The trader
enters the gate and sees before him an extensive square area,
surrounded by high palisades. Numerous houses, barracks, and other
buildings form a smaller square within, and in the vacant place which
they enclose appear the red uniforms of British soldiers, the grey
coats of the Canadians, and the gaudy Indian blankets mingled in
picturesque confusion, while a multitude of squaws with children of
every hue stroll restlessly about the place. Such was old fort
Mackinaw in 1763."

La Hontan, who visited Mackinaw in 1688, says: "It is a place of great
importance. It is not above half a league distant from the Illinese
(Michigan) Lake. Here the Hurons and Ottawas have each of them a
village, the one being severed from the other by a single palisade,
but the Ottawas are beginning to build a fort upon a hill that stands
but one thousand or twelve hundred paces off. In this place the
Jesuits have a little house or college adjoining to a church, and
inclosed with pales that separate it from the village of the Hurons.
The Courriers de Bois have but a very small settlement here, at the
same time it is not inconsiderable, as being the staple of all the
goods that they truck with the south and west savages; for they cannot
avoid passing this way when they go to the seats of the Illinese and
the Oumamis on to the Bay des Puanto, and to the River Mississippi.
Missilimackinac is situated very advantageously, for the Iroquese dare
not venture with their sorry canoes to cross the stright of the
Illinese Lake, which is two leagues over; besides that the Lake of the
Hurons is too rough for such slender boats, and as they cannot come to
it by water, so they cannot approach it by land by reason of the
marshes, fens, and little rivers which it would be very difficult to
cross, not to mention that the stright of the Illinese Lake lies still
in their way."

As rivals of the French, the English were never regarded with favor by
the various Indian tribes. Constant encroachments by the English from
year to year, though they were lavish of their gifts did not tend to
soften the hostility of the tribes. Thus matters continued until
Mackinaw passed into the hands of the English, which event took place
after the fall of Quebec in the year 1759. This transfer of
jurisdiction from a people that the Indians loved to one that they
experienced a growing hate for during three-quarters of a century,
filled them with a spirit of revenge. Such wa