The Siege of Detroit in 1763

The Siege Of Detroit In 1763: The Journal Of Pontiac’s Conspiracy And John Rutherfurd’s Narrative Of A Captivity by John Rutherfurd
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Oh my word … where to start? This book contains two first-hand experiences of what happened during Pontiac’s Rebellion in the northern theater of the war. It’s graphic, horrifying in parts, and hard to wrap one’s mind around the atrocities that happened. It’s not a literary book, it’s raw and rough and written by men who had just survived one of the most barbaric wars on our shores. While I’d known some of the things in here, it was still unsettling to read the first-hand accounts of them. We don’t think of cannibalism among the Native American tribes, but it was there. In the two separate accounts, both noted it among two of the tribes. We often hear about how the white man didn’t keep his word to the natives, but in these chapters are numerous citing of the natives not keeping their word to the white man. Proof that the evil in mankind is not assigned to skin color. Both sides were arrogant and overconfident in some aspects, both were unprepared and ignorant in others. The book is peppered with footnotes citing more facts than the first-hand accounts included. If you love history and want to read some unvarnished accounts, this would be a great choice.