Fort Michilimackinac
Encyclopedia
Fort Michilimackinac was an 18th century French
, and later British
, fort and trading post in the Great Lakes of North America
. Built around 1715, it was located along the southern shore of the strategic Straits of Mackinac
connecting Lake Huron
and Lake Michigan
, at the northern tip of the lower peninsula of the present-day state of Michigan
in the United States
. The site of the fort in present-day Mackinaw City
is a National Historic Landmark
and is now preserved as an open-air historical museum.
through the Illinois Country
to the St. Lawrence River. The fort served as a supply depot for traders in the western Great Lakes.
The French had first established a presence in the Straits of Mackinac in 1671 when Father Marquette established the Jesuit St. Ignace Mission
at present-day St. Ignace
. In 1683, they augmented the mission with Fort de Buade
. In 1688 they established a mission at Sault Ste. Marie
. In 1701, Sieur de Cadillac
moved the French garrison to Fort Detroit
and closed the mission. By 1715, however, the French built Fort Michilimackinac to re-establish a presence along the Straits of Mackinac, with several modifications and expansions to the palisade walls over the decades.
The French relinquished the fort, along with their territory in Canada
, to the British in 1761 following their loss in the French and Indian War
. Although the British continued to operate the fort as a major trading post, French civilians were allowed to live their normal lives with French traditions and to worship at St. Anne's Catholic Church. Other civilian residents during the British military occupation included métis
(French-Ojibwe) and British fur traders, some of which resided within the fort in the southeastern row house.
The Ojibwe in the region resented British policies as harsh. On June 2, 1763, as part of the larger movement known as Pontiac's Rebellion
, a group of Ojibwe staged a game of baaga'adowe (lacrosse
) outside the fort as a ruse to gain entrance. After gaining entrance to the fort, they killed most of the British inhabitants and held the fort for a year before the British retook it with the provision to offer more and better gifts to the native inhabitants of the area.
The British eventually deemed the wooden fort on the mainland too vulnerable to attack, and in 1781 they built Fort Mackinac
, a limestone
fort on nearby Mackinac Island
. The buildings were dismantled and moved piece by piece over water in the summer and ice in winter to the island over the course of two years. Patrick Sinclair
, the lieutenant governor of Michilimackinac, ordered the remains of Fort Michilimackinac destroyed after the move.
in 1960. It is a popular tourist attraction as part of Colonial Michilimackinac State Park
in Mackinaw City, a major section of the Mackinac State Historic Parks. Interpreters, both paid and volunteer, help bring the history to life, with music, live demonstrations and reenactments, including musket and cannon firing demonstrations. The site has numerous reconstructed historical wooden structures. It is considered one of the most extensively excavated early French archaeological
sites in the United States.
The fort grounds also contain the foot of the Mackinac Bridge
, Old Mackinac Point Light, which is an 1892 lighthouse
, and a day-use park with a view of the Mackinac Bridge and Mackinac Island.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, and later British
Kingdom of Great Britain
The former Kingdom of Great Britain, sometimes described as the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain', That the Two Kingdoms of Scotland and England, shall upon the 1st May next ensuing the date hereof, and forever after, be United into One Kingdom by the Name of GREAT BRITAIN. was a sovereign...
, fort and trading post in the Great Lakes of North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
. Built around 1715, it was located along the southern shore of the strategic Straits of Mackinac
Straits of Mackinac
The Straits of Mackinac is the strip of water that connects two of the Great Lakes, Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, and separates the Lower Peninsula of Michigan from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It is a shipping lane providing passage for raw materials and finished goods, connecting, for...
connecting Lake Huron
Lake Huron
Lake Huron is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. Hydrologically, it comprises the larger portion of Lake Michigan-Huron. It is bounded on the east by the Canadian province of Ontario and on the west by the state of Michigan in the United States...
and Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America and the only one located entirely within the United States. It is the second largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron...
, at the northern tip of the lower peninsula of the present-day state of Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The site of the fort in present-day Mackinaw City
Mackinaw City, Michigan
Mackinaw City is a village in Emmet and Cheboygan counties in the U.S. state of Michigan. At the 2000 census the population was 859. The name "Mackinaw City" is a bit of a misnomer as it is actually a village...
is a National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
and is now preserved as an open-air historical museum.
History
The primary purpose of the fort was not military, but rather as a link in the French trading post system that stretched from the Mississippi RiverMississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
through the Illinois Country
Illinois Country
The Illinois Country , also known as Upper Louisiana, was a region in what is now the Midwestern United States that was explored and settled by the French during the 17th and 18th centuries. The terms referred to the entire Upper Mississippi River watershed, though settlement was concentrated in...
to the St. Lawrence River. The fort served as a supply depot for traders in the western Great Lakes.
The French had first established a presence in the Straits of Mackinac in 1671 when Father Marquette established the Jesuit St. Ignace Mission
St. Ignace Mission
St. Ignace Mission is now a municipal park known as Marquette Mission Park. It was the site of a mission established by Père Jacques Marquette, and the site of his grave in 1677. A second mission was established at a different site in 1837, and moved here in 1954.It was one of the earliest...
at present-day St. Ignace
St. Ignace, Michigan
Saint Ignace, usually written as St. Ignace, is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 2,678. It is the county seat of Mackinac County. From the Lower Peninsula, St. Ignace is the gateway to the Upper Peninsula.St...
. In 1683, they augmented the mission with Fort de Buade
Fort de Buade
Fort de Buade was a French fort at the present site of St. Ignace in the U.S. state of Michigan. It was garrisoned between 1683 and 1701.-The mission:...
. In 1688 they established a mission at Sault Ste. Marie
Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan
Sault Ste. Marie is a city in and the county seat of Chippewa County in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is in the north-eastern end of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, on the Canadian border, separated from its twin city of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, by the St. Marys River...
. In 1701, Sieur de Cadillac
Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac
Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac was a French explorer and adventurer in New France, now an area of North America stretching from Eastern Canada in the north to Louisiana in the south. Rising from a modest beginning in Acadia in 1683 as an explorer, trapper, and a trader of alcohol...
moved the French garrison to Fort Detroit
Fort Detroit
Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit or Fort Détroit was a fort established by the French officer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac in 1701. The location of the former fort is now in the city of Detroit in the U.S...
and closed the mission. By 1715, however, the French built Fort Michilimackinac to re-establish a presence along the Straits of Mackinac, with several modifications and expansions to the palisade walls over the decades.
The French relinquished the fort, along with their territory in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, to the British in 1761 following their loss in the French and Indian War
French and Indian War
The French and Indian War is the common American name for the war between Great Britain and France in North America from 1754 to 1763. In 1756, the war erupted into the world-wide conflict known as the Seven Years' War and thus came to be regarded as the North American theater of that war...
. Although the British continued to operate the fort as a major trading post, French civilians were allowed to live their normal lives with French traditions and to worship at St. Anne's Catholic Church. Other civilian residents during the British military occupation included métis
Métis
A Métis is a person born to parents who belong to different groups defined by visible physical differences, regarded as racial, or the descendant of such persons. The term is of French origin, and also is a cognate of mestizo in Spanish, mestiço in Portuguese, and mestee in English...
(French-Ojibwe) and British fur traders, some of which resided within the fort in the southeastern row house.
The Ojibwe in the region resented British policies as harsh. On June 2, 1763, as part of the larger movement known as Pontiac's Rebellion
Pontiac's Rebellion
Pontiac's War, Pontiac's Conspiracy, or Pontiac's Rebellion was a war that was launched in 1763 by a loose confederation of elements of Native American tribes primarily from the Great Lakes region, the Illinois Country, and Ohio Country who were dissatisfied with British postwar policies in the...
, a group of Ojibwe staged a game of baaga'adowe (lacrosse
Lacrosse
Lacrosse is a team sport of Native American origin played using a small rubber ball and a long-handled stick called a crosse or lacrosse stick, mainly played in the United States and Canada. It is a contact sport which requires padding. The head of the lacrosse stick is strung with loose mesh...
) outside the fort as a ruse to gain entrance. After gaining entrance to the fort, they killed most of the British inhabitants and held the fort for a year before the British retook it with the provision to offer more and better gifts to the native inhabitants of the area.
The British eventually deemed the wooden fort on the mainland too vulnerable to attack, and in 1781 they built Fort Mackinac
Fort Mackinac
Fort Mackinac is a former American military outpost garrisoned from the late 18th century to the late 19th century near Michilimackinac, Michigan, on Mackinac Island...
, a limestone
Limestone
Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....
fort on nearby Mackinac Island
Mackinac Island
Mackinac Island is an island and resort area covering in land area, part of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is located in Lake Huron, at the eastern end of the Straits of Mackinac, between the state's Upper and Lower Peninsulas. The island was home to a Native American settlement before European...
. The buildings were dismantled and moved piece by piece over water in the summer and ice in winter to the island over the course of two years. Patrick Sinclair
Patrick Sinclair
Lieutenant-General Patrick Sinclair was a British Army officer and governor in North America. He is best remembered for overseeing the construction of Fort Mackinac on Mackinac Island in what was to become the U.S. state of Michigan.-Biography:Sinclair was born in Lybster, Scotland, and enlisted...
, the lieutenant governor of Michilimackinac, ordered the remains of Fort Michilimackinac destroyed after the move.
Today
The fort grounds were designated a National Historic LandmarkNational Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
in 1960. It is a popular tourist attraction as part of Colonial Michilimackinac State Park
Fort Michilimackinac State Park
Fort Michilimackinac State Park is a state park in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is located in Mackinaw City along the Straits of Mackinac. The park contains Fort Michilimackinac, which itself is dedicated a National Historic Landmark....
in Mackinaw City, a major section of the Mackinac State Historic Parks. Interpreters, both paid and volunteer, help bring the history to life, with music, live demonstrations and reenactments, including musket and cannon firing demonstrations. The site has numerous reconstructed historical wooden structures. It is considered one of the most extensively excavated early French archaeological
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
sites in the United States.
The fort grounds also contain the foot of the Mackinac Bridge
Mackinac Bridge
The Mackinac Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Straits of Mackinac to connect the non-contiguous Upper and Lower peninsulas of the U.S. state of Michigan. Opened in 1957, the bridge is the third longest in total suspension in the world and the longest suspension bridge between anchorages...
, Old Mackinac Point Light, which is an 1892 lighthouse
Lighthouse
A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses or, in older times, from a fire, and used as an aid to navigation for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways....
, and a day-use park with a view of the Mackinac Bridge and Mackinac Island.
Further reading
- Farmer, Silas. (1884) (Jul 1969) The history of Detroit and Michigan, or, The metropolis illustrated: a chronological cyclopaedia of the past and present: including a full record of territorial days in Michigan, and the annuals of Wayne County, in various formats at Open LibraryOpen LibraryOpen Library is an online project intended to create “one web page for every book ever published”. Open Library is a project of the non-profit Internet Archive and has been funded in part by a grant from the California State Library and the Kahle/Austin Foundation.-Books for the blind and...
.
External links
- Michilimackinac.com Michilimackinac – A short history of the word.
- Colonial Michilimackinac official site
- Fort Michilimackinac Pageant
- Visiting Colonial Fort Michilimackinac
- Michigan Historical Markers: Fort Michilimackinac
- Marriage records and 1741 drawing of Fort Michilimackinac