Native American and French Settlement Patterns - Northern ...

Michilimackinac, the place I am now
in is certainly a place of great
importance. It lies in the latitude
of 45° 30', but I do not know its
longitude for reasons mentioned in
my second letter. It is less than
half a league from Lake Michigan,
. . . . Here the Hurons and Odawas
each have a village; the one being
separated from the other by a
single palisade. But the Odawas are
beginning to build a Fort upon a
hill that stands 1000 to 1200 paces
off. They have taken this
precaution because of the murder of
a certain Huron, called
Sandaouires, who was assassinated
by four young Odawas in the Saginaw
Valley. In this place the Jesuits
have a little house, or college
adjoining to a sort of a Church and
enclosed with poles that separate
it from the village of the Hurons.
The Coureurs de Bois have a very
small settlement there; though at
the same time it is not
inconsiderable, as being the stable
of all the goods that they truck
with the southern and western
savages; or they cannot avoid
passing this way when they go to
the seats of the Illinois and
Miamis, or to Green Bay and the
Mississippi River. The skins which