United States or Sierra Leone ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Taking the part of the English in the wars against the French, they shook all Canada with the fear of their arms, while to the west they extended their sway to the Straits of Michilimackinac and the entrance to Lake Superior. The height of their fame was at the close of the Old French War in 1763. Their decline and downfall, as a power upon the continent, followed with the briefest interval.
The treaty in question provided, likewise, that the military posts occupied by the British within the territorial limits of the United States, should be surrendered. Accordingly, Oswego, Niagara, Detroit, Michilimackinac, and other posts on the American side of the lakes, were given up.
In following the links of this extensive chain of lakes and rivers, it must be borne in recollection, that, proceeding seaward from Michilimackinac and its contiguous district, all that tract of country which lies to the right constitutes what is now known as the United States of America, and all on the left the two provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, tributary to the English government, subject to the English laws, and garrisoned by English troops.
During the winter of 1689-90 the French and the Iroquois had about an even chance of winning the Indians who centred at Michilimackinac. But the odds were against the French to this extent they were working against a time limit. Unless Frontenac could quickly show evidence of strength, the tribes of the West would range with the Iroquois.
From the small oven-shaped hut on Isle Cochon, where he lived with his squaws and children, to Michilimackinac, from Michilimackinac to the lower Mississippi, and from the eastern end of Lake Erie down to the Ohio, the messengers of this self-made emperor had secretly carried and unfolded his plan, which was to rise and attack all the English forts on the same day, and then to destroy all the English settlers, sparing no white people but the French.
A new association of British merchants was therefore formed, to prosecute the trade in this direction. The chief factory was established at the old emporium of Michilimackinac, from which place the association took its name, and was commonly called the Mackinaw Company.
From the remote forests of the north they had come, where the cold winds blow off the blue lakes; from the prairies to the east; from the upper running waters, where the Mississippi flows clear and undefiled by the muddy flood; from the villages and wigwams of the sluggish Wabash; and from the sandy, piny country between the great northern seas where Michilimackinac stands guard alone, Sacs and Foxes, Chippeways and Maumies and Missesogies, Puans and Pottawattomies, chiefs and medicine men.
The very next day was appointed for carrying into effect the first part of the Indian plan: and how was it possible that a messenger, even admitting he should elude the vigilance of the enemy, could reach the distant post of Michilimackinac within the short period on which hung the destiny of that devoted fortress.
Several inferior forts situated on the Ohio had already fallen into their hands, when they summoned all their address and cunning to accomplish the fall of the two important though remote posts of Detroit and Michilimackinac.
To his infinite surprise, nay, almost terror, he discovered it was that of his mother the identical portrait which his sister Clara had worn in her bosom from infancy, and which he had seen clasped round her neck on the very deck of the schooner in which she sailed for Michilimackinac.
Word Of The Day