when Makatchinga, the nephew of the chief of the
Peoria, kills him in the village of Cahokia. Rumors
fly that the British paid the assassin, to eliminate
any possibility that Pontiac might instigate a sec-
ond revolt. Since the end of his rebellion, however,
Pontiac has made many Indian enemies through his
arrogance and assumption of political powers that his
followers have not conferred on him.
1770The first cigar store Indian is displayed.
A large sculpture of an Indian in a tobacco shop
in Pennsylvania becomes the first documented ap-
pearance of a “cigar store Indian” in North America.
For more than 100 years, such figures have been
displayed in European cigar stores to advertise their
wares to a largely illiterate public. Most of the sculp-
tures are categorized as chiefs or squaws and depict
stereotyped features and clothing, modeled on early
European figures made by carvers with no firsthand
knowledge of Indian appearance. Until the early
20th century, cigar store Indians will be among the
best known and most widely seen representations of
North American Indians.
March 5
Massachuset Indian Crispus Attucks dies in
the Boston Massacre.
During a protest against taxation, Boston residents
attack a troop of British soldiers outside the city’s cus-
tom house. The soldiers retaliate by shooting into the
crowd. The first of five casualties is Crispus Attucks,
the son of a Massachuset Indian mother and African-
American father. In 1888 Attucks will be honored
with a monument on the Boston Common.
1772Samson Occom’s Sermon Preached at
the Execution of Moses Paul is published.
Mohegan minister Samson Occom (see entries for
1767 and NOVEMBER 1785) preaches a sermon on
the dangers of alcohol abuse at the funeral of Moses
Paul, a fellow tribesman who was executed after kill-
ing another man in a drunken rampage. Appearing
in 19 editions, Occom’s sermon, the first published
work written in English by an American Indian, will
become a highly popular temperance tract. Occom
will also later write A Choice Selection of Hymns (1774)
and the posthumously published An Account of the
Montauk Indians on Long Island (1809).1773December 16Rebel colonists dress as Mohawk Indians
during the Boston Tea Party.
To protest England’s manipulation of the tea mar-
ket in the American colonies, about 50 men boardMohegan minister Samson Occom, whose Sermon
Preached at the Execution of Moses Paul was the first
work written by an American Indian to be published in
English (Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Print Dept.)