MICHILIMACKINAC.
Michilimackinac! that gem of the Lakes! How bright and beautiful it
looked as we walked abroad on the following morning! The rain had passed
away, but had left all things glittering in the light of the sun as it
rose up over the waters of Lake Huron, far away to the east. Before us
was the lovely bay, scarcely yet tranquil after the storm, but dotted
with canoes and the boats of the fishermen already getting out their
nets for the trout and whitefish, those treasures of the deep. Along the
beach were scattered the wigwams or lodges of the Ottawas who had come
to the island to trade. The inmates came forth to gaze upon us. A shout
of welcome was sent forth, as they recognized _Shaw-nee-aw-kee,_ who,
from a seven years' residence among them, was well known to each
individual.
A shake of the hand, and an emphatic "_Bon-jour_--_bon-jour_," is the
customary salutation between the Indian and the white man.
"Do the Indians speak French?" I inquired of my husband.
"No; this is a fashion they have learned of the French traders during
many years of intercourse."
Not less hearty was the greeting of each Canadian _engagé_, as he
trotted forward to pay his respects to "Monsieur John," and to utter a
long string of felicitations, in a most incomprehensible _patois_. I was
forced to take for granted all the good wishes showered upon "Madame
John," of which I could comprehend nothing but the hope that I should
be happy and contented in my "_vie sauvage_."
The object of our early walk was to visit the Mission-house and school
which had been some few years previously established at this place by
the Presbyterian Board of Missions. It was an object of especial
interest to Mr. and Mrs. Stuart, and its flourishing condition at this
period, and the prospects of extensive future usefulness it held out,
might well gladden their philanthropic hearts. They had lived many years
on the island, and had witnessed its transformation, through God's
blessing on Christian efforts, from a worldly, dissipated community to
one of which it might almost be said, "Religion was every man's
business." This mission establishment was the beloved child and the
common centre of interest of the few Protestant families clustered
around it. Through the zeal and good management of Mr. and Mrs. Ferry,
and the fostering encouragement of the congregation, the school was in
great repute, and it was pleasant to observe the effect of mental and
religious culture in subduing the mischievous, tricky propensities of
the half-breed, and rousing the stolid apathy of the genuine Indian.
These were the palmy days of Mackinac. As the head-quarters of the
American Fur Company, and the entrepôt of the whole Northwest, all the
trade in supplies and goods on the one hand, and in furs and products of
the Indian country on the other, was in the hands of the parent
establishment or its numerous outposts scattered along Lakes Superior
and Michigan, the Mississippi, or through still more distant regions.
Probably few are ignorant of the fact, that all the Indian tribes, with
the exception of the Miamis and the Wyandots, had, since the transfer of
the old French possessions to the British Crown, maintained a firm
alliance with the latter. The independence achieved by the United
States did not alter the policy of the natives, nor did our Government
succeed in winning or purchasing their friendship. Great Britain, it is
true, bid high to retain them. Every year the leading men of the
Chippewas, Ottawas, Pottowattamies, Menomonees, Winnebagoes, Sauks, and
Foxes, and even still more remote tribes, journeyed from their distant
homes to Fort Malden in Upper Canada, to receive their annual amount of
presents from their Great Father across the water. It was a
master-policy thus to keep them in pay, and had enabled those who
practised it to do fearful execution through the aid of such allies in
the last war between the two countries.
The presents they thus received were of considerable value, consisting
of blankets, broadcloths or _strouding_, calicoes, guns, kettles, traps,
silver-works (comprising arm-bands, bracelets, brooches; and ear-bobs),
looking-glasses, combs, and various other trinkets distributed with no
niggardly hand.
The magazines and store-houses of the Fur Company at Mackinac were the
resort of all the upper tribes for the sale of their commodities, and
the purchase of all such articles as they had need of, including those
above enumerated, and also ammunition, which, as well as money and
liquor, their British friends very commendably omitted to furnish them.
Besides their furs, various in kind and often of great value--beaver,
otter, marten, mink, silver-gray and red fox, wolf, bear, and wild-cat,
musk-rat, and smoked deer-skins--the Indians brought for trade
maple-sugar in abundance, considerable quantities of both Indian corn
and _petit-blé_,[1] beans and the _folles avoines_,[2] or wild rice;
while the squaws added to their quota of merchandise a contribution in
the form of moccasins, hunting-pouches, mococks, or little boxes of
birch-bark embroidered with porcupine-quills and filled with
maple-sugar, mats of a neat and durable fabric, and toy-models of Indian
cradles, snow-shoes, canoes, etc., etc.
It was no unusual thing, at this period, to see a hundred or more canoes
of Indians at once approaching the island, laden with their articles of
traffic; and if to these we add the squadrons of large Mackinac boats
constantly arriving from the outposts, with the furs, peltries, and
buffalo-robes collected by the distant traders, some idea may be formed
of the extensive operations and important position of the American Fur
Company, as well as of the vast circle of human beings either
immediately or remotely connected with it.
It is no wonder that the philanthropic mind, surveying these, races of
uncultivated heathen, should stretch forward to the time when, through
an unwearied devotion of the white man's energies, and an untiring
sacrifice of self and fortune, his red brethren might rise in the scale
of social civilization--when Education and Christianity should go hand
in hand, to make "the wilderness blossom as the rose."
Little did the noble souls at that day rejoicing in the success of their
labors at Mackinac, anticipate that in less than a quarter of a century
there would remain of all these numerous tribes but a few scattered
bands, squalid, degraded, with scarce a vestige remaining of their
former lofty character--their lands cajoled or wrested from them, the
graves of their fathers turned up by the ploughshare--themselves chased
farther and farther towards the setting sun, until they were literally
grudged a resting-place on the face of the earth!
Our visit to the Mission-school was of short duration, for the Henry
Clay was to leave at two o'clock, and in the mean time we were to see
what we could of the village and its environs, and after that dine with
Mr. Mitchell, an old friend of my husband. As we walked leisurely along
over the white, gravelly road, many of the residences of the old
inhabitants were pointed out to me. There was the dwelling of Madame
Laframboise, an Ottawa woman, whose husband had taught her to read and
write, and who had ever after continued to use the knowledge she had
acquired for the instruction and improvement of the youth among her own
people. It was her custom to receive a class of young pupils daily at
her house, that she might give them lessons in the branches mentioned,
and also in the principles of the Roman Catholic religion, to which she
was deeply devoted. She was a woman of a vast deal of energy and
enterprise--of a tall and commanding figure, and most dignified
deportment. After the death of her husband, who was killed while away at
his trading-post by a Winnebago named _White Ox_, she was accustomed to
visit herself the trading-posts, superintend the clerks and engagés, and
satisfy herself that the business was carried on in a regular and
profitable manner.
The Agency-house, with its unusual luxuries of piazza and gardens, was
situated at the foot of the hill on which the fort was built. It was a
lovely spot, notwithstanding the stunted and dwarfish appearance of all
cultivated vegetation in this cold northern latitude.
The collection of rickety, primitive-looking buildings, occupied by the
officials of the Fur Company, reflected no great credit on the
architectural skill of my husband, who had superintended their
construction, he told me, when little more than a boy.
There were, besides these, the residences of the Dousmans, the Abbotts,
the Biddles, the Drews, and the Lashleys, stretching away along the
base of the beautiful hill, crowned with the white walls and buildings
of the fort, the ascent to which was so steep that on the precipitous
face nearest the beach staircases were built by which to mount from
below.
My head ached intensely, the effect of the motion of the boat on the
previous day, but I did not like to give up to it; so, after I had been
shown all that could be seen of the little settlement in the short time
allowed us, we repaired to Mr. Mitchell's.
We were received by Mrs. M., an extremely pretty, delicate woman, part
French and part Sioux, whose early life had been passed at Prairie du
Chien, on the Mississippi. She had been a great belle among the young
officers at Fort Crawford; so much so, indeed, that the suicide of the
post-surgeon was attributed to an unsuccessful attachment he had
conceived for her. I was greatly struck with her soft and gentle
manners, and the musical intonation of her voice, which I soon learned
was a distinguishing peculiarity of those women in whom are united the
French and native blood.
A lady, then upon a visit to the Mission, was of the company. She
insisted on my lying down upon the sofa, and ministered most kindly to
my suffering head. As she sat by my side, and expatiated upon the new
sphere opening before me, she inquired:
"Do you not realize very strongly the entire deprivation of religious
privileges you will be obliged to suffer in your distant home?"
"The deprivation," said I, "will doubtless be great, but not _entire_;
for I shall have my Prayer-Book, and, though destitute of a church, we
need not be without a _mode_ of worship."
How often afterwards, when cheered by the consolations of that precious
book in the midst of the lonely wilderness, did I remember this
conversation, and bless God that I could never, while retaining it, be
without "religious privileges."
We had not yet left the dinner-table, when the bell of the little
steamer sounded to summon us on board, and we bade a hurried farewell to
all our kind friends, bearing with us their hearty wishes for a safe and
prosperous voyage.
A finer sight can scarcely be imagined than Mackinac, from the water. As
we steamed away from the shore, the view came full upon us--the sloping
beach with the scattered wigwams, and canoes drawn up here and
there--the irregular, quaint-looking houses--the white walls of the
fort, and, beyond, one eminence still more lofty crowned with the
remains of old Fort Holmes. The whole picture completed, showed the
perfect outline that had given the island its original Indian name,
_Mich-i-li-mack-i-nac_, the Big Turtle.
Then those pure, living waters, in whose depths the fish might be seen
gliding and darting to and fro; whose clearness is such that an object
dropped to the bottom may be discerned at the depth of fifty or sixty
feet, a dollar lying far down on its green bed, looking no larger than a
half dime! I could hardly wonder at the enthusiastic lady who exclaimed:
"Oh! I could wish to be drowned in these pure, beautiful waters!"
As we passed the extreme western point of the island, my husband pointed
out to me, far away to the northwest, a promontory which he told me was
Point St. Ignace. It possessed great historic interest, as one of the
earliest white settlements on this continent. The Jesuit missionaries
had established here a church and school as early as 1607, the same year
in which a white settlement was made at St. Augustine, in Florida, and
one year before the founding of Jamestown, Virginia.
All that remains of the enterprises of these devoted men, is the
remembrance of their labors, perpetuated, in most instances, only by the
names of the spots which witnessed their efforts of love in behalf of
their savage brethren. The little French church at Sandwich, opposite
Detroit, alone is left, a witness of the zeal and self-sacrifice of
these pioneers of Christianity.
Passing "Old Mackinac," on the main land, which forms the southern
border of the straits, we soon came out into the broad waters of Lake
Michigan. Every traveller, and every reader of our history, is familiar
with the incidents connected with the taking of the old fort by the
Indians, in the days of Pontiac. How, by means of a game of ball, played
in an apparently friendly spirit outside the walls, and of which the
officers and soldiers had come forth to be spectators, the ball was
dexterously tossed over the wall, and the savages rushing in, under
pretext of finding it, soon got possession and massacred the garrison.
The little Indian village of L'Arbre Croche gleamed far away south, in
the light of the setting sun. With that exception, there was no sign of
living habitation along that vast and wooded shore. The gigantic
forest-trees, and here and there the little glades of prairie opening to
the water, showed a landscape that would have gladdened the eye of the
agriculturist, with its promise of fertility; but it was evidently
untrodden by the foot of man, and we left it, in its solitude, as we
took our course westward across the waters.
The rainy and gusty weather, so incident to the equinoctial season,
overtook us again before we reached the mouth of Green Bay, and kept us
company until the night of our arrival upon the flats, about three miles
below the settlement. Here the little steamer grounded "fast and hard."
As almost every one preferred braving the elements to remaining cooped
up in the quarters we had occupied for the past week, we decided to
trust ourselves to the little boat, spite of wind, and rain, and
darkness, and in due time we reached the shore.