United states/canadian border
While Mackinac Island was inhabited by Native Americans for many years before the Europeans arrived, it was not until the French "discovered" the island that Mackinac Island became a famous piece of land. The first Frenchman to arrive on Mackinac Island was John Nicolet, a French "explorer," "interpreter, trader, and clerk in New France" (Wien). In 1634 on an exploratory mission of the upper Great Lakes, Nicolet introduced the French settlers to Mackinac Island, forever changing the history of the island and its people (Wien).
Soon after Nicolet made Mackinac Island and its surrounding areas known to other Frenchmen and settlers in New France, there was an influx of French people, especially missionaries and fur traders, across the Straits of Mackinac and into what is today Mackinac Island, St. Ignatius, and Mackinac City. In 1687, there was a massacre at Michilimackinac (a vast territory covering land within Canada and Michigan) by the French, joined by native Huron and Ottowa tribes, attacking British traders and 800 Iroquois, due to tensions between fur traders and Indians (New York Times). This halted the fur trade for quite some time, until 1712 when Michilimackinac was re-established...then was given to the British two years later with the cession of Canada (New York Times). After the British conquest of Canada, the French, British, and Indians has a hard time distinguishing the economic and diplomatic borderlines around Michilimackinac, because frontier lands are "incubators for friction," and the British and French people of Michilimackinac did not feel that their tensions were finished (Widder). These struggles for power over others and over the land are due to the David Christian's assertion that "cities and states were sculpted from scattered communities" (Christian). The French, British, and Indians were all attempting to co-habituate in a small space, leading to the heated tensions and bloody battles that characterized Mackinac Island and its surrounding areas for many years. All three of the nations that were fighting for control of the territory during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries were groups of people "that imagine[d themselves] to be a political community that [was] distinct from the rest of humankind," sharing a culture and a belief that they had "political rights of [the] territory" (Suny). Though these nations of people represented states in the cases of Britain and France, the peoples in the territory felt strongly that they deserved to control the land, the fur trade, and the Great Lakes for economic and political purposes. Lake Huron and the land surrounding it has been a hub of trade and international tensions for centuries. This passage of water, carved out by glaciers in about 13, 000 B.C.E (New World Encyclopedia 2014). As seen in the sketch located at the top of this webpage, people have used many modes of transportation to traverse this great water, beginning with canoes, then moving to steam boats and now recreational water vehicles for pleasure. The border between the United States and Canada has served as a space to hash out political tensions for centuries, switching hands between the Native American tribes, the French, the British, and the United Staes (New York Times). |
The beavers of this region of North America served as a tool of trade and intercultural formation between the Native American tribes and the French fur traders. For a century (roughly 17th-18th centuries), the French and the Natives created a culture of fur trade, language, understanding, intermarriage, and respect (Widder). When the British came, however, there arose great tensions among the Indians, who had to choose sides, and between the French and the British. And so arose the French and Indian War in the 1740s and 1750s, which the British won in 1754 (Widder). However, it was not until the United States officially gained control of the land after the War of 1812 that there was an enforceable boundary between the United States and Canada, separated by Lake Huron, placing Mackinac Island in the middle of two countries, and creating for it a war history that today is celebrated in the island's tourist culture and economy.
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