned from it. An essential text for the study of ”Pontiac’s War” as it played out on the Great Lakes.”

—Brian Leigh Dunnigan, Associate Director, William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan

“Beyond Pontiac’s Shadow is a much needed and long overdue assessment of Michilimackinac and its role in one of the first and most well-known pan-Indian wars against Europeans. Widder’s extensive and intimate knowledge of both the place and the records allows him to tell a multi-vocal story of colliding interests, inter-Indian conflict, and divided loyalties. With this fine achievement, we should never again take for granted the role played by Michilimackinac and its peoples in the larger history of North America.”

—Michael A. McDonnell, Associate Professor of History, University of Sydney

“In Beyond Pontiac’s Shadow, Widder powerfully reveals that Michilimackinac’s significance extended far beyond a deadly game of baggatiway in 1763. With masterful research and writing, Widder vividly recaptures the continuities of everyday life among the Canadian, Odawa, and Ojibwe community of Michilimackinac, and demonstrates the enormous challenges that Great Britain faced as it asserted control over le pays d’en haut in the 1760s. One cannot understand the crucial interplay of empires and outposts such as Michilimackinac in the era of Pontiac’s War without reference to this work.”

—David L. Preston, Associate Professor of History, The Citadel, author of The Texture of Contact

“Beyond Pontiac’s Shadow tells a compelling and dramatic story of a world in the midst of great change. Widder excels at tracing connections over time and space, and his account of the fall of Michilimackinac is true to both the place and its peoples, but most impressively he captures the wider world in which Michilimackinac was embedded. He conveys both the strangeness and the larger humanity of a thoroughly mixed world.”

—Richard White, Margaret Byrne Professor of American History, Stanford University