Northern Michigan
Northern Michigan is a region of the U.S. state of Michigan. The region, which is distinct from the more northerly Upper Peninsula and Isle Royale, which are also located in the north of the state, is bounded to the west by Lake Michigan, and to the east by Lake Huron. The Upper Peninsula is accessible from the region via the Mackinac Bridge. While the region's southern boundary is not precisely defined, most definitions include the northernmost 21 counties of the Lower Peninsula, which had a population of 506,658 people at the 2020 census. Its largest cities are Traverse City, Cadillac, Alpena, Ludington, Manistee, and Petoskey.
Like the Upper Peninsula, Northern Michigan is a popular tourist destination, and is more rural than the rest of the state. The region is home to several small- to medium-sized cities, extensive state and national forests, lakes and rivers, and a large portion of Great Lakes shoreline. The region has a significant seasonal population much like other regions that depend on tourism as a primary industry.
History
Pre-colonial era: itinerant Native American tribes
For thousands of years before the French and English set up colonies in the region, Northern Michigan was inhabited by Native American cultures and succeeding tribes. Northern Michigan was the southern extent of the area scholars believed occupied by prehistoric inhabitants known as the Laurel complex. They were part of the Hopewell Indian exchange system, which is named after a prehistoric tribe that existed in the Great Lakes region.According to Menominee tradition, this tribe's original homeland was farther north, near present-day Sault Ste. Marie and Michilimackinac. At some period before European contact, they were forced southwest to the Menominee River by arrival of the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi from the east. Odawa history written by Andrew Blackbird records that Emmet County was thickly populated by a race of Indians that they called the Mush-co-desh, which means "the prairie tribe". The Mush-co-desh had an agrarian society and were said to have "shaped the land by making the woodland into prairie as they abandoned their old worn out gardens which formed grassy plains". Ottawa tradition claims that they slaughtered from forty to fifty thousand Mush-co-desh and drove the rest from the land after the Mush-co-desh insulted an Ottawa war party. Previous to the Mush-co-desh, the areas surrounding the Straits of Mackinac, was home to the Michinemackinawgo. Originally known as the Mishiiken Tribe, their summer land was Mackinac Island and their surrounding lands were referred to as Mishiiken-imakinakom. These lands included wintering grounds in the hills on the south side of Little Traverse Bay. The Mishiiken were a race of natives of small stature that were nearly wiped out by the Iroquois in the 1640s during the Beaver Wars. The remnants of this race were taken in by the Ojibwe and still exist today amongst the Mackinac Bands of Chippewa and Ottawa Indians.
In the historic period, the Anishinaabe/Algonquian-speaking peoples known as the Ojibwe, Odawa and Potawatomi, formed a loose confederation which they called the Council of Three Fires. They inhabited areas surrounding the Straits of Mackinac, the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan, and the northern islands and shoreline of Canada along Lake Huron.
French and English colonial eras: fur trade and exploration based at the Straits
Initial colonial influence on Natives: French exploration and Beaver Wars
In 1608, Samuel de Champlain established Quebec as part of New France. He sent coureur des bois such as Étienne Brûlé into the woods to establish relations with the Indians. Around 1615 or 1616, Champlain traveled to Georgian Bay via the French River and met Ottawa and Huron Indians on the south end near Penetanguishene. The French established the North American fur trade with Indian tribes. In the decades that followed, French explorers and missionaries continued to explore the "Upper Country" of New France that included the Upper Great Lakes. In 1634, Jean Nicolet passed through the straits of Mackinac on the way to Wisconsin. While France colonized the interior lands along the St. Lawrence River, the Dutch and English began colonizing the East Coast of North America, setting up fur trade and arming the Iroquois along the east and southeast of the Great Lakes. Competition for trade and pelts resulted in the brutal Beaver Wars. The Iroquois pushed west into the Great Lakes territory, displacing the tribes who had settled there before. As a result of an Iroquois attack and dispersal of the Huron from Southern Ontario in 1649, the Huron sought refuge with the Ojibwe at Michilimackinac where eventually a Jesuit mission was established for their care.Jesuit Mission at St. Ignace (1671–1696)
Jesuit Father Marquette set up a mission in St. Ignace in 1671. While the Beaver Wars raged on, Marquette evangelized the Indians. From May 17, 1673, until Marquette's death near Ludington on May 18, 1675, Father Marquette and Louis Jolliet explored and mapped Lake Michigan and the northern portion of the Mississippi River. In 1679, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle and Father Louis Hennepin set out on Le Griffon to find the Northwest Passage; it was the first known sailing ship to sail in Northern Michigan. They sailed across Lake Erie, Lake Huron, and Lake Michigan through uncharted waters, which previously only men in canoes had explored. After Marquette's death, the mission was taken over by Father Phillip Pierson, and then Father Nouvel.Father Henri Nouvel was "Superior of the Otawa missions", Nouvel served in this position from 1672 to 1680, and again from 1688 to 1695. Under Nouvel, a new chapel was built in approximately 1674. By 1683 the mission was so successful and prosperous that three priests, Fathers Nicholas Potier, Enjalran, and Pierre Bailloquet, were assigned there. The establishment of a French garrison at St. Ignace in 1679 disrupted relations between the French and the local population, as the soldiers were less educated and amiable than the missionaries.
1680s: Fortification (Fort de Buade) at St. Ignace
In 1683, Governor Joseph-Antoine de La Barre ordered Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut and Olivier Morel de La Durantaye to establish a strategic presence on the north shore of the Straits of Mackinac, which connected Lake Michigan and Lake Huron of the Great Lakes. They fortified the Jesuit mission at St. Ignace and La Durantaye settled in as overall commander of the French forts in the northwest: Fort Saint Louis des Illinois ; Fort Kaministigoya ; and Fort la Tourette. He was also responsible for the region around Green Bay in present-day Wisconsin. In the spring of 1684, La Durantaye led a relief expedition from Saint Ignace to Fort Saint Louis des Illinois, which had been besieged by the Seneca as part of the Beaver Wars; they sought to gain more hunting grounds in order to control the lucrative fur trade. That summer and again in 1687, La Durantaye led coureurs de bois and Indians from the Straits against the Seneca homeland in the territory of western upper New York state. During these years, English traders from New York penetrated the Great Lakes and also traded at Michilimackinac. This, and the outbreak of war between England and France in 1689, led to the new commandant Louis de La Porte de Louvigny directing construction of Fort de Buade in 1690.1690s: Cadillac at Fort de Buade; St. Ignace Fort and Mission later abandoned
In the 1690s, commander Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac used Fort de Buade as a base of operations to explore and map the Great Lakes. Cadillac left St. Ignace in 1697 and the Jesuits vacated their residence and church by 1705.The Beaver Wars ended when the Great Peace of Montreal was signed in 1701 in Montreal by the French and 39 Indian chiefs including Kondiaronk. When Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac left the area in 1701 to found Detroit, taking many of the St. Ignace residents with him, the importance of the mission declined dramatically.
Early 1700s: Fort Michilimackinac established as a New France outpost
The St. Ignace Mission remained open until 1705, when it was abandoned and burned by Father Étienne de Carheil. It was reopened in 1712, and operated on the north shore of the Straits until 1741, when it was relocated to the south shore. With the relocation of the mission, the exact location of Marquette's chapel was lost.In 1712, at the beginning of the Fox Wars between the French and the Meskwaki, Canadian Governor Philippe de Rigaud de Vaudreuil sent Constant le Marchand de Lignery to reoccupy the former post of Michilimackinac, which had been abandoned in 1696 by royal orders.
Around 1715, the French re-established a Northern Michigan military outpost at a new site on the northern tip of the lower peninsula and called it Fort Michilimackinac. This location became the new locus for fur and other trade, and mission work with the natives.
Lignery returned to the command of Michilimackinac in 1722 after an absence of about three years fighting the Meskwaki in Illinois. He carried out the orders of acting Governor Charles Le Moyne de Longueuil and New France governor Charles de la Boische, Marquis de Beauharnois.
From 1720 to 1722, Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix stopped at Michilimackinac and other points in Northern Michigan while seeking a Pacific Ocean passage. In 1728, fur trader Augustin Langlade obtained a fur trading license at Michilimackinac. He and his half-Ottawa son Charles Michel de Langlade would later strongly influence the Northern Michigan fur trade as well as French relations with Great Lakes tribes during the 1712 to 1733 Fox Wars and the 1754–1763 French and Indian War.
By 1745, the Odawa had created settlements down the coast of Lake Michigan into the Grand Traverse Bay area, with an approximate population between 1,550 and 3,000. This population varied with the seasons, as the tradition was to migrate inland to different camps depending upon the season. Some Ojibwe bands also shared the Grand Traverse Bay region with the Odawa.
In 1751, a Jesuit Mission to the Odawa was established in Manistee.