History
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See also: Northern Michigan § History of Northern Michigan; and Mackinac Island, Michigan § History
Prehistoric[edit]
Archaeologists have excavated prehistoric fishing camps on Mackinac Island and in the surrounding areas. Fishhooks, pottery, and other artifacts establish a Native American presence at least 700 years before European exploration, around AD 900. The island is a sacred place in the tradition of some of its earliest known inhabitants, the Anishinaabe peoples. They consider it to be home of the Gitche Manitou, or the "Great Spirit." According to legend, Mackinac Island was created by the Great Hare, Michabou, and was the first land to appear after the Great Flood receded.[better source needed] The island was a gathering place for the local tribes, who made offerings to Gitche Manitou. It became the burial place of tribal chiefs.[better source needed]
The first European likely to have seen Mackinac Island is Jean Nicolet, a French-Canadian coureur des bois, during his 1634 explorations. The Jesuit priest Claude Dablon founded a mission for the Native Americans on Mackinac Island in 1670, and stayed over the winter of 1670–71. The missionary and explorer Jacques Marquette succeeded him, moving the mission to St. Ignace soon after his arrival in the region in the fall of 1671. With the mission as a focus, the Straits of Mackinac quickly became an important French fur trading location. The British took control of the Straits after the French and Indian War and Major Patrick Sinclair chose the bluffs of the island for Fort Mackinac in 1780.
The Jesuit Relations (1671) contains a long description of Mackinac Island:
its fisheries, its phenomena of wind and tide, and the tribes who, now and in the past, have made it their abode. A favorite resort for all the Algonkin tribes, many are returning to it since the peace with the Iroquois. On this account, the Jesuits have begun a new mission, opposite Mackinac, called St. Ignace. Thither have fled the Hurons, driven from Chequamegon Bay by fear of the Sioux, "the Iroquois of the West."
Dwightwood Spring, on Mackinac Island's eastern shore
The Relations also indicate the tremendous strategic importance of Michilimackinac/Mackinac Island as
"the central point for all travel on the upper Great Lakes, and for a vast extent of wilderness and half-settled country beyond" to First Nations and Europeans (prior to the arrival of railroads). The tribes which had inhabited Mackinac Island had been driven away by the Iroquois, leaving the island practically deserted until 1670. The Huron people from Lake Superior, in fear of the Sioux, retreated to the shore north of Mackinac Island. Here Marquette continued his missionary labors with them at the site of the present St. Ignace. The 1688 memoir of Jacques-René de Brisay de Denonville, Marquis de Denonville, claimed that the French had inhabited the area since 1648. A small French garrison was sent there some time between 1679 and 1683.
The name of Michilimackinac (later abbreviated to Mackinac) was applied generally to the entire vicinity, as well as specifically to the post at St. Ignace. Later still it was applied to the fort and mission established on the south side of the Straits of Mackinac.
Although the British built Fort Mackinac to protect their settlement from attack by French-Canadians and native tribes, the fort was never attacked during the American Revolutionary War. The entire Straits area was officially acquired by the United States through the Treaty of Paris (1783). However, Britain kept forces in the Great Lakes area until after 1794, when the Jay Treaty between the nations established U.S. sovereignty over the Northwest Territory.
Nineteenth century to present[edit]
The statue of Jacques Marquette, Jesuit priest and Great Lakes explorer, in front of Fort Mackinac
During the War of 1812, the British captured the fort in the siege of Fort Mackinac, the first battle of the conflict. The Americans were caught by surprise, not knowing that war had been declared. The victorious British attempted to protect their prize by building Fort George on the high ground behind Fort Mackinac. In 1814, the Americans and British fought a second battle on the north side of the island. The American second-in-command, Major Andrew Holmes, was killed and the Americans failed to recapture the island. The federal fur trade station at Mackinac, which had been established by the United States government in 1808, was then taken over by the British.
By the Treaty of Ghent of 1815, the British returned the island and surrounding mainland to the U.S. The United States reoccupied Fort Mackinac, and renamed Fort George as Fort Holmes after Major Holmes. The fort remained under control of the United States government until 1895. It provided volunteers to defend the Union during the American Civil War, and was used as a prison for three Confederate States of America sympathizers.
John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company was centered on Mackinac Island after the War of 1812 and exported beaver pelts for 30 years. By the middle of the nineteenth century, commercial fishing for common whitefish and lake trout began to replace the fur trade as the island's primary industry. As sport fishing became more popular in the 1880s, hotels and restaurants accommodated tourists coming by train or lake boat from Detroit.
Between 1795 and 1815, a network of Métis settlements and trading posts was established throughout what is now the U.S. states of Michigan and Wisconsin and to a lesser extent in Illinois and Indiana. As late as 1829, the Métis were dominant in the economy of present-day Wisconsin and Northern Michigan. Many Métis families are recorded in the U.S. Census for the historic Métis settlement areas along the Detroit and St. Clair rivers, Mackinac Island and Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, as well as Green Bay in Wisconsin. Many prominent mixed-race families, such as the Mitchell family of Mackinac, were formed in the late 18th- and early 19th-century fur trading era. The Métis have generally not organized as an ethnic or political group in the United States as they have in Canada, where they had armed confrontations in an effort to secure a homeland. The Village of Mackinac was incorporated in 1847.
Following the Civil War, the island became a popular tourist destination for residents of major cities on the Great Lakes. Much of the federal land on Mackinac Island was designated as the second national park, spearheaded by the efforts of Dr. John R. Bailey, Mackinac National Park, in 1875, three years after Yellowstone National Park was named as the first national park. This was thanks to U.S. Senator Thomas W. Ferry, who was born on the Island and lobbied for the park. To accommodate an influx of tourists in the 1880s, the boat and railroad companies built hotels, including the Grand Hotel. Island residents established souvenir shops to profit from the tourist trade. Many wealthy business magnates built summer "cottages" along the island's bluffs for extended stays.
When the federal government left the island in 1895, it transferred all of the federal land, including Fort Mackinac, to the state of Michigan and this area was designated as Michigan's first state park. The Mackinac Island State Park Commission, appointed to oversee the island, has restricted private development in the park. Leaseholders are required to maintain the island's distinctive Victorian architecture.
Motor vehicles were restricted at the end of the nineteenth century because of concerns for the health and safety of the island's residents and horses after local carriage drivers complained that automobiles startled their horses. This ban continues to the present, with exceptions only for city emergency vehicles (ambulance, police cars and fire trucks), city service vehicles, state park vehicles, and snowmobiles in winter. Thus, some controversy ensued in 2019 when Vice President Mike Pence was permitted to bring a motorcade to the island.
