It was the Senecas, not Pontiac, who began the plot for the destruction of the British in the hinterland, and in the war which followed more than a thousand Seneca warriors took part.

Happily, as has been mentioned, Sir William Johnson was able to keep the other tribes of the Six Nations loyal to the British; but the 'Door-keepers of the Long House,' as the Senecas were called, stood aloof and hostile.
The motives of the Indians in the rising of 1763 may, therefore, be summarized as follows: amity with the French, hostility towards the British, hope of plunder, and fear of aggression.

The first three were the controlling motives of Pontiac's Indians about Detroit.

They called it the 'Beaver War.' To them it was a war on behalf of the French traders, who loaded them with gifts, and against the British, who drove them away empty-handed.
But the Senecas and the Delawares, with their allies of the Ohio valley, regarded it as a war for their lands.
Already the Indians had been forced out of their hunting-grounds in the valleys of the Juniata and the Susquehanna.

The Ohio valley would be the next to go, unless the Indians went on the war-path.