Resurrecting the First Great American Play

Imperial Politics and Colonial Ambitions in Frontier Detroit par Sämi Ludwig

In the mid-eighteenth century, the Ottawa leader Pontiac (also spelled Ponteach) headed an intertribal confederation that resisted British power in the Great Lakes region. This event was immortalized in the play Ponteach, or the Savages of America: A Tragedy. This work, attributed to the notoriously controversial frontier soldier Robert Rogers, was never performed. Nevertheless, it is one of the earliest theatrical representations of the region, portraying its hero in a way that challenges eighteenth-century constructions of Indigenous Americans.

Sämi Ludwig argues that the literary and artistic merits of Ponteach deserve further study. He examines questions of authorship and analyzes the content of the play, considering its many contradictions as revealing windows into the period. He thus suggests using Ponteach as a tool for better understanding British imperialism in North America and the emerging theatrical forms of the Early Republic.

Editor’s website: https://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/5798.htm