Review of Ponteach, or the Savages of America, A Tragedy

Robert Rogers was more renowned in his own time as a military leader than as a writer, leading a successful colonial militia known as "Rogers' Rangers" during the French and Indian War (1754-63). Off the battlefield, his forays into authorship were primarily dedicated to cultivating this image of martial achievement; he wrote two reasonably successful books on North America, one a broad historical account of the land and the Indigenous people and the other a collection of his own journals and firsthand observations. The review of his A Concise Account of North America (1765) in the Critical Review suggests that "the picture which Mr. Rogers has exhibited of the emperor Ponteack is new and curious, and his character would appear to vast advantage in the hands of a great dramatic genius." His subsequent dramatic work Ponteach, or the Savages of America: A Tragedy (1766) was panned by critics and was most likely never performed. This work has received increased attention in recent years because of its singular and sympathetic depiction of its First Nations hero, a fictionalized version of the real-life Ottawa leader Pontiac. This edition, edited by Tiffany Potter, is an important resource for studies in eighteenth-century British colonial representations, Indigenous studies, and work on transatlantic culture and literature.