USA > Michigan > A History of Northern Michigan and Its People, Volume I > Part 9
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"In spring traders came from Mackinac, and sometimes from other places, to barter goods for furs. Not infrequently, however, the In- dian hunter, accompanied by his wife and children, preferred to visit the center of trade with his peltries, in person. Then, sometimes, there was a brief but fearful indulgence of the Indian's appetite for strong drink. At home sobriety usually prevailed.
"How long the Jesuits continued active work at L'Arbre Croche after the time of Father Jonois, is not known. There seems to have been a long period during which the Indians were left to themselves. The great cedar cross remained standing on the brow of the bluff at Cross village, a memorial of the devotion and zeal of the early mission-
OLD INDIAN TRAIL. NORTHERN MICHIGAN
aries, but their teachings had been forgotten. It is said that when the ground was afterwards reoccupied, only one Indian could be found who could prove himself a Christian by making the sign of the cross.
"In 1825 the Catholics sent a missionary to reoccupy the long abandoned field. Seven Mile Point was chosen as a center of operations, and a church was immediately built. The building was about twenty feet by forty in size, constructed, like the better class of Indian houses, of the most suitable materials readily obtainable-cedar timbers for the frame, and for the covering cedar bark. Seven Mile Point not proving a satisfactory location, in 1827 the mission was moved to Little Traverse. At the latter place a church, of cedar logs, was built the following year. About the same time a similar church was built at Cross village. The
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work of the missionaries was successful, a considerable number of In- dians readily becoming Catholics.
"About 1839 and 1840 the population was greatly diminished by a sudden exodus, caused by distrust of the Indian policy of the United States government. Fearing to be forcibly removed beyond the Missis- sippi, fully one-half of the Indians, it is said, took refuge in Canada." This may be said to be the concluding chapter of Indian history in the northern Michigan of which we write.
EXTINGUISHMENT OF THE INDIAN
But the Indians of Michigan, in common with those between the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, saw the "handwriting on the wall" when the new comers to their territory were known to be representatives of the people further to the east who had triumphed over the great King of England. In December, 1786, after nearly all the original states of the Union had ceded their northwestern lands to the general govern- ment a grand confederate council of the Indians northwest of the Ohio was held near the Huron village at the mouth of the Detroit river, and was attended by the Six Nations, the Hurons, Ottawas, Miamis, Shawa- nese, Chippewas, Cherokees, Delawares, Pottawatomies and confederates of the Wabash.
The ground of difference between the Indians and the United States was a question of boundary, the Indians maintaining that the Ohio river was not to be crossed by the Americans. The council was pacific, providing that the United States did not encroach on their lands. The Indians were not included in the treaty, and it became a nice legal ques- tion how far the United States had a right to advance upon the ter- ritory then occupied by the Indians. The savages attributed the mis- chief and confusion to the fact that the United States would "kindle the council fires whenever they thought proper without consulting the Indians." The posts in Michigan thus withheld from the posses- sion of the United States were Detroit and Mackinac; and Great Britain, in order to strengthen the post against the incursions of the Amer- icans took immediate measures to garrison the fort at Detroit, under instructions from Lord Dorchester.
It was finally determined to call a grand council of the Indians in which the whole ground of complaint between the savages and the United States should be discussed, and a final determination made, if possible. As was natural, the Hurons, who had the confidence both of their own people and the United States, were the chief promoters of the proposed compromise and earnestly invited the federation of eastern Indians-the Five Nations-to send representatives to the coun- cil. This invitation read :
MESSAGE OF THE HURONS OF DETROIT TO THE FIVE NATIONS
"January 21, 1788.
"Brethren: Nothing yet has reached us in answer to the messages sent to the Americans on the breaking up of our general council, nor
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is it now probable that we shall hear from them before our next meet- ing takes place, a circumstance that ought to expedite us in our busi- ness. The nations this way have adhered hitherto to the engagements entered into before we parted, at least as far as has come to our knowl- edge, and we intend immediately to call them to this council fire, which shall be uncovered at the time appointed; that without further delay some decisive measures may be finally fixed upon for our future in- terest, which must govern hereafter the conduct of all nations in our alliance. And this we intend to be our last council for the purpose; therefore it is needless to urge further the indispensable necessity of all nations being present at the conclusion of affairs tending so much to their own future welfare and happiness.
"And we do in a particular manner desire you, the Five Nations, to be strong and punctual in your promise of being with us early and in time; and that not only the warriors, but the chiefs of your several nations, attend on this occasion. We shall therefore endeavor to have as many of the western and southern Indians as possible col- lected."
"STRINGS OF WAMPUM."
No records of this council have been discovered, although the ac- counts of the proceedings, it is believed, were forwarded to Lord Dor- chester. It is probable that there was a division in their deliberations, because two treaties were held at Fort Harmar which were attended by only a portion of the Indians. These treaties were held by General St. Clair, in January, 1789; in the first place with the Five Nations, with the exception of the Mohawks; and in the second place with the warriors and sachems of the Wyandots, Delawares, Ottawas, Chippewas, Pottawatomies and Sac.
In 1785 a treaty had been held with the Ottawas, Chippewas, Dela- wares and Wyandots at Fort McIntosh by which a belt of land com- mencing at the River Raisin and extending to Lake St. Clair, with a breadth of six miles along the strait, was ceded to the United States; and to this was added a tract of twelve square miles at Michilimackinac. In the treaty of Fort Harmar, in the year 1787, all the stipulations em- braced in the former treaties were confirmed.
From 1796 to 1805 Michigan was attached to the northwest and Indiana territories. On the 15th of August of the former year, Sec- retary Sargent, by proclamation, organized the county of Wayne. It included the lower and the eastern half of the Upper Peninsula, a large tract across the northern border of the present states of Ohio and In- diana, and a strip along the entire western shore of Lake Michigan, including the present sites of Chicago, Milwaukee and Green Bay. In all this territory, over which so many times had swept the tide of war during the previous hundred years, the only land under cultiva- tion was the narrow border extending from the River Raisin to Lake St. Clair. To this the Indian title had been secured by Governor Arthur St. Clair, of the Northwest territory, it being described as "the post of Detroit with a district of land beginning at the mouth of the River Rosine, at the west end of Lake Erie and running up the southern bank
-
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of said river six miles, thence northerly and always six miles west of the strait, until it strikes the Lake St. Clair." It also secured the post at Mackinaw and twelve miles square around it. The consideration was $6,000.
In 1795 General Wayne by the Indian treaty made at Greenville, Ohio, had secured the same territory in Michigan; also the islands of Mackinac and Bois Blanc, and a piece of land on the straits of Mackinac three miles in length and three miles back from the straits between Lakes Huron and Michigan. At this treaty twelve tribes were rep- resented by 1,113 Indians-the most prominent being the Wyandots (Hurons), Delawares, Shawanese, Ottawas, Chippewas and Pottawat- omies.
In 1808 Governor Hull secured a tract of land running north from the mouth of the Auglaize river until it intersects the latitude of the outlet of Lake Huron, thence northeast to White Rock. The southern boundary was the Maumee river. This tract covered the land east of the present meridian line.
By the treaty made at Saginaw in 1819, General Cass obtained in addition the strip "commencing six miles south of the base line on the boundary of the 1808 treaty, thence west sixty miles, thence north in a direct line to the head of Thunder Bay river; thence down the same to the mouth." General Cass, in his report of this acquisition, says: "A large portion of the country ceded is of the first character for soil and situation; it will vie with any land I have seen north of the Ohio river. The cession probably contains more than six million acres." The above were the principal cessions of land by the Indians up to the time they were thrown upon the market as public lands in 1818.
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CHAPTER III PLANTING OF THE WHITE MAN
NICOLET LANDS ON MICHIGAN SOIL-THE COMING OF MARQUETTE-HIS DEATH AND BURIAL-CADILLAC AND MICHILIMACKINAC-INSECURE AND BURDENSOME LAND TENURE-MONOPOLIES RETARD PROGRESS- FUR TRADE ENRICHES ONLY THE RICH-ENGLISH FLAG SUPPLANTS THE FRENCH-INDIANS REBEL-MASSACRE AT FORT MICHILIMACKINAC -SIEGE OF DETROIT RAISED-NORTHERN MICHIGAN BECOMES AMER- ICAN SOIL.
The planting of the white man in the territory now embraced by the state of Michigan is generally conceded to commence with the com- ing of Jean Nicolet to the Soo in 1634. A young man of good educa- tion and religious instruction he had received a thorough training among the Indians of the east, under the care of Champlain, who was the un- disputed head of the fur trade as patronized by the French govern- ment. Twenty-three years before the coming of Nicolet, Champlain had established a trading post on the island of Montreal and held a council with the Hurons who had come to him from their far western country. In 1617 the latter had personally traversed the shores of Lake Huron, but it remained for his younger and equally enthusiastic disciple, Nicolet, to actually plant his feet on the soil of Michigan. He was well qualified to be the representative of Champlain and the great trading company which the latter headed, known as the Hundred As- sociates. His mission was a double one-to develop trade among the Indians and to discover, if possible, the northwest passage to India and the Orient.
During the latter part of June, 1634, Nicolet was ready to set out from Quebec upon his eventful journey. At that time there were in all Canada but six Jesuits. To three of these the Huron mission was assigned, and they were accompanied a portion of the trip by Nicolet on his way to the Winnebagoes. At that time there were many savages from the west at that point. It was difficult to get them to permit so many white men to accompany them on the return journey, and many hardships and privations had to be endured, even in the early part of the journey ; for there was a scant diet, many portages had to be made and the savages required a large share of the labor to be performed by the whites.
Nicolet could not tarry long with the Algonquins of the isle with whom he had lived so long, as he was to go to the Huron villages on
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WHERE NICOLET LANDED IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN (1634)
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the borders of Georgian bay before entering upon his journey into the unexplored country on his mission to the Winnebagoes. He made his way up the Ottawa to the Mattawan; thence to Lake Nipissing; and thence down French river to Georgian bay, upon which he coasted southward in a canoe along the shore to the villages of the Hurons. This trip to the Hurons was far out of his course from the Ottawas to the Winnebagoes; and it is evident that he went there on a mission from Champlain to inform the Hurons of the desire of the governor of Canada to have amicable relations established between them and the Winnebagoes, and to secure a few of the Hurons to accompany him on his mission of peace.
After his ceremonies with the Hurons had been completed, Nicolet struck boldly out into undiscovered regions where he was to encounter savage nations never before visited by white men, so far as the records show. It was a voyage full of danger, and one that would require great tact, courage and the constant facing of difficulty. No French- man, however, was better adapted to the occasion. Nicolet had brought with him presents with which to conciliate the tribes he should meet. Seven Hurons accompanied him, and a birch bark canoe bore a white man for the first time along the northern shore of Lake Huron and upon St. Mary's river to the Falls-Sault Ste. Marie; thence again down the river, many miles on Lake Michigan and up Green bay to the home of the Winnebagoes; and that first canoe was the leader of a van of a mighty commercial fleet that has since developed upon the great inland seas.
NICOLET ON MICHIGAN SOIL
As Nicolet came westward, entering St. Mary's river, his canoes were pushed onward to the foot of the rapids, where the intrepid young Frenchman, with his seven Huron companions, rested with the "People of the Falls." at their principal village on the south, or Mich- igan shore. They were still with the great Algonquin Indian nation, among whose more eastern tribes Nicolet had been trained in their woodscraft and tongue.
From Lake Huron the voyagers had threaded their way-first through narrow rapids, then into and across placid lakes and around beautiful islands, until they had finally come to within fifteen miles of the largest fresh water sea in the world, stretching away in its grandeur a distance to the westward of over four hundred miles. It is not re- corded that Nicolet ever ascended the river above the fall, or set eyes upon Lake Superior. Where he rested amid a cluster of wigwams, indicating the center of the commerce of savagery, now stands the beautiful and business-like city of Sault Ste. Marie, overlooking one of the finest of all commercial waterways.
After a brief rest at the Falls, Nicolet returned down the strait, and it is thought he passed through the western "detour" and through "the second fresh water sea" (Lake Michigan), being the first white man to set eyes upon its beautiful and broad expanse, the straits of Mackinac and the island of that name. He continued along the north
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shore of the lake, stopping on the southern coast of the Upper Penin- sula, from time to time, until he reached the Bay of Noquet-the north- ern arm of Green bay.
After visiting the Menominee and Winnebago in what is now Wis- consin, as well as the Illini in the prairie country and the south, he proceeded to return in the spring of 1635. He had, in reality, been the primal discoverer of the "Territory Northwest of the Ohio." He had traveled four hundred leagues beyond the Huron village at the Soo, his homeward journey being also via Mackinac and the Grand Mani- toulin islands. As near as can be ascertained he reached Three Rivers about July 20, 1635.
THE COMING OF MARQUETTE
Various Jesuit missionaries visited the Soo and penetrated beyond to the Lake Superior region within the succeeding thirty years, but the coming of Father Marquette to that point in 1668 was really the first event, after the landing of Nicolet, which had an effect upon the opening to white settlement of Northern Michigan below the Straits of Mackinac. This heroic figure not only skirted many of its beautiful shores with his fellow priests and dusky comrades, but drew his last feeble and labored breath upon the territory to which this work is devoted .
In 1669 Marquette was joined at the Sault by Pere Dablon, superior of the Huron mission, and they were soon established in a square fort of cedar pickets enclosing a chapel and a house, with growing crops of wheat, maize, and peas in their clearing. In the fall of the same year, Marquette took charge of the mission at La Pointe, and Dablon remained at the Sault. In 1871 he returned from the La Pointe mis- sion and established the mission of St. Ignatius (St. Ignace).
At St. Ignatius, Marquette learned from the Indians of the existence of a great river to the west, which was said to flow through fertile lands that were peopled with tribes who had never heard of the Gospel of Christ, and he was filled with a desire to explore that country, preach to its people and discover whether the great river flowed to the Gulf of Mexico or to the Pacific ocean. The locality of St. Ignace had been theretofore a favorite resort for the Indians on account of the abun- dance of fish and game. Marquette recognized its additional strategic advantages as holding control of the water highway to the farther west and it was because of his early recognition of these numerous advantages that, in 1671, he established the mission at the old town of Michilimackinac. Under the sanction of the king, and still pursuing the hope of discovery of a passage to the Pacific ocean, Count Frontenac, successor to Talon, who had retired in failing health, sent Joliet to Michilimackinac where he joined Father Marquette, and they prepared for their journey of exploration and discovery the following spring. In 1673, May 17th, these two men set out from St. Ignace in two bark canoes, with five Frenchmen and a goodly supply of provisions. They took their course down the shore of Lake Michigan and Green bay, thence up the Fox river to Lake Winnebago, and across the coun-
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try and down the Wisconsin river to the Mississippi which they dis- covered June 17, 1673. They followed down that river to the mouth of the Arkansas, where Marquette concluded the course of the stream was to the Gulf of Mexico. After a few days of rest and conference with the natives, the explorers set out upon their return, reaching Green bay in September.
In the meantime Father Marquette had been transferred to this mission and, being tired from the effects of his long journey, he stopped at this mission while Joliet proceeded to Quebec to make reports of their discoveries. About a year later Marquette again set out upon another southward trip, this time with a view to establishing a mis- sion among the Indians of Illinois. He was in feeble health and stopped for the winter a short distance up the Chicago river from its mouth. On his return the following spring, he was too feeble to stand the journey, and with his companions disembarked on the shores of Lake Michigan at the mouth of the Pere Marquette river, where he died May 19, 1675. There his companions buried his body and erected a cross to mark the site of his grave, but from this place the bones of his body were removed the following year, by friendly In- dians from various tribes, to St. Ignace, where they were buried with proper ceremonies in a vault beneath the chapel, the ceremonies having been in charge of Father Nouvel, then superior, assisted by Father Pierson. This chapel was destroyed by fire in 1700, and the site seems to have been lost track of for nearly two hundred years, until, in 1877, Father Jacker identified the spot and there was erected thereon a marble monument. The mortal remains were reverently borne to Marquette college, Milwaukee, in whose keeping they remain.
DEATH AND BURIAL OF MARQUETTE
It seems to be the fate of some of the princely characters of his- tory that either the places of their birth, or the exact scenes of their exit from the earth, should be matters of doubt. This is particularly the case regarding the passing, away of Father Marquette, although beyond a doubt his soul took its flight from his disease-racked body somewhere near the mouth of the river which bears his name, in the vicinity of the present city of Ludington.
The following from the pen of a local writer brings the life and lonely death of Father Marquette into the bustling activities of the present :
"Because it was at Ludington that death's imperative summons called him who well may be termed the patron saint of all Michigan, the river that here finds its way into the big lake, the beautiful body of water that forms Ludington's splendid harbor and many of the commercial and industrial enterprises of the community, bear the re- vered name of Pere Marquette.
"The great railway that stretches its myriad of steel arms over the length and breadth of the Lower Peninsula honors this loved and historic name because when it first reached out toward the northwest, the line from Flint found its terminal at the spot where the sainted
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Jesuit missionary bowed to the final will of His Master. Ludington it- self once was called Pere Marquette, yet today there is not even the rough, wooden cross put there and maintained by the Indians more than two centuries ago to mark the approximate spot where Pere Mar- quette breathed his last after blessing the devoted voyageurs who vainly tried to bring him alive to his beloved Michilimackinac.
"There have been some doubts raised by other east shore cities as to the authenticity of the claim that Pere Marquette died at the mouth of the river which now bears his name, but it seems to be the opinion of the majority of the historians who have gone into the matter that here is the spot where his death occurred, and within the memory of white settlers still alive there has been told by Indians here the legend of the burial place of the 'great white saint' in whose honor the red- men always maintained a great rough cross.
"The story of Pere Marquette's life in its relation to early Mich- igan history is familiar to every one who has attended school in the Wolverine state or made even a casual study of Michigan history. How he came to this wilderness and by sheer force of his faith and the in- fluence of his kindly ministrations prepared the way for an almost peaceful conquest by the vanguard of civilization, need not be elab- orated upon. It almost is as familiar throughout the state as is the name itself.
"Pere Marquette was one of the earliest among those who gave up their lives to the peculiarly exacting and hazardous missionary work of the Jesuits. He joined the order in 1654. It had been organized only a little more than one hundred years prior to that date and, as among the Catholic orders of that day, was little more than an infant organization.
"The order was made possible, according to able historians, through the effect of Rudolph of Saxony's 'Life of Christ' upon one of the old world warriors who occupied his time during an enforced idleness by reading this exceptional story. He refused at first to read, but when all other literature failed at last turned to it and soon became engrossed.
"The book marked the turning point in his life. He devoted him- self to the church and indirectly was responsible for the organization of the Company of Jesus, which Calvin subsequently called the Jesuits. It represented the beginning of strenuous life in the Catholic church along the line of a worldwide missionary movement.
"As stated, Jacques Marquette joined the order in 1654, and after serving his novitiate asked permission to go among the first Jesuit fathers who came to the then new America. He it was who lifted up the Christian cross in the wilderness of the lake region and paved the way among the Indians with an example of Christly life and forbear- ance that gave the redmen of this district a different idea of the whites than was the case in most sections where the Indian was forced to give way before the onward march of civilization.
"Everywhere throughout the lake region the Indians knew and loved the 'little white father.' His name was as magic among them. Small wonder indeed that after his example few among the aborigines of Michigan hesitated to extend a welcome to other whites. He spread
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FATHER MARQUETTE AMONG THE INDIANS
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the gospel of his God through countless miles of wilderness and laid the foundation for the church of Michigan today.
"Then came that historic trip down the Mississippi. It was there, in 1675, the good Pere Marquette became a prey to that great scourge of the present-tuberculosis. At first it seemed but a passing illness and he continued. When he realized the disease was to terminate his earthly work for the church Pere Marquette left the little party and in a stanch canoe paddled by two sturdy and loyal French-Canadian voyageurs started upon a race with death.
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