Jan Švankmajer’s Castle of Otranto (1977) is an animated adaptation of Horace Walpole’s 1764 novel of the same name. This novel is credited with the start of the genre of gothic fiction, and was heavily influential on the horror genre as a whole.
On this day, 27 April 1763, Native American leader Pontiac spoke at a council meeting of several tribes to try to encourage them to join him in attacking the British military outpost Fort Detroit. It was an early episode in what became known as Pontiac’s rebellion, when a loose confederation of Indigenous tribes in what is now Michigan, Illinois and Ohio, came together to try to drive out British colonists.
In contrast to French colonists who formed alliances with Native American tribes and gave gifts, the British ceased gifting and treated Indigenous peoples as conquered subjects, driving resentment. Eventually, members of over a dozen tribes including the Miami, Seneca, Lenape, Huron and others joined forces and began attacking British forts. Over the next three years Native American forces successfully seized or destroyed several British forts.
Despite British forces having superior weaponry, and at least attempting to use smallpox as a weapon to decimate the Indigenous tribes, they could not defeat them outright. Therefore colonial authorities were forced to make concessions, creating a large “Indian Reserve” which colonists were forbidden to trespass on, and recognising certain Native American land rights. This caused resentment amongst the local colonists, and fuelled white support for independence from Britain.
Learn more about Indigenous resistance in the Americas in this book: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/books/products/500-years-of-indigenous-resistance-gord-hill
Pictured: Illustration of the meeting by Alfred Bobbett, 19th-century https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1703797476472062/?type=3
